Rolling Thunder

Every year on Memorial Day weekend, Washington D.C. becomes host to Rolling Thunder, a large motorcycle rally originally started by a group of Vietnam veterans. Thousands of veterans from around the country ride in on motorcycles to honor those who served, and remember those who were left behind. They don't come on small, quiet bikes either - they ride the loudest Harley-Davidsons they can find, to make Rolling Thunder live up to its name. You can see all sorts of motorcycles on the road all weekend, and the various riding groups all have unique logos and patches.

Many of the riders proceed to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall to pay their respects. The Wall, designed by Maya Lin and embedded in the ground, bears the names of the 58,000 American service members who gave their lives in the war. One end of the Wall points to the Washington Monument, while the other points towards the Lincoln Memorial.

Many of the activities take place near the Lincoln Memorial, which has a lot of visitors at any time of year, but is particularly crowded on Memorial Day weekend.

On Sunday, the riders will gather in the Pentagon parking lot and ride slowly over the Memorial Bridge towards the Lincoln Memorial and the Wall. Previous events have had as many as 900,000 participants. The sound is not something you will forget.

 

Southeaster Tidal Basin at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial

This is a view from the southeastern part of the Tidal Basin at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial towards the White house. It was a very cold spring cloudy day with a storm coming by, however there were many happy tourist from around the world that came to visit this monument. Many friendly tourist from China as well as India wanted to buy my sketch and for sure they took so many pictures of myself sketching. I remember hearing from them "very good!, very good!, can I please buy it?, can I please take a picture?" all the international attention made me feel very happy wink emoticonDuring this sketch I even got the attention of Tony Ashwin Kanal the bassist for the American rock band No Doubt that came with his family to visit the memorial. I must say it was a very surprising amazing day when a simple humble sketcher like myself gets more attention in a national memorial than an internationally famous rock band star, the power of sketching wink emoticon It took me 3.5 Hrs and I used Black Ink on White Paper

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Nationals Park

From the upper deck at Nationals Park you can see the Capitol (currently covered in scaffolding), as well as the Old Post Office, the Cathedral, and many other D.C. landmarks. But last night we also saw the Nationals fall to the Marlins, 2-1, which is definitely not what we came there to see. But at least they still have 'W'-shaped pretzels.