6.20.2005
ride up Rock Creek Trail
distance: oh I don't know, about 10-12 miles, that's still my hourly hybrid rate...
time: 1 hr riding, 4 minutes resting
Today I decided to head north along Rock Creek, jumping onto the trail at the same spot (just over the P street bridge). The big public secret about DC is that it's all downhill from Maryland to Virginia, so after a while it's hard to ride only north-south loops in good conscience. Or rather, I save those for my days of rest.
This time I followed the trail up past the zoo, past Pierce Mill, and up Beach Drive a couple of miles. As I was just getting started I passed a woman on a bike with saddlebags and a backpack; I directed her to the not-very-well-marked path and didn't think too much more about it. On the way back down (having turned around, taken a break on a tree stump, and cruised downhill) I passed her again at the start of Beach Drive. Chatting with her there, it turned out that she's biking the whole country, having started at "the Alabama-Florida line" on May 16th. I didn't catch her name, but she told me she's on a personal mission and is praying for people. So if you see her between here and Niagra, or swinging west through Montana, give her my regards.
The Rock Creek Trail is nice in the middle of a week day, when there's no one around and the woods are quiet. It's never nice coming back up from that trail, though, as the only way back to civilization is up one of your choice of whomping big hills. Being a creek, you see, it's firmly in a valley. Today I chose my favorite the whomping big hills, Adams Mill Road. About that route I have only this to say: why put a speed bump at the top of a hill roughly akin to the trail to Machu Picchu? Why, god, why? It bears saying that I did not, in fact, fall off my bike on the speed bump. Nor did I splat a kid, which is presumably what the speed bump is there to prevent. So, good job, speed bump! If you weren't there, I would have flown through that crosswalk! Ok, right, enough about the speed bump.
The rest of the ride home was uneventful. Also, I did not scrape my knee carrying the bike into the house today.
time: 1 hr riding, 4 minutes resting
Today I decided to head north along Rock Creek, jumping onto the trail at the same spot (just over the P street bridge). The big public secret about DC is that it's all downhill from Maryland to Virginia, so after a while it's hard to ride only north-south loops in good conscience. Or rather, I save those for my days of rest.
This time I followed the trail up past the zoo, past Pierce Mill, and up Beach Drive a couple of miles. As I was just getting started I passed a woman on a bike with saddlebags and a backpack; I directed her to the not-very-well-marked path and didn't think too much more about it. On the way back down (having turned around, taken a break on a tree stump, and cruised downhill) I passed her again at the start of Beach Drive. Chatting with her there, it turned out that she's biking the whole country, having started at "the Alabama-Florida line" on May 16th. I didn't catch her name, but she told me she's on a personal mission and is praying for people. So if you see her between here and Niagra, or swinging west through Montana, give her my regards.
The Rock Creek Trail is nice in the middle of a week day, when there's no one around and the woods are quiet. It's never nice coming back up from that trail, though, as the only way back to civilization is up one of your choice of whomping big hills. Being a creek, you see, it's firmly in a valley. Today I chose my favorite the whomping big hills, Adams Mill Road. About that route I have only this to say: why put a speed bump at the top of a hill roughly akin to the trail to Machu Picchu? Why, god, why? It bears saying that I did not, in fact, fall off my bike on the speed bump. Nor did I splat a kid, which is presumably what the speed bump is there to prevent. So, good job, speed bump! If you weren't there, I would have flown through that crosswalk! Ok, right, enough about the speed bump.
The rest of the ride home was uneventful. Also, I did not scrape my knee carrying the bike into the house today.
6.19.2005
mid-morning ride to the airport
distance: ~ 12 miles
time: 1 hr of riding, 5 minutes of resting
Saturday I woke up early and decided to finally go out for a ride. It's been so hot here that I haven't been out on Pearl since Memorial Day, and I'd really been wanting to get down by the water again. I thought about going on the Captitol Crescent trail again, but that imperceptible incline tires me out and it's not the most interesting ride around. Instead, I decided to go down by the river and see how long it took to get to the airport.
From my house, I went down to P, around the circle, and across the bridge to jump on the Rock Creek trail, which is almost exactly 1 mile. I followed the trail around to the bridge, about another 2 miles, and even went the circuitous route up through the construction at the Lincoln rather than dashing across 4 lanes of traffic (I didn't feel like getting off my bike, and I'm not the best dasher in the world, I prefer to stroll). Once over the bridge, I headed south toward the airport along the Mt. Vernon trail, unwittingly joining lots of other folks participating in the Clean Air Ride. Which is fine, I'm all for Clean Air. I stopped for a break at the airport parking lot (it's not really the airport parking lot, but rather the parking lot by the trail where lots of people come to sit and watch the planes take off from the airport), about 3 miles further along (according to the driving directions at yahoo maps, at least!).
From the airport, I followed the trail back up past the bridges all the way to the Key Bridge and back over into Georgetown, about 3.7 miles (they really need to make a mapping program just for the bike trails, because it's a pain in the arse to try to extrapolate from the parallel roads. I'm just sayin...). Back home from there was another 2.5 miles, bringing the ride total to just about 12 miles.
I really need to get a new battery for my bike computer and save myself all this yahoo mapping. But there you have it.
On a more qualitative note, I saw not much out of the ordinary. The trail really filled up by the time I was heading back, between 10-10:30am, with lots of walkers and kids and strollers and people with headphones on. It was a good reminder to go out earlier in the day if I don't want to be braking and swerving all the time. I remember the same being true of the Capitol Crescent trail, especially the tip by Bethesda (walkers tend to go along the Canal towpath on the Georgetown end, at least when I've been there).
