A Hike to Raven Rocks

Quarantine can make you a little stir crazy. In particular, I knew that I’d be absolutely stuck at home for the next two days while we have a minor home improvement job done, so I felt a strong urge to get out of my usual haunts and go somewhere different today. The problem is it was a really hot and sticky day. I didn’t feel like roasting myself out on the water, and I didn’t necessarily want to commit to a long bike ride. For a while I’ve been itching to go for a hike – an itch that only intensified recently when I came across the Japanese concept of “forest bathing”, which is sort of mindfully immersing yourself in the woods. Some friends of mine were performing at B Chord Brewery out in Bluemont (about 15 miles past Leesburg), so I decided to head out that way, figuring that if the timing worked out I would stop by and see their performance after my hike. I chose the Raven Rocks hike on the Appalachian Trail: about 5.5 miles round trip of very steep, rocky terrain, but with a reward of an excellent view at the destination.

Reading about the hike online, the first thing I noted was that there was limited parking at the trailhead but plentiful parking at a lot less than ¼ mile up the road. Don’t park along the roadside, the writeup warned, or you’ll be towed. I knew I had reached the trailhead when I saw a small parking lot and a whole bunch of signs saying Don’t Park Here or You’ll Be Towed. Well, I could see one such sign – there were cars parked in front of the rest of them. I guess people aren’t willing to add a short walk to their hike? I didn’t like having to worry about my car all day and so parked at the spacious lot up the road and walked back along the shoulder to the trailhead.

The hike is part of what’s known as the “rollercoaster” section of the AT – continuous ups and downs, ups and downs. This hike was a series of steep ascents and descents: a descent from 1,100 to 1,000 feet, back up to 1,100 then down to 800, then back up to 1,200 to get to the summit. According to the listing for this hike on HikingUpward the total elevation gain for the hike is 1,530 ft. For the sake of comparison, the Empire State Building, including spire and antenna, is 1,454 ft tall. So this hike was like walking to the top of the Empire State Building, climbing the spire and antenna like King Kong, then walking up another eight flights of stairs in 90 degree, humid weather on very rocky terrain.

Stupidly rocky terrain (note trail blaze on the tree dead center)

Crossing the state line

My kayaking friend Randi has a bumpersticker that reads, “My dream vacation is your worst nightmare”, and in a similar vein, I’m sure some readers of the last sentence thought, as they were reading it, “this is what you do for fun?” Actually it was quite a nice hike. Yes, I was sweating like a pig, and yes, I was concerned enough about the rigor of doing steep and rugged climbs in the heat that I was monitoring my pulse throughout. But the forest was shady and beautiful, and when I crossed the state line into West Virginia and made the final climb to the summit I was rewarded with a stunning view of the valley below. I settled into a quiet spot to take a break and have a snack. I soon noticed two small lizards moving about nearby. Eastern fence lizards, it turns out (I looked it up later). They weren’t skittish and let me get fairly close to take pictures. Well, let me tell you, nothing beats sitting on a rock ledge looking out over a beautiful view on a sunny day in the company of two adorable little lizards.

Vista at the top

Lizards!

Striking a pose

Can one have too many lizard pix? I think not.

The hike back seemed shorter and maybe a little cooler. At the top I had checked my water supply and realized I had consumed maybe a third of my water and so drank more generously on the way down. A little too generously, since I wound up running out of water before the end – but only ½ hour or so before I reached the trailhead, so not a big problem. As on the way up, I passed by a fairly steady stream of hikers going in the other direction. Everyone was careful about giving each other lots of “social distancing” space. My favorite was a young backpacker who was blasting Jerry Garcia’s “They Love Each Other” as he hiked. I guess a little Jerry helps you get through the day.

When I reached the trailhead I used the remote start feature on my car so by the time I reached the car it was cooled off inside. Getting into the car was a machayah (a Yiddish word meaning something refreshing – literally, something that revives the life in you).

I changed into a fresh shirt and headed over to B Chord, but when I got there I could see that the show was already over so I turned around and instead went to Dirt Farm Brewing, about 2 miles away. I had heard Dirt Farm has a beautiful setting and indeed it’s true – they’re up on a hillside and you can sit out on their patio (at socially distanced picnic tables) and enjoy a great panorama of the valley below. I ordered their Bumpah IPA, a glass of water, and indulged in a bag of potato chips because I was really hungry (I had brought only snacks – not lunch) – but I limited myself to only half the bag, because, y’know, salt and fat. The beer reminded me of Sweetwater 420, which is brewed to have a smell and taste reminiscent of the skunkiness of marijuana (“420” is some sort of reference to marijuana – look it up). I’m not a fan of the skunky experience and so 420 has never been my favorite beer – I also associate it with my stressful year running the DARPA TRAPS project, since it’s the beer available in the Delta Airlines lounge at Atlanta airport where I’d always change planes, but that’s a story for another time.

