HAGERSTOWN, Md. — They drove pickup trucks, RVs, 18-wheelers and minivans, some making a 2,500-mile journey from Southern California. More joined as the convoy passed through Amarillo, Texas, or rallied at a farm equipment supplier in Monrovia, Indiana. And others came in Friday, as about 1,000 vehicles converged at a speedway here under the rallying cry of “freedom.”

The truckers and their supporters are now the closest they have been to the nation’s capital, where they want to hold lawmakers “accountable” for the government’s pandemic responses. But their plans for coming days remained opaque on Saturday afternoon, with authorities across the region warning of potential disruptions on highways but unable to offer specifics.

The convoy’s motives are muddy, too. People gathered at this western Maryland city described frustrations with workplace vaccine mandates and restrictions designed to limit the spread of COVID – even though those rules have now been lifted in many places. The speedway crowds chanted anti-President Biden slogans and displayed support for former President Donald Trump. Extremism analysts point to a broader set of right-wing causes that have motivated participants.

On Friday night, Brian Brase, a convoy organizer, looked out at the crowd, some dressed in red-white-and-blue beanies and waving American flags, and told them to celebrate the distance they had traveled. But they would have to wait longer to learn their final destination and what to do when they get there.

“Well, we’re going to do something,” he said, laughing. “What this is is yet to be determined. Please be patient.”

Organizers of the self-titled “People’s Convoy” have emphasized they will not be going into Washington D.C. and previously said they would aim for the Beltway area on Saturday. But Brase announced Friday morning to supporters in Lore City, Ohio, that those plans had changed. They were staying in Hagerstown on Saturday before probably targeting another location “only two miles from the Beltway,” he said, without offering specifics.

Asked about the group’s plans, People’s Convoy organizer Mike Landis said: “We’re going to keep annoying D.C. … Just make them wonder a little bit.” He continued: “Look, we’re truck drivers; we’re very spontaneous.”

The possibility of caravans of truckers heading to the Beltway has prompted security concerns, drawing in police agencies from D.C., Maryland and Virginia to monitor the group. Supporters have been joining and leaving throughout the trip, making it difficult to estimate the size of the convoy.

Officials across the region advised drivers to be prepared for potentially severe traffic through the weekend. “It’s a very fluid situation,” Ellen Kamilakis, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Transportation, said Saturday.

On Friday night, the mood of the group was celebratory and proud. Truckers blared “Take Me Home, Country Road” and ate spaghetti, burgers and chicken tacos donated by supporters. Leaders stood on the makeshift stage of a flatbed truck and lambasted the federal government for imposing vaccine and mask mandates, policies they believe violated their fundamental rights as Americans.

The protesters, inspired by the self-styled “Freedom Convoy” that occupied downtown Ottawa for weeks, have complained about the perceived infringement of their freedoms.

Extremism researchers following this movement say the demonstrators’ hostility toward the vaccines is just one of several anti-government, right-wing beliefs that they espouse. Flatbeds, semis and other trucks and cars in the speedway parking area were decorated with signs and messages referencing far-right political views and conspiracy theories, including calls to “arrest Fauci,” referring to White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci, and equating the mandates to slavery. Some supporters wore Make America Great Again caps. Others waved flags that said “Let’s go Brandon” – an allusion to an explicit anti-Biden slogan.

A truck rolled by with a Wisconsin license plate to join hundreds of others parked at the speedway. A group of girls pointed as it passed. “Oh, wow,” they said, almost in unison. “Freedom!”

Brase said the group wants an end to the national emergency declaration in response to the coronavirus — first issued by Trump in March 2020 and later extended by Biden – and for Congress to hold hearings investigating the government’s response to the pandemic.

Craig Brown, 53, left his home in Sandpoint, Idaho, two weeks ago. A freight truck driver, he took a delivery of apples to Los Angeles to get closer to the convoy’s launch point in Adelanto, California. He felt uncomfortable that the government could expect him to receive such a new vaccine, and he wanted to teach his teenage daughters to stand up for what they believe in. So he bought a month’s worth of nonperishable food, installed an extra freezer in his vehicle, and set off to join a movement.

On his way to Los Angeles, Brown blew out the rear end of his truck and waited five days for repairs. And before he even found the other truckers, Brown adopted a 2-year-old golden retriever named Copper.

By Feb. 23, he had joined the group on their way out of Southern California. Since then, Brown said the trip has been more exciting than he could have imagined. People across the country had made signs to support them, he said, and so many volunteers had brought food to rest stops that he had hardly tapped into his nonperishables.

“It’s a high, seeing all the people on the overpasses and the sides of the roads,” Brown said. “All these people treating us like we are heroes.”

Brown, who had COVID-19 last month, does not want to do anything political in D.C. He said he wants to end the trip by parking alongside the truckers and their supporters, and eating a meal together.

“We are going to eat, going to celebrate and enjoy the company of people who think we are heroes,” he said.

During the journey, supporters have stood on chilly highway overpasses to wave American flags. They’ve cheered at rallies and followed the journey on social media. And donations have poured in. By Monday, the group claimed to have collected more than $1.5 million.

One convoy participant said Friday during a live stream on YouTube that “select trucks will be going to the White House” but emphasized that the group as a whole would not be going into the city. He did not elaborate on those plans, and there were no signs they had materialized by early Saturday afternoon.

“I don’t want people thinking we are invading D.C.,” he said on the live stream. “This is not the convoy going into D.C. commons. This is a few select drivers.”

There were no trucker-related convoy permit applications for the coming days, National Park Service spokesman Mike Litterst said on Friday. Large trucks are prohibited from many roads in Washington, and there are many regulations governing their operation, including how long they can idle.

In Hagerstown, Heather Kelly, 43, a former nurse, said she had always got the vaccines required for her job, but didn’t want to get what she saw as a novel COVID shot. Her opposition to mask rules and vaccine mandates – and the loss of faith in the government she said it triggered – upended her life. She quit her job at a long-term care facility and pulled her children out of school.

“You have free will, free choice,” she said. “You let the government tell you to put something on your face. Am I going to have to have my head covered next like I am in a Muslim country?”

Kelly, who said she voted for Barack Obama for president in 2008, came to Washington for the Jan. 6, 2021, rally in support of Trump, but said she didn’t learn about the attack on the Capitol until she arrived home in Ohio. A little over a year later, she piled her 18-year-old son into their minivan and joined the convoy.

“I was working hard. I was driven. I spent my children’s childhood in medical school,” Kelly said, facing her son under the yellow hue of truck lights, her eyes welling up. “To see it corrupted the way that it is, it’s very sad for me.”

Jim Hasner joined the convoy in Indiana, driving a truck. He owns his own company and blamed pandemic restrictions for economic struggles.

Like some other participants, he blamed censorship in the mainstream media and by the government for hiding the real truth about the pandemic. He said a virus that claimed more than 1,600 lives in the United States Friday, “is gone.”

“It would be really great if people could be honest about things,” he said. “Honest about what the government overreach looks like, honest about what the vaccine really is. Have some transparency in the media because it’s just it’s not accurate.”

For Brown, the trucker who joined the group in California, the endgame is a date. March 15, to be exact, when he just learned his driver’s license will expire. He will have to be in Idaho by then, but if the convoy is still together past that day?

“I’ll turn right back around and join them,” he said.

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