Road King Blog

Woke early and headed out with Sean to obtain some breakfast.  Too early, in fact, for the diner Sean had selected for breakfast - they weren’t open.  So we diverted to the old standby IHOP, and took on some food.

Following breakfast, we headed out to ride some more in the area and visit the rest of the locations where we used to live / work / hang out / run amok.  Not much has changed in the old neighborhoods, and it was interesting to see that some of the landscaping Lisa and I did on the townhouse we owned in Gaithersburg was still in place.

And then, while riding the area, Sean happened to notice that a gate into an area we used to visit in high school was open….

Some explanation is necessary here.  When we were in high school, there was an abandoned Nike missile site off one of the back roads a short drive away from our neighborhoods.  The site was accessible via numerous holes in the fencing, and we made many less-than-sanctioned visits to the facility.

At the time, we were all into the Cold War history to some level, and we were aware of the historical significance of the site.  We didn’t go in there to vandalize the place or steal any items, but to investigate and understand what the facility must have been like during that time.  Back then, there were still several buildings on the grounds, as well as a trio of underground facilities for storing, loading and launching the Nike missiles.  The buildings were filled with debris, but were still painted in the unit livery, with the unit insignia still visible in faded paint on the side of the larger building.  We would go into the site and into the underground facilities and catalog the remaining items, trying to understand the function of the site and how the crews worked onsite.  At that time, there was a little bit of graffiti on the site, and some minor damage, but overall the site was pretty well preserved.  Apart from the #3 underground facility, which was nearly always flooded, that is.

Move forward 25 years.  The site is next to a National Guard facility, but is separately fenced (and all the fencing is unmarked).  The gate was wide open, so we rode in to look around a bit.  What we found was distressing.

The buildings have been razed, and the remains removed.  The underground facilities were secured with steel bars and locks on the doors.  I saw were, because the doors have been broken open except for the #1 hangar, which had heavy angle iron welded over the doors.  Inside, there is trash, tons of graffiti, and numerous piles of miscellaneous burned materials torn off the walls.  An important, irreplaceable piece of history trashed.

We took a few pictures and carefully made our way out of the facility.

Seeking something to raise the spirits a bit, we rode over to the local Harley dealer to check out their t-shirt offerings (which we ended up purchasing).  One of the employees there, upon learning we were visiting from Canada and Florida, offered to rent us a couple of bikes.  ”No thanks, we brought our own :)”.

From there, we headed out to the northwest to visit Sugarloaf mountain, with the intent of getting some shots of us and the bikes with the sweeping panoramas of the area in the background.

Which brought me to a new riding experience - hills.

We don’t have hills in Florida.  It’s flat.

We have hills in Maryland, and twisty roads going over them.  Takes a bit of getting used to with the way it changes the sight lines for the curves.  As I remarked to Sean at a stop sign, “these hills are messing up my Chi”.

We rumbled through the countryside, up and down the hills, out to Sugarloaf.  Which is when we discovered that the folks who administer Sugarloaf don’t like bikers, and don’t permit motorcycles on the mountain roads.

So we decided to head back toward the hotel and drop in on Dave.  Dave knew as soon as he heard Sean’s Vance & Hines pipes that we had arrived.  We hung out with Dave and Kathy and their two children for a bit, and after making plans for dinner we headed back to the hotel to get changed / refreshed.

During dinner (at a nice Italian restaurant in Germantown), Sean took his turn as storyteller, regaling Dave’s 4 year old daughter with tales of Taliban and of the brave knight who captures the monster Saddam Hussein, all in the manner of a fairy tale.  At the conclusion of the second tale, Dave chimes in as the announcer - “Next on Sean’s Playhouse, why your jihadi mommy won’t be coming home tonight…”  We pretty much lost it at that point.  We said our farewells, and headed back to the hotel.

Around 0230, some nitwit pulled the fire alarm.  I postulated to Sean that this behavior is indicative of latent homosexuality with a fireman fetish.