Day Nine

Fayetteville, North Carolina to Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

Mileage: 325 miles (in a Budget Truck)

We got an early start on the trip to Washington. By 8am, we're on the road. We arrived at the Budget rental return located near Crystal City near 2pm.

All of the gear and the bikes were unloaded in under an hour. Sludge's bike was quite easy to back down the ramp. Similar to what you would do in a gym, Batman and I "spotted" Sludge down. My bike was fairly easy too, but it was a bit unnerving coming down backwards with the front brake on and depending on your friends should anything go wrong with a 700-pound motorcycle! Batman's bike was the most difficult. Besides the fact that a Road King weighs in the vicinity of 850 pounds, the bike was too wide for Batman to reach the edges of the ramp. So, Batman stood in front of his bike holding the front brake lever while Sludge and I balanced the big Road King with a slight bias to the right side. We wanted to make sure that the weight was on the side of the front brake and to make sure that it didn't tip over to the other side. One quarter of the way down the ramp, Batman temporarily handed the control of the brake to Sludge so that Batman could step down from the floor of the truck. All this time, I am at the back of Road King making sure that it doesn't roll down the ramp. I don't know what I was thinking, I'm 162 pounds and if that bike decided to roll, it would have mowed me down! With all of the motorcycles safely off the truck and on the ground, we loaded our gear and headed for the hotel.

The traffic on I-395 in D.C. was horrible. There we were, right at 3pm on a holiday weekend Friday, trying to go somewhere in this town. It was bumper to bumper for close to an hour. Remember, Batman and I have air-cooled scooters and when there is no air passing the engine fins, they tend to get very hot. The air temp was in the mid 80's and we're sitting on hot concrete on top of a cooking motorcycle. We gave new definition to sweating!

We arrived at the hotel in Georgetown just after 4pm. We unloaded the bikes and took them over to the available underground parking. The website said nothing about the additional $20 per night per motorcycle! They got us for $180 in parking alone! There's very little parking available in this city and the parking fines are very expensive, so, we had to deal with it.

I was fairly outspoken about how I wanted to wash Maleficent (my Deuce). I don't like riding a dirty bike. I went online and found a few self-serve car washes in the area. Well, the closest one was more than 15 miles away and near a Harley-Davidson dealership. So, after unpacking and setting up, we left for the car wash at about 6pm. The three of us pulled our bikes into one stall and shared the expense. Washed and scrubed, we dryed them off and detailed them the best we could as the sun went down. The salt spray from parking at the hotel near the beach took a toll on the wheels of Sludge's and Batman's bikes. They are aluminum and began to show signs of corrosion...after only two days! I had a few spots where the chrome was beginning to show rust. After cleaning them off the best we could, Sludge asked if I wanted to hit a small bucket of balls at the golf driving range next door. Well, it's been six weeks since I swung a club and three since I saw the Doc. Ah, what the hell. It was a small bucket of maybe 30 golf balls. I put on a little exhibition. The range depth was almost 250 yards to the trees and I was reaching that with the old 3-wood the range had for rental.

We had dinner nearby and headed back to the hotel for the evening.