This Thursday marks the start of a very loud weekend in our fair city.

In a stellar example of efficiency, the Relay for Recovery — a cross-country motorcycle relay in support of drug treatment courts — will reach courtroom C-10 of the Pretrial Services Agency for the District of Columbia at 11:30 a.m. Attorney General Eric Holder will welcome the group. 

The participants will roll more than 3,000 miles from Santa Ana, Calif., ending at Washington, D.C.’s Superior Court Drug Intervention Program. The group popped by at 25 drug and treatment courts in 10 states along the way

During the cross-country ride, the bikers held aloft an “All Rise Gavel.”

In a statement, the National Association of Drug Court Professionals said the All Rise Gavel is, in fact, ceremonial and serves to remind “us all that when one person rises out of drug addiction and crime, we All Rise.”

From May 25-27, the 25th annual Rolling Thunder “Ride for Freedom” will take over the city for Memorial Day observance. This is a yearly gathering of motorcycles and the Vietnam veterans who love them.

According to the Rolling Thunder website: In 1987, when the gathering began, the vets decided that “their arrival would be announced by the roar of their motorcycles, a sound not unlike the 1965 bombing campaign against North Vietnam dubbed Operation Rolling Thunder.”