Rolling Thunder X      

 

These pics are from Rolling Thunder X (1997).  

This was the 10th year for the event.  

It is held every year on Memorial Weekend Sunday, in Washington, DC.  

It brings several hundred thousand bikes into the city for a day.  

During the parade as the bikes are going through the city you can feel the vibrations in the ground and the sound is like distant thunder.  

The purpose of this event is to keep POW/MIA issues before our government.

             

We started our Rolling Thunder ride at Capitol Easyriders in Gaithersburg, MD.   

There's Chris, Mike and me

                                       

It started to rain a little, but our spirits remained high.  

About 300 bikes were assembled for the ride to the Pentagon for the protest parade. 

With a police escort the ride only took about 25 minutes.  

The parade lasts for several hours.  

It's quite an experience.

Steve, Penny and me relax at the Pentagon parking lot waiting for the parade to begin.

The weather continued to be threatening during the parade and several people mentioned that it reflected the overall mood of the event.  

The rain was light until the parade was ending, then the skies opened up.  

Here the bikes are queuing up for the run across Memorial Bridge and through DC.
 

 

The parade ended at the Vietnam Memorial.

The bikes are parked all over the grounds and when the sun is shining the chrome is blinding.  

There were an estimated 250,000 to 300,000 bikes that year.

Front page of the Gaithersburg Gazette June 1997