The view from the Dirt Farm patio - no hiking required

Skunky beer aside, it was still pleasant to have a cold beer in such a scenic setting after a strenuous hike. Since I was by myself I didn’t linger long and soon headed home. The combination of the heat, exertion, and alcohol delivered a knockout punch and as soon as I got home I crawled into bed and passed out for an hour or so, waking to find the electricity in my house in a weird, browned out state where some things worked while others didn’t, but that as well is a story for another time.

An experiment with bike camping, Part 2

Foxes have a cry that sounds a lot like a small child in great pain. They seem to particularly love letting loose with this cry in the middle of the night. At 2 AM I popped awake to the sounds of screaming, spent a little while listening intently for footsteps, in case the madman who was torturing children in the woods was coming for me next (BTW, there's always the noise of something rustling about in the woods at night, and it's very easy to convince oneself that it's a madman coming for you). After a few minutes I managed to get my adrenaline level down and realize nothing was amiss, but it still took me a while to fall back asleep. At one point I tried one of the insomnia remedies I use at home, which was to listen to nature sounds through headphones, but it turned out that really wasn't an appropriate approach when the thing that had startled me in the first place was nature sounds. Instead I put on a podcast - my other nighttime balm dating back to the sleepless days following my heart surgery - and soon dozed off.

I awoke at 0530 feeling pretty rested, all things considered. Fox shrieks notwithstanding, I generally sleep well in a tent, particularly when the weather is as comfortable as it was on this trip. I wanted to get an early start to get out ahead of some forecast rain showers. I did take the time to make coffee and have breakfast, but right afterwards I broke camp and hit the trail. Without all the water and food I was running a little lighter and made slightly better time, though I did stop more often to take in the views and fiddle with audio. I finished the audio book of my friend Lisa's CNN history and replayed the podcast I had listened to in the middle of the night in order to hear the part that I had missed after dozing off.

On the ride home

During Ted's visit he and I had gone out and done some geocaching together (he's still actively into it and it's a fun thing to do together) and so I had it on the brain. There are no geocaches hidden directly along the C&O Canal as it's National Park Service land and NPS frowns on geocaches, but I did detour off the trail at Point of Rocks to find one. Riding up into town also gave me a little opportunity to feel what it was like pulling the trailer on paved roads. A little easier, but deadly up hills.

Stopping in Point of Rocks to look for a geocache

Point of Rocks has a cool old train station

The rest of the trip back was uneventful and I arrived back at the car ahead of any rain. Hooray! A mid-Atlantic summer camping trip that wouldn't require drying out gear once I got home! I walked around Noland's Ferry a bit but there's really not much there - it's just a defined parking area with bathrooms and one old building (not open to the public).

Back at Noland's Ferry

As I mentioned in my previous post, this was a dusty trip. When I got home I hosed down each item - including the bike and trailer - to get the dust off it before bringing it into the house. Fortunately, it was very fine dust and wasn't caked on. A quick shpritz with the hose was all it took.

Dust on the front fork of my bike

So, the trip was a success. I learned that travel fully loaded is slow. I probably brought too much stuff. My kayaking friends (many of whom are also cyclists) were quick to offer me recommendations on how to reduce my gear in response to my Facebook post about the trip. I didn't overdo it on food, but I probably could have lived without my (admittedly ultracompact) cot. I probably could have just stayed in my bike gear instead of bringing clothes for camp. Considering what a lightweight drinker I am, I could have brought a smaller flask of bourbon (I had been too lazy to transfer it to a smaller container). I brought cooking gear I didn't need for the simple food I prepared, and it's possible I didn't need my tarp (I used it to cover the bike and trailer overnight rather than as shelter). Did I need a bike lock? Probably not, though as a lifelong paranoid New Yorker I felt better with the bike and trailer locked up overnight. After all, it would have been really bad if the madman had used my own bike to get away after murdering me. Not that it would have mattered to me at that point. And I need to use more compression sacks to squeeze my volume down. But that's what this trip was for - to do the experience in a naive way and learn from it. All told, an enjoyable outing and a successful learning experience.

An experiment with bike camping, Part 1

Over the years I’ve backpacked, kayak camped, and car camped, but I’ve never tried bikepacking - that is, a camping trip by bicycle. I did do a couple of American Youth Hostels trips back in the 70’s, but those were hostel to hostel, not tent camping. Plus, they were such disasters that I don’t like thinking about them even today.  

I have a goal of riding the entire Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) trail, which runs 150 miles from Cumberland, MD to Pittsburgh. Under normal circumstances the logistics of this trail are pretty easy - there are lots of towns along the way with services catering to trail users. Food and lodging abound. Unfortunately, right now is not normal circumstances, and any trip along the GAP would have to be much more self-sustained - tent camping rather than inns, and less reliance on restaurants. Things might get easier over time, but in the immediate term in the world of coronavirus, some of the more civilized options, which means more contact with people, are unappealing. So I’ve decided that if I’m going to do the GAP any time soon, I had better be prepared to do it in a self-contained way.

