What the difference between Jesse and colleges? Colleges have quads. I was reminded of the chronic wimpiness of my quadriceps this morning when I went out to ride the "Arlington Loop", a roughly 19 mile (including the pigtail to get to and from my house) that takes you along the Custis Trail into Rosslyn, then down the Mt. Vernon trail to Crystal City, then out the W&OD back home. I've done very little biking this year and my legs were hurtin' far more than I'd like to admit by the time I hit the third leg of this loop. Still, I soldiered on without any kind of break save for an unauthorized but really needed use of a construction site Porta-potty at Columbia Pike.
As always, the highlight of this ride for me is the Mt. Vernon section, which follows the Potomac. I love the views of the river and I like riding right past the tarmac of National Airport. Sure it can be a little stinky, but I'm always enthralled by the movement on the ground as well as the takeoffsand landings.
When I returned from my bike ride I took a few minutes to stretch, changed clothes then headed out with Ted for a geocaching hike at Riverbend Park. Ted is home for the week between semesters and I was happy to plan an activity with him to have a chance to spend some time together - and of course, this is the kind of activity the two of us like to do. After ogling the mansions of Great Falls on the drive to the park, we set about hiking the trail along the river (which, of course, I like for the river views). We collected all the information for one multi-stage Earth Cache, collected what we think is all the information for the first phase of another complex geocache. Actually, we stopped short of finding all the information since the pollen was getting to Ted and he was starting to have trouble climbing the hills on the trail; however, the remaining numbers were guessable. The goal of finding all this information was to collect all the digits of a latitude and longitude of the next portion of the cache. We think we have everything, but our answer was sort of suspect (unless we changed some things based on common sense) and so we didn't pursue the second cache beyond taking a quick loo, around the location we think was the right answer.
Ted and I finished up with pizza at Flippin'. As we drove through Falls Church he marveled at all the changes (construction has started on the new Harris Teeter, there's the Hilton Garden Inn, etc.) that have happened "since he lived here". :)
It was a beautiful Spring day and I think we made the most of it. It was also Mother's Day, but we had celebrated as a family the night before and so we weren't being bad people by ignoring mom and going out for a hike.
As always, the highlight of this ride for me is the Mt. Vernon section, which follows the Potomac. I love the views of the river and I like riding right past the tarmac of National Airport. Sure it can be a little stinky, but I'm always enthralled by the movement on the ground as well as the takeoffsand landings.
When I returned from my bike ride I took a few minutes to stretch, changed clothes then headed out with Ted for a geocaching hike at Riverbend Park. Ted is home for the week between semesters and I was happy to plan an activity with him to have a chance to spend some time together - and of course, this is the kind of activity the two of us like to do. After ogling the mansions of Great Falls on the drive to the park, we set about hiking the trail along the river (which, of course, I like for the river views). We collected all the information for one multi-stage Earth Cache, collected what we think is all the information for the first phase of another complex geocache. Actually, we stopped short of finding all the information since the pollen was getting to Ted and he was starting to have trouble climbing the hills on the trail; however, the remaining numbers were guessable. The goal of finding all this information was to collect all the digits of a latitude and longitude of the next portion of the cache. We think we have everything, but our answer was sort of suspect (unless we changed some things based on common sense) and so we didn't pursue the second cache beyond taking a quick loo, around the location we think was the right answer.
Ted and I finished up with pizza at Flippin'. As we drove through Falls Church he marveled at all the changes (construction has started on the new Harris Teeter, there's the Hilton Garden Inn, etc.) that have happened "since he lived here". :)
It was a beautiful Spring day and I think we made the most of it. It was also Mother's Day, but we had celebrated as a family the night before and so we weren't being bad people by ignoring mom and going out for a hike.
Comments