Kitty's Sushi Roll Ride

Bike friend Kitty (real name: Grace) is a Japan expert. I mean that for real. Her degrees are in Eastern Studies and her day job has something to do with Japanse-American relationships. She has lived in Japan and recently returned from a trip there. She's also a serious cyclist and is a typically hyper-normal mid-Westerner while also being the kind of nutcase who shows up at events dressed as a penguin. So, I knew I would be good hands when she planned a Japan-themed ride, timed to fall in advance of the cherry blossoms so it wouldn't be a cherry blossom ride.

The weather didn't fully cooperate. We were at the tail end of a fierce windstorm that had descended on the whole east coast. Friday had been really crazy, with gusts up over 60 MPH causing our house to make weird moaning noises of a kind we've never heard before. Saturday was a little better, with winds "only" 20-30 MPH. As is my wont, I woke up in plenty of time but puttered around - breakfast, newspaper, stretching, coffee - until the point when I had to rush out the door to have any chance of getting there in time. Bundled up against the cold and wind, I hit the W&OD. The wind was at my back and I found myself doing incredible speeds - up over 20 MPH - with fairly little effort. With wind assist the trip to Rosslyn, which usually takes me about 35 minutes, took only 25. Crossing the "Intersection of Doom", I found the entrance to the Mount Vernon Trail blocked by a downed tree. Fortunately, it was the trunk blocking the path, not the crown, so it was possible to lift my bike over and then scramble after it. Another cyclist ... who turned out to be none other than Kitty ... hit the blockage at the same time. We helped each other over the tree and then continued on. Initially we rode together, but I told her to go ahead since she was in a hurry to get to the meeting spot. The meeting spot was a coffee place in Navy Yard. There was pre-ride coffee 8:15 followed by rolling out at 8:45. I had timed my arrival to be there for the ride start, not the coffee, so I was surprised to see that Kitty was on my schedule. Turned out she had gotten a later start than planned. She bolted ahead while I continued at my meandering pace. Obviously she got there first, but even with a restroom break at Columbia Island, I got there in plenty of time.

After donning some Japanese garb over her biking gear (not a kimono - too hard to ride in), Kitty saddled up and led us out. While I won't go into all the details of her well-researched and interesting presentations, I'll list some highlights:

• Stop at the Washington Navy Yard, where a delegation of Samurai made the first diplomatic visit of Japanese to the U.S. in the 1800's. Apparently they made quite a splash. According to Kitty, by the 1800's the Samurai class were no longer warriors so much as they served as the top echelon of government bureaucrats.
• A look at the Stone pagoda. This gift to the U.S. from the mayor of Yokohama in the 1950's is located near the FDR Memorial.
• A stop outside the Freer/Sackler galleries of art.
• Most moving, a visit to the Japanese-American Patriotism Memorial, which commemorates both the Japanese-American who were sent to internment camps during WW II and the Japanese-Americans who died fighting in the war.
• While the ride most definitely wasn't about the cherry blossoms, we did learn that the Cherry Blossoms symbolize life's fragility and beauty: the blossoms are a reminder that life is almost overwhelmingly beautiful but that it is also tragically short. I'm still working on the beauty part, but I'm for sure feeling the tragically short part these days!

Kitty gives her shpiel at the Sackler

By the end of the ride the sun had come out and the temperature had become quite comfortable. We lingered a bit and took group photos at our last stop, the Japanese Information and Culture Center (JICC). From there the group was continuing on to lunch at a Japanese restaurant above Georgetown. I have some sort of mild allergy to some ingredient/seasoning in Japanese food (I cough for the rest of the day after eating Japanese), so I skipped the lunch. I rode with the group as far a Georgetown then broke off and headed home over Key Bridge. It was on the late side of lunchtime and I got a craving for an Earl's salmon sandwich, so I made a little detour into Ballston for a lunch stop at Earl's.

Group photo at the JICC

It was an eventful ride. In addition to the places I've already mentioned we passed by the White House, biking past apparently just ten minutes or so before someone opened fire there, and saw the unveiling ceremonies for the Mayor Marion Barry statue. Wait, what?! There's a Marion Barry statue? Crack-cocaine abusing, woman-abusing, "Bitch set me up!" Marion Barry??!? 

Plus, I got a chance to visit the new DC WaWa market. Ted and I are big WaWa fans and so this was very exciting to me.

31 miles - my longest ride since surgery.

First Kayak Trip of the Year

This winter started out harshly. The "bomb cyclone" in January treated us to single digit temperatures coupled with strong winds. This makes the recent thaw - temps in the 40's and 50's (not to mention a few days with temps in the 70's!) - feel really like springtime. The river, frozen solid six weeks ago, started to reach the 50's as well. It was time to go kayaking!

Dressed for biking during the "bomb cyclone" super cold weather. I look ready for the planet Hoth.

Unfortunately, no one was available to go paddling last Saturday and it was a rainy day besides, so I didn't go. I awoke Sunday still burning with paddling fever, but the morning was rainy and chilly - not pleasant weather. Fortunately, the rain abated mid-day and I headed out on my own to go paddling.

Getting ready to launch

Yes, yes, you should never paddle solo, particularly in wintertime. Yes, yes, a person with my medical conditions probably shouldn't paddle solo. But life is a balance of risk and reward. After all, last summer I came closer than I expect to being shot while doing the seemingly safe activity of playing music at a festival. Today it almost happened again - someone opened fire outside the White House a mere ten minutes after I passed by on my bicycle. The lesson I draw from this is that you shouldn't be afraid to live your life - risk can find you at any time and place, so why cower from it?

First, I loaded the kayak onto the car and spent some time measuring how tall the car was with the kayak on it. I'm curious to see if I can fit into the garage at work with the kayak on the car. My method required the use of a level and, needless to say, my level was mysteriously missing (I'm betting David has it) but fortunately I have a backup. In fact, my backup level is a thing of beauty - an old wooden level inherited from my father's toolkit. The highest point on the kayak measured 6' 2". Now, to see how tall the garage is ...

I launched from Columbia Island. After going through the extreme contortions required to zip my dry suit unassisted (whose idea was it to put the zipper across the back?!) I launched and headed up the Boundary Channel. The channel is a few hundred feet wide at its widest and is extremely protected - I figured it was the safest route for me to take. Well, then again, it's pretty isolated. While I was unlikely to run into problems from wind or waves there, was never far from shore, and for most of it I could probably walk to shore if I capsized, if anything had happened back there who knows how long it would have been before anyone found me.

The days of rain combined with high tide put plenty of water in the river and the channel, which dries out at low tide, had plenty of water in it. The lowest spot, which is frequently barely navigable, had several feet of water depth. No problem. As a note, conditions were quite different a week later after our crazy windstorm. When I biked down the Mount Vernon Trail on my way to Kitty's Sushi Roll ride I was amazed at how the persistent Northwest wind had blown the water out of the river. The outermost spans of Memorial bridge were dry. The southern tip of Roosevelt Island extended half-way to Memorial Bridge. Rocks I had never seen before poked up above the surface. A little farther downriver it even made the news. But no problem today. Variability of conditions is one reason I never get tired of kayaking the same stretch of the river.

I basically did the Thursday night Pirates of Georgetown paddle, going up around Roosevelt Island. My only time on the river proper was coming back down the east side of Roosevelt; however, conditions were glassy calm and so I wasn't very concerned. Once down at the bottom of the island I ducked back into the protected waters of the Boundary Channel. Because it's usually navigable only at high tide it's rare to be able to take it both out and back.

It felt great to be back on the water!