As a first step towards my GAP trail goal I decided to experiment with a one night bikepacking trip on the C&O Canal towpath. For the record, the C&O connects to the GAP so one could start in Georgetown and bike the 300 miles all the way to Pittsburgh. In fact, last year Ted hiked from DC to Pittsburgh. But right now that’s a bridge too far for me - baby steps, baby steps.

The first thing I did was to see how my camping gear fit into my old bike panniers. Now, I have fairly compact camping gear - sized for kayak camping - but I don’t really have my gear down to backpacker level. I stuck my tent, sleeping bag, air mattress and a few other basics into my panniers and found that just those items used most of the available space. There was no way I was going to be able to do a trip with just those bags. In recent days I have justified any number of impulse purchases under the notions of relieving quarantine boredom and keeping businesses afloat during the pandemic, and so I ordered myself a bike trailer. I think that with the trailer and panniers I still have maybe a half to two thirds the storage space of a kayak (without loading the trailer to the sky, that is), but the trailer gave me enough capacity to carry the basic gear I needed for a short camping trip.

One consideration is that I wanted to be as self-reliant as possible. Normally, the C&O campsites have water pumps, but these had been disabled due to coronavirus and were only beginning to be re-enabled. The campsites have Porta-potties as well, but given coronavirus, ... eeeew. As a result, I brought my own water with me - a little more than a gallon in addition to the two water bottles on my bike - which only added to the weight I was carrying. As it happened, the water pump at this site is indeed functional, but seeing how many people stopped and pumped water from it while I was setting up camp, I really had no desire to touch it. I also brought all the food I'd need; the towpath passes near lots of towns, but there was no telling what would be open in any of them. As for the Porta-potties, I brought a WAG bag in case I needed one. 

My bikepacking rig

I loaded my clothes, food, and a few other items into the panniers. Everything else went into big dry bags to be carried on the trailer. Fortunately, from kayak camping I have a good inventory of dry bags. They’re useful for organizing gear, they keep stuff dry (duh!), and three of the big ones I have fit perfectly on the trailer. I was ready to go!

I lucked out with the weather too as I headed for Noland’s Ferry. June in the DC area can be hot and sticky, but I was blessed with cool weather - highs in the 70's, lows near 60. Sunny on the first day, but with a chance of showers on the second. 

I didn’t have a feel for how difficult it would be to ride a fully loaded bike plus trailer on a gravel trail, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be looking to ride all day, so I headed out mid-day with the goal of hitting one of two campsites: one near Harper’s Ferry that meant about a 20 mile ride, or one near Shepherdstown that would mean about a thirty-something mile ride.

Riding with the full load didn’t seem particularly difficult (fortunately the towpath is flat!), but I soon realized I was moving at only about 7.5 MPH. I am a *slow* cyclist. On paved roads or trails that means about 12 MPH (normal people ride at 15, and serious cyclists can sustain much faster speeds than that). Even for me, 7.5 MPH is surprisingly slow. Reaching these campsites was going to take a little time. Fortunately, I had a perfect day for it. In addition to the cool temps, the trail is shaded so there was no issue of the sun beating down. I put in my earphones and cued up an audio book and y’know, time just passed. The trail is pretty - under a canopy of trees, mostly along the river. It’s generally flat and straight. The only challenge I ran into was a spot where a bridge is washed out and the temporary detour involves a steep descent down rough gravel followed by a very narrow wooden bridge, followed by an equally steep ascent back to the trail. It was steep and slippery enough that I couldn’t even walk the bike and trailer together - the rig started getting away from me to the point where I had to steer it into an embankment to stop it. I unhitched the trailer and walked it and the bike across separately.

Narrow temporary crossing

While the riding seemed easy, I’m a little out of shape from months of pandemic sitting around. After about two hours my butt started to hurt. When I reached Huckleberry Hill campsite I had been riding for three hours and I decided I didn’t want to ride another two hours or so to get to the Shepherdstown campsite, so I made the decision to make camp at the closer site. I was only three miles past Harpers Ferry and it was only 4 PM and so after making camp I decided to ride back and see if I could get some food in town. Unfortunately, the bridge across from the Maryland side to the WV side is still closed - a train derailment a while back rendered the pedestrian bridge, which is part of the railroad bridge - unsafe. So, I could see the town but I couldn’t get to it. Instead, I biked to the trailhead of the Maryland Heights trail and did a short - but very vertical - hike up to the Naval Artillery viewpoint (named after artillery that was emplaced there during the Civil War). By the time I got back to camp it was pushing 7 o’clock. Time for the simple, no cook dinner I had brought. 

