#36 America's 9/11 Ride

America's 9/11 Ride 

"Ride to Remember"

August 18 & 19, 2006

445 miles

About 1,000 motorcycles lined up in Somerset, Pennsylvania to start the "Ride to Remember" ~ America's 9/11 Ride, a fundraising ride benefiting First Responders. www.americas911ride.org

These are just a few of the many motor officers from many states that came together to escort the ride all the way from western Pennsylvania to Washington, DC to NYC. I heard there were about 50 of them. We had wonderful Law Enforcement support for the entire ride. Not only did we have a lane cleared for us, but we had the entire highway blocked off and divided highways were blocked for our direction of travel.




The makeshift memorial near the field where Flight 93 crashed. See the bikes up ahead on the road in the background?

This road used to be a dirt road, but with all the traffic visiting the crash site, they finally paved it.

Many of the riders outfitted their bike as a moving memorial to the cause.

This was the way we were welcomed by many of the communities we rode through.

The local fire departments used one or two ladder trucks to fly the flag showing their support.

This is at the first rest stop at a college campus. You can see the bikes are still rolling in and lining up as more are waiting on the road to enter the field. At least 3 more lines are added before everyone is lined up.

This is what a fuel stop looks like when 1,000 bikes need to fuel up at the same time. This was only one store of 3-4 that we all pulled into practically at the same time. Makes you appreciate "pay at the pump" even more.

Here we are lined up on the freeway waiting to take our exit across from the Pentagon.

Overnight in Washington DC--

The next morning, this is our view of the Pentagon from the hotel room.

We line up at the Pentagon to pull out toward NYC on Saturday morning for our 7:30am leave time.

Who knew there were people down under those barricades along bridges until they come up to take a cell phone picture of the rumble going by. There's a story about Trolls...?

While at our lunch stop at Mike's Famous Roadside Rest Harley Shop in Delaware...

...some goober media person decided to find a goober to interview.

The questions must have been hard...as apparent by the look of concentration.

Like, "Why are you doing this?"

Looks like we might get to share time with a storm at this rest stop in Linden, NJ.

We left just before the storm arrived and stayed in the clear all the way to NYC.

We made it to NYC!

There's our target for the night...Hilton New York City.

Sorry that there aren't any pictures of the WTC site, but honestly there's not much there.

The hole in the ground is huge and no way to capture it in one picture.

The Ride was led by this fire truck from Leesburg, VA. I think the bike riders had an easier time finding a parking place than they did. I heard though someone was "saving" them a spot. Now just to get it in there.

The Ride was very moving...emotionally. Physically, we could have been more efficient without a group of 1,000 or so bikes.

It's a very worthwhile ride, but probably not one that I'll do again.

I've decided that I'm definitely more of a lone rider than a large group rider.

When we left NYC on Saturday morning, Sylvia and I continued north looking for Maine. I've heard that New England is a nice place...gonna go check it out. Stay tuned for the next Fleeter Log...

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