Monday, May 15, 2006

Review of Day 1



What a day! The ride was easy. What we weren't prepared for was the media coverage - wow! One of our objectives of this ride was to spread the word. Well, the word is spreading. When I pulled into the parking lot this morning and saw the Channel 9 news truck with the satellite uplink 40 feet in the air - I thought "wow we really are going to get the word out". Then when I turned the corner and had cameras, microphones and tape recorders in my face....it was a bit overwhelming. It didn't stop there. When we pulled into our hotel in Bristol, VA, we were greeted by another half dozen news reporters including the local FOX affiliate. Publicity has it's price though. We got a call this evening that the CBS affiliate in Johnson City wants us in studio for an interview at 0620! That means we need to have wheels rolling around 0530. Yikes! Bob is the only morning person of the group. We really knew the word was getting out when Tom and I were having dinner and our waitress says (in that heavy Tennessee drawl) "are you the guys doing that Patriot ride? I heard about it on the radio". Our waitress - Holli (pictured with Joe) has a boyfriend that just went to Iraq and her mom is in the military.


As for the ride, once we left Fairfax at 0917, not a drop of rain. It was pretty cool all the way down I81. As some of you already know, we are having difficulty with ridecam. It's a combination of our broadband card and the lens exposure. We are working on it and will try to get something working in the next day or two.



Nothing spectacular on the way down, the only exception being a completed charred Toyota Camry being hosed down by the fire dept on I81 (but guess what - absolutely no traffic backup - that wouldn't happen in Northern VA) and an 18 wheeler had a tire blow out a few hundred feet in front of us and we had to keep dodging flying chunks of rubber at 75MPH. Other than that smooth sailing.

Tomorrow could be our most challenging weather day. The temps in the morning will be in the low 40s...brrrrr....with possible showers. Got to go, morning will be here quick.