At the campsite

At the Huckleberry Hill campsite

After dinner I poured myself a generous glass of bourbon and settled in to watch the sunset. The campsite sits above the river bank, and there was a trail right down to the water's edge, where I stood and watched the explosion of color of a truly spectacular sunset. I recited the Shehecheyanu prayer, which is said in appreciation of reaching special occasions and new or unusual experiences - not for the sunset (of which there's one every day) but for experiencing my first camping experience of the year. Once it got dark I called Valerie, then retreated to my tent and watched part of a movie before turning in for bed.

A truly stunning sunset

One thing I didn’t expect is how dusty I’d get riding the trail. It hasn’t rained in a while and I guess in dry weather just riding kicks up a bunch of trail dust - covering my bike, the trailer, and all the bags (wrong day to wear all black cycling gear!).

Dust on the front fork

I will say that people on the trail are generally friendly. As I was setting up camp a few other bikepackers rode by and said hi. I even saw a woman on a tadpole trike like Valerie’s towing camping gear in a single wheel trailer.

        

Seen at Maryland Heights

Oh, and someone lost some goats!

Cherry Blossoms

We wouldn't let a little plague get in the way of a cherry blossom paddle, are we??

This year planning a cherry blossom paddle was complicated by the fact that right about peak blossom time the nation was spiraling down into the coronavirus pandemic. Restrictions were changing every day and we were all a little nervous about paddling. This being the DC area, we had to watch what three different jurisdictions were mandating, as some of us come from Virginia, others from Maryland, and we paddle in DC. In the end, while Stay At Home orders weren't yet in place, Suzanne (rightly, I think) decided that it wasn't cricket for her to drive all the way from Baltimore to paddle. Tom, who is leading the global crisis response from his basement*, wasn't available to break away and go paddling. That left Rob, Jim and me (two retirees and one guy who's not particularly motivated about his job) to do a nice Thursday afternoon paddle.

We were of course diligent about personal distancing (née social distancing). Suzanne had warned us that there was a Meetup outing at Columbia Island earlier that same day and sure enough, we ran into them on their way back. Personally, in a time of pandemic I wouldn't have organized a big Meetup group outing of any kind, but y'know, vive la différence. To tell you the truth, it's a little much to be calling them a "group", as they seemed to have been paddling in a pretty dispersed way, with kayakers straggling back in ones and twos over a long period of time. When we arrived there were a few people already on shore, and when we launched 45 minutes later there were still people coming in. It made it a little hard to maintain personal distance at the boat ramp - I spent a bunch of time sitting at a picnic table away from the ramp just to stay out of the way of close contact with returning paddlers.

The three of us set out into what had been forecast to be calm conditions, but as we headed south under the 14th St. bridge the wind and waves started to pick up. This made me a little nervous as I had worn my wet suit rather than dry suit and the water was still a little cool for a wet suit. Under benign conditions it wouldn't have been an issue at all, but we soon found ourselves paddling into waves tall enough to roll up over our decks and land in our laps. We really weren't at any significant risk - conditions like we encountered are not a challenge for us, but of course in my head I was thinking about the 0.1% chance that a wave might catch me and capsize me, in which case I would have wound up pretty cold! By the way, COVID-19 was the reason I didn't wear my dry suit. My suit has an unusual configuration. It zips across the back, and it really takes a partner to zip it for you - and with 6 ft. social distancing in force, I didn't want to ask anyone to stand right next to me and zip me in and out of the thing.

Anyway, we strained our way down the river, checking out the pretty blossoms along the way. When we reached Hains Point we took a short break then started back. I had been in the rear the whole way downriver (into the wind/waves) but on the way back the waves were coming from behind us and I started to catch some nice rides surfing the waves. I like to think that at least part of that was based on skill - on knowing how to stay on top of a wave and ride it - though Jim later attributed it to the hull shape of my boat. In any case, I wound up far out in front. I had to keep moving at least somewhat to stay stable, and as slowly as I tried to paddle I kept staying way out in front (I did keep checking behind me to keep an eye on where I was relative to Rob and Jim).

Finally, just below the 14th Street Bridge Jim caught up with me. He and I started chatting (that was when he complemented my kayak's ability to surf). Per our plan, we crossed under the bridge and then prepared to cross the river paralleling the bridge. We stopped to let Rob catch up with us and suddenly realized that he was no longer in sight. Where the heck was Rob?

We turned around and paddled back a little bit looking to see if we could find him, but didn't see anything. Then Jim noticed what looked to be someone clinging to the Hains Point fence a ways down the river. Whuh oh. We took off back downriver towards whatever/whoever that was - Jim damn near gave himself a heart attack, he was paddling so hard. When we approached we realized this was not, in fact, Rob. Rather, it was some guy launching some tiny motorized skiff over the fence. How he got there, how he got the boat into the water, and why he thought that was a good place to launch were all beyond me, but as soon as we realized it wasn't Rob it was no longer my problem. What was my problem was that there was still no sign of Rob anywhere.

