MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND 2000

My second trip to Washington D.C. and this one was extra special!!! This page is dedicated to everyone that I met over the weekend!!!

Guess who this is???? But I got to tell you this story first!!! We were a few hours late getting to D.C. because everything was going wrong and I was too excited to be wasting all these hours. Anyway we checked in the hotel and in our room there was flowers and t-shirts and pictures waiting for us!!! It was great!!!!! We flew back out the door and who are the first people we went to meet???? This is Doc and Mr. Devlin!!!!
Doc had all of those great surprises set up in our room!!! After one year of being on this computer, I finally got to meet Doc in person!!!! He was waiting for us all those hours we were late!!!! And of course Mr. Devlin was waiting too!!! This was the best!!!

Doc took this picture of me, my brother Nathan (yes, we're twins!!!!) and mom right after we got there!!! You can tell where we went first.

We got to D. C. on Friday, May 26th and we stayed at the National Mall until after midnight!!! It was a long, but a great day!!! On Saturday, May 27th, I wanted to go to Arlington Cemetery because Run For The Wall was going to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns and there were a few members of RFTW that I had to meet!!! Well, we got there and it was pouring down rain, but that certainly didn't stop us!!!! The Ceremony was beautiful and I then set out to look for some people that I wanted to meet. One was SizzMo' who I never did find and the other was LittleMac and I sure found him!!!

And there he is!!! This is me and LittleMac!!! I was so glad that I got to meet him!! Sorry that I made you get lost LittleMac, but I am still glad that I met you!!! Make sure you visit rftw.org and read LittleMac's quotes of the day on their Bulletin Board, they are great!!!!!

After leaving Arlington, (no, we didn't get lost!!), we went back to The Wall and yes, it was still raining. We were just walking by the statue of the three soldiers and someone asked my mom if I was Nikki!!! It was Gunner and his friend Mike and lots more of their friends!!!

This is me and Gunner right by the statue like I said!!! Another Veteran that I was so glad to meet!!!

We stood at the statue, in the rain and talked for a long time, it was great!! If you look close at the skull cap that Gunner has on and then look at my Rolling Thunder pictures, you will see that the cap I am wearing and this one look exactly alike!!! Thanks so much for giving it to me Gunner, I will wear it with great pride!!!  We then walked over to Thunder Alley and Gunner showed us his bike!! It is one of the most beautiful bikes I have ever seen and on this weekend, I saw a lot!!!

This is me, my mom and and one of Gunner's friends, Mike!!! Can't you tell how proud I am to be meeting all of these great Veterans!!!! Mike gave me his Pathfinder pin, which I knew was very special to him and I wear it proudly too!!

Over in Thunder Alley, we met Rich and Jack from American Veteran Search and over by The Wall we met Bruce Hill, who is one of Doc's friends!!! Everytime we ran into them it seemed as if my mom and I had to head somewhere else or we ran into someone else and I am so sorry that I never had the chance to take a picture with Rich or Jack and Bruce!!! I apologize to all of you for this and you will definitely be on my list first next year!!!
We had to leave The Wall because I was invited by Rolling Thunder to attend their meeting that night!!! Make sure you visit my Rolling Thunder page to see what surprise they had for me!
We were all pretty tired so we went back to the hotel early!!!

Sunday, May 27th, the day of Rolling Thunder!!!

We all got up early because I had to be at the Pentagon to meet Rolling Thunder!!!! Who was waiting with Doc to meet up with us??? It was Bud Schott!! He came from PA to meet Doc and to see me too!!! We all got in the van and my mom drove everyone else to the Lincoln Memorial so they could get a good spot and then we were off to the Pentagon!!!
When we got to the parking lot, we stood up on top of the hill before we went into the lot and we just stared at what we saw. It was the greatest, most amazing sight that I have ever seen!!! Thousands and thousands and thousands of bikes and thousands and thousands and thousands of Veterans. I would have been honored just to stand there and say that I saw them!!! We went into the parking lot and I knew right away that I had to find someone that I really wanted to meet.  We walked through the many groups and I spotted the ICVMC and I knew that Ghost would be there. He was the first one that I wanted to meet!!!

This is me and Ghost, the Idaho original!!! Through all of the people and all of the bikes I knew that I would get to meet him and I was so happy that I did!!!

He introduced me to all of the members of the ICVMC and I was glad that I got to meet them too!!! One of the members, Dragon is from right here in PA!!!!

Dragon sent me this group photo of ICVMC!!

Dragon sent me this one too!! Me and the ICVMC Flag. I love this picture, thanks Dragon for sending it to me!!!

