Monday, April 06, 2009

CBR and home again!

On Tuesday last week, I pulled from Jacksonville, NC to Lake Fairfax County Park in Reston, Virginia to get close to our rhendevous for the Caravan into DC on our way to the 10th annual Cherry Blossum Rally.. the CBR! There were two other Airstreams there at the park.. and one surprise - Dacia and Pee Wee "Dale Schwamborn" were there as well. I spent the evening chatting with Pee Wee about Wally and Airstreams and Caravans.. Pee Wee was to be our guest at CBR and wanted to be on the Caravan with us - how perfect!!!!

I had no idea as to how many were going to show up for the Caravan. So, at 7am, I got underway and headed for the Great Falls National Park - our rhendevous. I had a couple from Montreal in a 63 Globetrotter, who was the other Airstream at park, follow me over to the Falls.

The plan was to meet by 0930, get a group photo near the falls and start the Caravan. One by one, trailers rolled in. There's the big red Suburban I'm towing with.... I'm glad it still has the Fire Department air horns on it.

There's Frank and "Anna" below with the Fowler's right behind:


The Great Falls and our group shot below:

We departed about 15 minutes past 10am...not bad for my first Caravan. We had a total of 8 trailers in all, I would think perfect for a first timer.

Below, we are parked around the top side of the Marine Corps War Memorial.



One of my favorite shots taken by the Fowler's:

Below is on our way out of the Memorial, with downtown DC in the background.

This one below is one of my favorites out on Marshall Drive looking towards the city.

Here we are on Madison coming back towards the Washington Memorial:
And then turning left and down around the Jefferson Memorial:

On the tidal basin pulled over on Ohio Drive in Washington, DC below:

Heading for Mt. Vernon on the George Washington Memorial Drive:
Below we are parked out behind (in the employee lots) the Mt. Vernon facility:


Below we are parked out in front of Mt. Vernon. If you take the two shots you can get a nice panoramic shot.

Heading for CBR site heading north on the George Washington Memorial Parkway:

CBR - Arriving!

And then, Frank, Pee Wee and myself at the CBR chatting with Marcus, Steve and John.. how cool is that:

The weekend was a blast. Zoe' and the boys pulled right in behind our Caravan and it was so nice to see them and spend a great, memorable weekend there in Maryland. We went over to Annapolis on Saturday to see the Academy (my alma mater) and the new field house they've built. There were 49 Airstreams in all in attendance, including my uncle Donald - see it was his dad, my grandfather, that got me into Airstreaming - thanks Grandpa - I know you were watching us this weekend and guiding me during the Caravan!!!! Next rally - my own Pageant of Bands boondocking rally - if not the Region 2 rally here in NY.

3 comments:

utee94 said...

That was a great post, Rob, thanks so much for sharing and enabling me to come along on the Caravan with you, at least virtually.

I really look forward to the day that I will get to come camping with you and your family, perhaps next year's CBR.

-Marcus

Frank Yensan said...

A great time it was... thank you Rob.

Sugarfoot said...

Rob, the caravan was AWESOME! You are the man. I would caravan with you anywhere.

Here's to more great CBR's in the future. Dacia