I know from long experience that Rob likes to break off and check out things that interest him, and he's a fast paddler so he has the speed to go off exploring and then get back to a group. So at that point we figured that most likely Rob had gone off on his own and we'd find him at the marina, and if not it would be time to call 911. There also would have been a lot of explaining to do to Rob's wife, who had accompanied him as a chance to go for a walk and get a change of scenery from being trapped in the house.

The 14th St. bridge is actually five different spans, and with all the different supporting piers the sight lines in the area of the bridge(s) are pretty poor. Rob had indeed broken off early to cross the river and at the point when we first realized we couldn't see him he probably wasn't all that far from us but we couldn't see him with all the obstructions from the bridge spans. Likewise, he had seen us cross under the bridge, but then from his perspective we disappeared as well (likely when we went back to look for him) and so he then turned around to go look for us (on the other side of the river, though). Eventually we all spotted each other and we made it back to the marina without further incident.

Rob, not invisible after all!

Lessons-learned:

1) We should have had our radios on. I had mine with me and eventually turned it on. When Rob lost track of us he tried to hail us on the radio, but that was before I turned mine on, and Jim didn't have his.

2) Stay with the f*cking group.

3) Always maintain situational awareness of the others in your group.

4) Even under the worst of circumstances, cherry blossoms are beautiful!

We all made it back safe and sound. We each loaded our own boats (no touching each others' gear), said our six foot distant goodbyes, and vowed to paddle again the following week. Alas, by a week later the Stay At Home orders were in effect and all of our usual launches were closed. I'm glad we got out when we did - who knows when we'll be able to paddle again?


*OK, "leading" is an exaggeration, but it's safe to say he's contributing more to the response than many members of the Administration 

Loudoun Lockdown

It's a little hard to write an outdoors blog during a "Stay At Home Order", but at least I did get to sneak out one last time before the lockdown hammer dropped. I had been planning on doing a Loudoun gravel ride anyway - I even had a route laid out and loaded into my bike GPS. As it happened, just about the time I had planned to head out my son David stopped by to pick up his mail (three years after he moved out, why do checks from his clients still come to my address?). Valerie, David and I spent some time chatting, but once I heard the rumors that a lockdown was coming I excused myself and headed straight for Purcellville.

Gravel riding

Wildflowers

For those not in the cycling world, gravel riding is a thing. I don't know exactly why it's a thing, but it is. Actually, maybe I do know why. A quick search of a "Why is Gravel Riding So Popular?" thread in the gravelcycling sub-Reddit (see, it must be a thing if there's a sub-Reddit for it) reveals some obvious answers: a chance to ride quiet roads that aren't chockablock with high speed homicidal drivers (n.b.: on country roads one may avoid the high speed traffic, but there is always the chance of an encounter with a homicidal redneck pickup truck driver), beautiful country scenery, a great workout from extra effort that's required to move a bike over a rough surface, and of course the lack of road-biking culture. Since I never miss an opportunity to do so, let me take a moment to trash the obnoxious culture of road riding - roadies are the people riding in packs in matchy-matchy Lycra outfits, and if you can't match their fast pace in a tight pace line, they have no use for you. Elitist, competitive, obnoxious.

So, gravel cycling offers a more mellow, in touch with nature workout - much more my kind of experience. Plus, if you for some reason want all of your internal organs vigorously rattled until you feel that your internal organs might start leaping out of your body, there's nothing like riding a no suspension bike down a washboard gravel road.

That about sums it up

One downside to gravel riding is that for those of us in urban environments it can't be done close to home. The closest unpaved roads to me are out in Loudoun County, a good 45 minute drive from home. So, I don't get to do it too often, but I enjoy it when I do!

Holsteins

A new friend

I parked in the nearly empty parking lot of Harmony Middle School in Purcellville (when I set it as a destination Google Maps warned me it might be "closed permanently" - ulp!). There was a cop in a police cruiser sitting near the front of the school, but he didn't seem to mind my being there. I pulled out my bike and geared up, including a new innovation. As mentioned above, I have a bike computer/GPS device which I had loaded with the route I was going to ride. Through a mechanism that remains a little bit of a mystery to me (by this I mean that there's no app explicitly handling this this connection), the bike computer connects to my phone. It was about 2 PM and I knew the release of the Executive Order initiating the lockdown was imminent. I stuck an earphone in one ear (leaving the other open for situational awareness), started the local news radio station streaming, and headed off. It worked out really well - I had the radio playing in my right ear, and every time I was due to make a turn the bike computer would beep and the radio would momentarily be interrupted and the GPS would deliver directions in my ear - just like GPS in the car. After the lockdown news report I switched to podcasts. Listening to something really makes the miles fly by, and the turn-by-turn directions are great, as I do have a nasty knack for missing turns when I'm out riding in the countryside.

