So here I am, a pedicaber who has not pedicabed in over a year with two bikes, 20 buddys and one hell of a party about to hit the capitol. I arrived in DC last sunday to get to know the town, figure out the parade routes and hopefully make a little money while watching BHO get sworn in. What else could I do but write a real bad diary and post it to DK so it could be ripped apart by people who wanted to be english teachers but didn't have the guts to follow their dreams? Rock on.
First things first, this is huge for me. I am an Iraq vet who cried his eyes out over this guy getting elected. On the 22nd I will be visiting ground zero for the first time ever. I might cry again but I think my understanding of what happened to me over the last 5 years will be a little better
We will call it my pilgrimage.
I arrived in DC back on the 10th so I could figure out the lay of the city and how the traffic flows around this place. I have never been here before so this is a little crucial as a rickshaw driver. I reconnected with the guy who got me into this buisness and found out he had a shop up here. Good things turned into great things as he brought all the dudes I rolled with before I pulled my vanishing act. There is a peruvian named Deigo, a great guy who always helps a slow day pass by with his wit. Another fellow is Phillip, a cyclist who rode in some races with Lance Armstrong a couple of times. Durk is here, a stunt man who works in Hollywood and can give you a lot of dirt about the stars on set. Benny, a bodybuilding comedian who has worked in every city as a pedicaber. Finally there is Howard, my old boss and a good friend that is helping me out more than I can repay him.
Sunday the 11th was our first day out and man, that was nice. I think it was 40 degrees and no clouds. Howard, Benny and I hit the trail about 1pm and rode about 25 blocks to the mall. If you have never riddin a bike in heavy city traffic before, you need to try it at least once. Whipping through intersections and splitting lanes of cars is like a carnival ride, and alot of times you make better time than you automobile counter parts. The only sucky part is the traffic circles here in DC, they can get a little hairy on a 200 pound bike.
The Washington monument is huge. It dominates the skyline like no other thing around because no other building in the DC limits is allowed to be built higher than it. Riding by on 15th street I had to really lean my head back to take it all in. Set up on the mall all around it are portajohns and I mean like thousands of these things. They line the mall from the Capital building to the Lincoln monument like little walls of China. Thats gonna be a lotta poop.
The really visualy stunning monument has to be the Jefferson. It is set up on an island off by its self, and riding down Independence Ave you can see the silhouette of the second President resting against the sky behind him. Seen through the trees and across the water, I could only glimpse it for about a second as I was battling a city bus for dominance of the lane. I won.
Further down I saw a small domed monument tucked back in the trees on my right, not much bigger than a gazebo. the inscription around the top spoke of the fallen serviceman from DC. I do not have the exact quote but I will get before the end of this trip. The mall is a federal park, so for the DC area to get this put in most of taken hard work through congress since they have no representatives there. Speaking of that, the movement for statehood is alive and well here. All the places that can support a poster, a flyer or a bumpersticker has statehood all over it.
I have to run for now. I am staying in Baltimore with some freinds, and it is time to hit the trail. Hope you enjoyed it so far. Just to be proactive, if you comment here to just dis my writting skills or insult this stuff, go fuck yourself.
PT2: My walk on the mall with the Hollywood stuntman
PT3: New York bound
PT3: Discussing politics and recipes with a Huffington Post blogger
PT4: Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder and more
PT5: The Oath
PT6: Ground Zero
PT7: Starbucks coffee and what I learned