All this mapping has been good for one thing, though: it appears there's a waterfowl sanctuary just there at the parking lot where everyone stops to look at the planes, so I'll have to check that out. Just maybe not today.
time: 1 hr of riding, 5 minutes of resting
Saturday I woke up early and decided to finally go out for a ride. It's been so hot here that I haven't been out on Pearl since Memorial Day, and I'd really been wanting to get down by the water again. I thought about going on the Captitol Crescent trail again, but that imperceptible incline tires me out and it's not the most interesting ride around. Instead, I decided to go down by the river and see how long it took to get to the airport.
From my house, I went down to P, around the circle, and across the bridge to jump on the Rock Creek trail, which is almost exactly 1 mile. I followed the trail around to the bridge, about another 2 miles, and even went the circuitous route up through the construction at the Lincoln rather than dashing across 4 lanes of traffic (I didn't feel like getting off my bike, and I'm not the best dasher in the world, I prefer to stroll). Once over the bridge, I headed south toward the airport along the Mt. Vernon trail, unwittingly joining lots of other folks participating in the Clean Air Ride. Which is fine, I'm all for Clean Air. I stopped for a break at the airport parking lot (it's not really the airport parking lot, but rather the parking lot by the trail where lots of people come to sit and watch the planes take off from the airport), about 3 miles further along (according to the driving directions at yahoo maps, at least!).
From the airport, I followed the trail back up past the bridges all the way to the Key Bridge and back over into Georgetown, about 3.7 miles (they really need to make a mapping program just for the bike trails, because it's a pain in the arse to try to extrapolate from the parallel roads. I'm just sayin...). Back home from there was another 2.5 miles, bringing the ride total to just about 12 miles.
I really need to get a new battery for my bike computer and save myself all this yahoo mapping. But there you have it.
On a more qualitative note, I saw not much out of the ordinary. The trail really filled up by the time I was heading back, between 10-10:30am, with lots of walkers and kids and strollers and people with headphones on. It was a good reminder to go out earlier in the day if I don't want to be braking and swerving all the time. I remember the same being true of the Capitol Crescent trail, especially the tip by Bethesda (walkers tend to go along the Canal towpath on the Georgetown end, at least when I've been there).
All this mapping has been good for one thing, though: it appears there's a waterfowl sanctuary just there at the parking lot where everyone stops to look at the planes, so I'll have to check that out. Just maybe not today.
6.14.2005
the pixies
Even after seeing the Pixies six months ago in town, we gladly planned to trek back out to Merriweather to see them all over again up there. Since Dana had to be out of town, I went with a friend, renting a car in Virginia and making the drive after picking her up from work. This time, we arrived early, and had time to get some food and find our seats (again in the pavilion) before both the rain and the opening bands started. It was the kind of night when the rain, mostly pretty light, was welcome, as it cooled everything down and provided a mellow backdrop to just hanging out and waiting for the main set.
What can I say about the Pixies? They rocked out and it was a great show. The energy was high; not quite the same mania of the December show (even on their second night in town, the hall was just vibrating with the excitement of seeing them together on stage again) but still enough to keep everyone out of their seats the whole time. I didn't allocate much brain space to remembering the set list, as I planned to order the concert cd for Dana. The best moment of the show was the interruption by a roadie to tell the band (and, by extension, us) that Surfer Rosa had just gone gold, and to present each of them with their little framed/mounted plaque/certificate thingies to commemorate the event. I didn't think to get photos, but a couple are available on their tour blog. The whole thing was pretty freakin neat, actually.
My only complaint, and it's more a regret than a complaint, was that I couldn't see much of Kim. As in December, she spent much of the show back by the drums just playing away, and she and he both were completely blocked from view by the bank of speakers on our side of the stage. Moreso than usual, then, the songs with her on vocals were my favorites, as she stepped forward to her mic and into view. And, no, I didn't scream out "we love you, Kim!" although I'm sure some people were.
6.09.2005
big night out with the Maryland teens
Last night, to kick off the summer right, we went to see the Killers with one of Dana's coworkers. The show was at Merriweather, an outdoor ampitheatre about an hour out of town in Columbia, MD, and because we're old we bought seats in the pavilion and arrived just in time for the end of the 3rd opening band. It wasn't clear if the event was supposed to be in the festival vein, with all the bands of similar standing, or if there were just 4 opening sets (our interpretation of choice).
At any rate, the lineup was geared for the young. The ratio of teenagers to adults was something like 14:1, with the ratio of parents to non-parents at something like 100:1. So there we were, an island in a sea of screeching youngsters and their chaperones.
Thankfully, the show itself was good. I was a bit worried that the new-new-wave post-post-punk sound wouldn't translate well to a live show, but these boys from Vegas had a lot of energy and the singer came through with a surprisingly robust voice. The screams of "We love you, Brandon!" from the row(s) behind us added quite a bit of excitement to the event as well. The kitsch of the whole thing appealed to us older fans, as the stage set was straight out of Vegas, with plush red velvet and rhinestone style lights blinking out their name. And, I must say, you also had to be d' âge certaine to be able to appreciate the way the band's cigarillo pants made them look like the Monkees.
With the exception of a small dehydration-related meltdown leading to the pumping of three times its worth in quarters into a rest-stop vending machine to obtain one 500ml bottle of water, the trip back to the city was pleasantly uneventful as well.