Horse farm

Sadly, Loudoun keeps getting more and more built up and along the way more and more roads are getting paved, so my ride switched back and forth a lot between paved and gravel roads.And have I mentioned the wind? This was something I hadn't anticipated. The weather overall was just about perfect - sunny, 70-ish temperature, but oh, the wind! Blowing from the west at 20+ MPH (according to Weather Underground, peak gusts were 29 MPH). I started out riding right into it, and after a few miles I wasn't sure whether to even continue. Actually, the first couple of miles were pretty miserable overall. For my route, I had cut a 40 mile loop I had found online in half and the extra connecter part, which is where I started, was classic no shoulder high speed traffic riding. But then I made a turn of off the highway of doom and ... graveltopia! Well, I was still riding into the wind, but otherwise it quickly got pretty bucolic. Open vistas, mountains in the distance, farms, barns, animals, flowers, rolling hills - climbs steep enough to make you work, but not so long and steep as to challenge the stitches in my patchwork ticker.

The donkey

Let me tell you, this part of Loudoun has some pretty spectacular houses, too. Big, estate-sized homes on acres of land. I enjoyed looking at them (I wouldn't enjoy mowing the lawns). When I got home I looked up the area on Zillow and was amused to discover that only the largest homes were worth more than my dumpy little Arlington house. Yes, I could trade in my life for 5,000 sq. ft., a two car garage and three acres in Loudoun. But I wouldn't want to.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the ride. It was a beautiful day, the scenery was great and I particularly made sure to experience it to the fullest knowing it would be a while before I could do a ride like this again (while outdoor exercise is allowed under the pandemic lockdown order, it doesn't seem right to by traipsing all over Virginia during an order to stay close to home).

Country vista

Toward the very end of the ride I noticed that my rear tire was losing air. I had three choices: keep riding and hope I got back before it went totally flat, use my precious compressed air canister to fill the tire, hoping that even with a slow leak it would hold me long enough to get back, or stop and change the tube. Well, I knew I had maybe a mile left to ride and could walk it if I had to, so I opted for the first choice, figuring I could use the other two as a backup. I made it - barely.

Overall, a great ride and I zoomed home on cruise control in what ordinarily would have been peak rush hour - lockdown does have its silver linings.

The Old and the New

As I pedaled my bikeshare bike across Roosevelt Bridge in the darkness, the thought occurred to me that it's 9:30 on a Friday night, it's pitch black, it's cold, I'm 57 years old and I really should be spending Friday night in my easy chair by the fire. Comfortably bundled up against the chill and staying warm by pedaling, I smiled broadly and thought to myself, "No, I think I'm living my life just about right." But I had to do some thinking to come to that conclusion.

Have you ever gone back to someplace that used to be intimately familiar to you, like the neighborhood where you grew up or your college campus? Being there is instantly familiar to you and of course the scenery is part of your history, but at the same time you feel disconnected from it. Well, I've got to say that there are big parts of my life I've felt this way about since my surgery. Just the other day, on an unusual 65 degree February day, I bundled up in my dry suit and went kayaking. As I launched, the  thought that popped into my head was, "oh, yeah. I remember this is something I used to enjoy." Hmmm.

Anyway, I had wanted to see the lanterns display at the Kennedy Center - a garden of artistic versions of what I would call Chinese lanterns placed there in honor of what I would call Chinese New Year. Apparently, for the sake of pan-Asian inclusion they called the exhibit "Winter Lanterns". Jeez, it's the War on Chinese New Year!

The display was there for just a short time and the previous night I had planned on going turned out to be inclement. That left Friday. Except I already had plans to to meet some old work friends for a happy hour. We met at Meridian Pint in Arlington, where there was a celebration going on in honor of the release of Talking Backwards IPA from Ocelot Brewing. The atmosphere was pretty festive, and we each had a few of the 11% alcohol Talking Backwards beers. The impact of the high ABV wasn't is as bad as it might have been, as they serve the stuff in smaller glasses to balance the higher alcohol content. Let me say, an 11% beer packs a wallop and two full pints of the stuff would have put me on the floor.

When happy hour broke up, perhaps the sensible thing to have done would have done would have been to have gone straight home, just few blocks away. Instead, I headed to my office where, after going upstairs to use the bathroom (because, beer) and grab something out of my office (a whole other story), I left my car, walked out of the building and grabbed a Bikeshare bike. I took the bike down onto the Mount Vernon Trail, which was pitch f-in' black. Bikeshare bikes have only tiny little LED headlights on them - just bright enough to allow me to follow the painted stripe on the bike path if I really concentrated. Fortunately, I know this path well and was able to navigate without issue. Once I made the turn onto the bridge visibility was better. I biked across the river to the Kennedy Center, where I found the Bikeshare rack full. There was another one nearby with an open space.