After meeting with the ICV's it was time for the run!!! We met up with John Mendes and he loaded me and Powmia bear on the back of his bike and Rolling Thunder 2000 was on it's way!!! After the run, we decided to go to The Wall before we went to the Rally. When we walked up to the Womens Memorial, I got to meet somebody else that I had been waiting to see.

This is me with Dave and Christy Myers!!! They came the whole way from Oregon and I am really glad that I ran into them and that's just how it happened!! They got to meet Doc too, they had
never met before either!!
After I gave them a big hug and we said our goodbyes, it was time to go to the rally!!

After the rally, who is the first person that I got to see after all those days of running around Washington D.C. looking for her?????

It was SizzMo'!!!! She found me!!!! And she was great too!!! I am so glad that we got to meet before we left D.C. Sizzmo' did a really great article on me in the RFTW Newsletter. If you would like to read it got to rftw.org and click on Spring 2000 newsletter.

Here is a great picture of me, SizzMo' and Doorgunner!! You guys are great and thanks for all that you have done for me!!!! One of these years, I am going to take you up on that offer to ride from CA!!!!

At the rally, there was a Pow Tiger Cage with a man by the name of Gerald McCullar inside. He portrays a POW/MIA to show people how are soldiers are held captive. He is a wonderful man.

This is me and Mr. McCullar after the rally.  He is very special and I was very honored to meet him.

This is me and former POW, Mike Benge. He was at the rally in this POW cage. I was very proud to meet him.

I had something special that I had to do so back to The Wall we went.

I had a special cross made to leave at The Wall for Sgt. Arlie Mangus.

This was a very special cross. It had a picture of his mother and me when she came to visit my school for Veterans Day and a special note that I wrote for him.

I stayed there and I said a prayer that someday Sgt. Arlie Mangus comes home. I prayed that someday they all come home.

On Monday, May 29th, Mr. Devlin had gotten us VIP tickets to the Memorial Day Services at The Wall and you won't believe who I met there!!!!

It was Jan Scruggs!!!! He is the founder of The Wall!!!

After the services we were off to the American History Museum, another one of my favorite places!!! On the way back through the National Mall we met Mr. Devlin and he had his friend Ross with him.  Ross is a Park Ranger too and he wanted to meet me!!

And here we are!!! Ross, Mr. Devlin and me in Mr. Devlin's cart!!!

We told them that we would meet them over at the Lincoln Memorial and that we would walk through The Wall together.  So off to Lincoln Memorial we went!! Ross asked if we would mind if he told us the story of his friends who are on The Wall and we told him that we would be honored to go with him.

This is Ross at The Wall telling us what happened to his friends.  A whole crowd gathered around to listen to him. His story was very sad and we were honored that he shared it with us!!!

After Ross had finished his story, I gave him a hug and then my brother Nathan did too.

Ross even helped us get a rubbing of Arlie Mangus. This is my friend Brittney, she went to Washington D.C. with us too!!!

While Ross was helping us, Mr. Devlin was getting a rubbing for someone too!!!

My friend Brittney bought Col. Fallon's POW/MIA bracelet. He is one of my adopted POW/MIA's. I helped Brittney get a rubbing of his name.

Mr. Devlin, Doc and Ross before we left The Wall to go out to Dinner!!! We had a blast at a diner in Arlington and I was really glad that we met Ross. He is great just like Mr. Devlin and Doc!! We stayed at the diner and talked and had fun for a long time!!! Then we had to take Mr. Devlin and Ross back to the National Mall because that's where their cars were. We said our goodbyes and told Ross that we were glad to meet him. We then heading back to the hotel for a packing party cause this was our last night in D.C.

This is Brittney, me and Doc!!!!! We were posing for the camera after we did all the packing!!!!!

Tuesday, May 30th was our last day there. We said goodbye to Doc and I was sad to see him leave!!! I was so happy to meet him and to thank him for all the great things he has done for me.  We left the hotel and drove to the one place that I had to visit before we left.

I asked my mom if she would take me over to the Iwo Jima Memorial and I am so glad that we went.  It is absolutely beautiful and just to see it makes you proud to be an American!!

There was one last thing that I knew I had to do before we left for home.

I had to go back to The Wall one last time and say goodbye to my heroes until I can get back to honor them again. The last thing I did before we left Washington D.C. was to salute the statue of the three soldiers. It was very sad to leave, but I can't tell you how much it meant to me to be there. To everyone I got to meet, thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of this special weekend. I will never forget.........