MARYSVILLE — When Frank McAtee got off his Harley on Friday, it was easy to tell he hadn’t just gone around the block to the grocery store.
On May 3, McAtee left on a motorcycle trip around the perimeter of the country to show support and raise money for those who serve in the military.
More than three weeks, 9,485 miles and many repairs to his 1987 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide later, he was back — wet, tanned and tuckered out.
“It’s been raining on me for two days,” McAtee said after pulling into the Naval Support Center in Smokey Point about 3:30 p.m.
He wasn’t complaining, though. McAtee, 50, roughed it on purpose, sometimes sleeping in parking lots and on picnic tables, because that’s what soldiers do.
McAtee, who served in the Marine Corps from 1977 to 1982, connected with veterans and many others along the way. He raised about $3,000 for the Naval Marine Corps Relief Society, an organization that provides support to servicepeople and their families, and for the USO.
“I’ve met some wonderful people,” he said.
McAtee first went to California, then across the south to Key West, Fla., north to Boston and back across the northern tier.
He lined up some places to pitch his tent in advance and was offered others along the way, but in many cases he slept where fate found him.
One night, in Gainesville, Fla., “I just climbed off the bike in a parking lot and laid down on the pavement and went to sleep right there.”
About 45 minutes later a police officer woke him. After McAtee explained what he was doing, the officer asked him if he had noticed the license plate frame on the squad car: Marine Corps.
He let McAtee go back to sleep.
Another time, “I went to bed to the sound of birds chirping and woke up to the sound of guns firing,” he said. He was at the Marine base in Quantico, Va., with a rifle range nearby.
Near El Paso, Texas, the lid of one the compartments on his bike — the one where he carried his clothes — flew off.
“I couldn’t get to it before someone ran over it,” he said. He lost many of his clothes as well. “It made doing laundry easier,” he said. He reattached the lid with duct tape.
His favorite moment of the trip, he said, came in a repair shop in Orlando, Fla. He received a call from a disabled vet from the Puget Sound area who heard about the trip and said it inspired him to begin riding again.
“He was going to dust off his bike,” he said. “That was the high point.”
McAtee spent many more hours in repair shops than he anticipated, and it set him back from his schedule.
“I could stay on track by not paying tribute to the fallen troops in D.C.,” he wrote in a blog post from Florida on May 13. “That’s not going to happen.”
In Washington, D.C., he visited war memorials for those killed in action in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
“I am nowhere near writer enough to put into words the emotions of the day, of the sights,” he wrote in a post on May 19.
Back in Washington state, McAtee was met in Ellensburg by John Presley of Arlington, a member of the Puget Sound Hogs, a motorcycle group that has donated money to the Naval Marine Corps Relief Society at the Smokey Point facility.
Friday, the two rode back to Marysville together. There, they were met by Andy Leech, director of the relief society at Smokey Point, and Cmdr. Dan Limberg of Naval Station Everett.
Limberg gave McAtee a command coin bearing the Everett station’s logo. The coins are normally given to “anyone who does an exceptional job,” Limberg said.
Leech thanked McAtee for his work on behalf of the relief center and pointed out that he left during Armed Services week and returned at the outset of Memorial Day weekend.
McAtee, a driver for a Smokey Point trucking company, sleeps in his rig and showers at the office.
“I’m looking forward to a nice hot shower and a nice warm bed,” he said.
Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439; sheets@heraldnet.com.
How to donate
For more information about Frank McAtee’s trip and fundraising effort, go to http://tinyurl.com/McAteeRide.
Donations may be made directly to the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society and the USO on the website.
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