Rabbit zodiac sign

Undersea

As I hope you can tell from the photos, the display was super cool. There were different themed areas - Asian zodiac, undersea, pandas, plants/mushrooms, and for some reason some giant squid-looking things. I had brought my Micro 5/3rds camera, which looks like something of a "real camera". Interestingly, people kind of get out of the way when you're shooting with an impressive-looking camera rather than a phone. There were lots of people there and it was a fun atmosphere, like looking at a big public Christmas display or something.

I wandered for probably an hour, including going in and checking out the new building they recently opened at the Kennedy Center. Then I grabbed another Bikeshare bike and pedaled my way back across to Rosslyn, where I picked up my car and went home. If they do this again next year it's a must-see.

New York

A little write-up of my trip to New York.

Every year a group of my high school friends gets together for dinner in Manhattan around holiday time. I try to attend when I can, and this year the stars aligned well: I was overdue to visit with my brother, and the weekend of the high school "Duck Night" dinner (so named because it's held at a Chines restaurant called Peking Duck) was the same weekend as my brother's birthday.

I took the bus up to New York, something I hadn't tried before. It probably took me an hour longer in each direction than driving would have, but I didn't have to worry about having a car in New York and at $30 each way it was cheaper than driving.

I took an early bus so that I could make it to New York in time to grab lunch and see a matinee of a Broadway show before heading out to Brooklyn.  I had recently bought Valerie some really pricey tickets to see John Groban, which made me feel a little less guilty about treating myself to a ticket to Hamilton (expensive, but still $100 less expensive than Josh Groban!). Amazingly, a couple of single seats to this extremely popular show were available days before the performance - I snapped up a seat in the second row of the balcony, which was sure to afford me a good view unless someone with a head like Mr. Met sat down in front of me - which is of course exactly what happened.

The bus leaves you off near Penn Station - a very familiar neighborhood for me, as it is where my dad's/grandfather's office was, and I worked at Penn Plaza when I was in college. My first action was to drop off my suitcase so I didn't have to schlep it to the theater. After 9/11 the Port Authority did away with baggage storage lockers at Penn Station, so private businesses have taken over bag storage. Not that there are bag storage businesses per se; rather other businesses now store bags. I dropped my back at Jason Office Supply on 31st St. How it works is that they give you a numbered tag to place on your bag and have you take a picture of it. When you come to pick up your bag you show them the bag and the photo to prove you're grabbing the right bag. Storage isn't exactly secure - the suitcases are all just sitting in a back corner of the store, not locked up in any way, but the tagging offers some security. Payment is based on the length of time you have the bag stored, which is driven not by an app but by a web site where you start and stop a timer. That part doesn't work perfectly. Two weeks after my trip I got an email from the bag storage company saying my timer was still running and asking if I had retrieved my bag. The good news is that there was no hassle when I told them what time I picked up my bag, and they charged me accordingly.

Having dropped my bag off, I walked uptown and grabbed lunch at Ben's Deli. Now, Ben's is not one of the classic been-there-forever New York delis, but the food is quite good and it's in the theater district and was the only deli I had time to get to before curtain time. I eat red meat very, very rarely, only on special occasions - the opportunity to get genuine New York deli pastrami counts as a special occasion (my other two red meat meals this year were sampling a Vietnamese colleague's homemade pho soup, and a burger after I got back from my Georgian Bay trip). I ordered chicken soup with a kneidel (matzoh ball) and a half sandwich - "half sandwich" being the deli term for "normal sized sandwich". Delicious! Having so feasted I continued on to the theater - again on foot.

A "half sandwich"

Hamilton!

What show did I see? Hamilton! It lived up to its reputation, though I have to say I'm glad I listened to the score in advance. There's no spoken dialog; the show is entirely in song, and most of that song is rap. It can be a little hard to understand. Hearing it in advance helped. Overall, it was great (at least what I could see of it around Mr. Met's head was). The quality of performances in New York productions is just a cut above, as is the whole of the production - choreography, sets, etc. A really good time.

As I started walking back down to retrieve my bag I realized I had somehow lost my scarf so I ducked into Macy's Herald Square to see if I could pick up a replacement. I was looking at a nice wool/cashmere scarf when a salesman came over and said, "Can I pay for that for you?" Then, realizing what he had said he laughed and said, "No, what I meant was can I ring that up for you?" He and I wound up joking about it, then talking about the holiday season and how we're both in the Hannukah camp holidaywise. He wound up giving me 30% off the price of the scarf - which is a good thing, because it was kind of expensive.

I picked up my bag and hopped on the F train to Brooklyn. Time between boarding the train and the first time a homeless person tried to hit me up for money? About 10 seconds. I love New York! Actually, the ride out to Brooklyn went without a hitch. I exited the train at Church Avenue (two stops north of the 18th Avenue Station, where people are seen fleeing in terror in the trailer from the recent Joker movie). This is my brother's neighborhood of Kensignton, which sits at the intersection of a Bangladeshi Muslim neighborhood, an ultra-religious Jewish neighborhood, a gentrified neighborhood with olive oil shops and gourmet coffee shops, and good old middle class Brooklyn - a typically New York crazy admixture of cultures. I wasn't staying with my brother - his apartment is already too full of people, dogs and stuff. Instead, I had booked an AirBnB in the Bangladeshi side of the neighborhood (though the host was Chinese). On looking at the building, an old two story multi-unit row house, I wasn't impressed. I walked in to a hallway filled with dozens of pairs of shoes all wrapped up in bags, and cracker boxes pinned to the walls as mailboxes. Hmmm ... Brooklyn hospitality is unique. Fortunately, the unit itself was quite nice, if a little bare bones. Quite clean, with Ikea-level furnishings. A full one bedroom apartment with kitchenette. Other than a very thin mattress, it was fine.

Creative mailboxes

What's up with the shoes and suitcases?

I visited with Henry and Colleen for a while, but I was pretty spent, as I had been on the go since 6:30 AM. Also, I was recovering from an intense if short-lived flu or bronchitis or something. I crashed and slept soundly.

When I got up Thursday I started my day by grabbing coffee and a bagel from a Bangladeshi corner bodega (only in New York would I refer to a convenience store run by Bangladeshis by the Spanish term "bodega", and only in New York would a South Asian convenience store sell bagels). I went for a run. I went down Ocean Parkway (America's first bike path) then across into my old neighborhood, past my childhood home, then back. I was pretty stiff from a day spent sitting cramped into the bus and a small theater seat, and my lingering bronchitis was aggravated by breathing out in the cold - but somehow I slogged my way through a jog. Then I went over to Henry and Colleen's. We didn't do much of anything. Just visited. Walked over and got lunch at Batata, a rather delicious Israeli/Middle Eastern restaurant, then lingered over coffee at Windsor Coffee. Yeah, chains have infiltrated Brooklyn to some extent and I'm sure there's a Starbucks somewhere (there's a Dunkin' Donuts in the heart of Bangladeshi Kensington!), but fortunately it's still mostly a world of local shops. Thursday evening I met my friend Charles - my oldest friend and my only friend left in Brooklyn - for coffee and dessert at a diner. That required a very expensive Uber (Ubers are pricey in New York due to some living wage law) but was money well spent.

My childhood home

Friday was Henry's birthday. We had plans to go out for brunch. Unfortunately, the place we had hoped to go (Hamilton's on Ft. Hamilton Parkway - named after, yes Alexander Hamilton) didn't serve brunch on weekdays so we wound up at a slightly less grand restaurant - but the food was still delicious.

In the afternoon I bid farewell to my family and took the subway back into Manhattan, getting off the train along the way to grab a picture at Astor Place - a station that figures in a song I wrote back in the 80's. I had booked a hotel in the city for Friday night. My room wasn't ready yet when I got there but I dropped my bags and went for a walk through the heart of New York Christmas - the tree at Rockefeller Center and the store windows on Fifth Avenue. It's very nostalgic for me. My grandparents lived in this neighborhood (up the street from Trump Tower!) and we always did this walk at Christmastime, ending up at FAO Schwartz toy store, which was an amazing place to visit as a kid). Sigh. Eventually I made it to my hotel and after waiting some more - and eventually throwing a fit at the front desk - I got into my room.

Rockefeller Center tree

Fifth Avenue

Bergdoff's store window (can you find the accordion?)

So nice to be somewhere where Gen. Sherman is considered a hero!

Duck Night dinner was wonderful as always. There's a core group that's always there, but there are also always surprises. There were a couple of people there I hadn't seen in person since high school. It was super cool to reconnect. The dinner always goes by quickly. We go out for drinks afterward. That goes quickly too. I stumbled back to my room around midnight.

Duck Night crew

Saturday morning I walked over to Ess-a-Bagel (Yiddish for "Eat a Bagel") on 3rd Avenue, where for breakfast I got a truly quality bagel and veggie cream cheese and a true New York "soup Nazi" ordering experience. Then I hopped the E train downtown and caught the bus home. Unlike on the ride up, the bus was fairly empty which made the ride a little more comfortable - but I still wound up a little queasy by the time I reached Arlington. Maybe long distance bus travel isn't for me.

Bagel!

Anyway, a great trip - family, old friends, bagels and pastrami ... but no pizza. Gotta leave something for next time.