In Pursuit Of A Bit Of Celebration

My niece Melissa is the inspiration for this particular celebration.  She successfully took up tri-ing several years ago. When I started swimming, both she and I made note that I now had the third skill necessary for a triathlon, with running and biking already in my scope of abilities.  She enjoys participating in organized public events, which are readily available in Houston where she lives.  Public events are not so readily available for me, plus I don't have the necessary road bike.

Thus, I chose to create my own event to celebrate the end of my swimming season and to welcome summer activities.  Swimming is in place from November through April.  Running is a year-round activity.  Biking is typically a summer activity because roads are closed & muddy and weather too cold for my liking during the winter.  With this event in mind, I started doing some indoor biking at the Aquaplex at the beginning of the year.  However, as winter weather dissipated and roads dried out, I was able to take my bike out of storage and  ride outside.  All elements happily coincided to make this celebration a reality today.

The sprint-tri distance for swimming is 1/2 mile.  I'm ready!

Ron generously agreed to come to the pool this morning to take these pix.

I drove to a forest road near home for the bike & run, which were both out-and-back.  This is the beginning and end:

Ready for the 12 mile bike ride:

and last, the 5K (3.1 mile) run:

SUCCESS!

I really enjoyed this challenge and found it nicely met my celebratory criteria.

A Visit To Our Nation's Capitol

WASHINGTON D.C.!!!

 

Ron and I are fortunate to have family living in many interesting places in the country.  His brother Ed and wife Paula live in Sterling VA, which abuts the District of Columbia.  Ron visited a couple of years ago, but this was the first for me.  Let me say right now:  IT'S A MUST!!!!!!

Paula is a teacher's aide at a local elementary school, and we planned our trip around her spring break.  Ed told us we would most likely miss the Cherry Blossom Festival, as the bloom is usually earlier than our trip was scheduled and has a short window.  Due to their late winter, however, we had the great fortune of arriving DURING the bloom.  This happy coincidence made the trip even more spectacular.  

Saturday:  Due to our flight time, we chose to drive ourselves to Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix.  What with security checks and so forth, our 0830 flight time required we leave home at

according to our dashboard clock.

Driving and flying were both without incident, and we arrived at Dulles International Airport as scheduled.  

Ed lives about 15 minutes from the airport.  He picked us up and drove us to suburban middle-class Sterling VA, where he and his family live in the attractive home on the left.

We were greeted by Paula, sons Jeremy and Joshua and their year-old sheltie, Bindi. 

Bindi is a doll!  She's well behaved, very friendly and full of playful energy.  Once she figured out I'd throw toys for her, our friendship was sealed for the duration of the visit.  

Ed and Paula live in the CountrySide subdivision, which has an active HOA that maintains beautiful  jointly owned properties that facilitate many outdoor activities.  Saturday afternoon Ed took us on one of the well-maintained walk/bike trails 

for my first view of a branch of the Potomic River.

Arriving back home, Paula served the first of a series of delicious meals; pork chops, rice, apple sauce, and lima beans.

We discussed the next day's plans, and decided to follow Ed & Paula's suggestion that we have my first experience riding a big city subway transportation system, the Metro,  to the Mall, then take in the most concentrated area of Cherry Blossoms around the Tidal Basin.

Sunday:  We got up about 6:30 to catch the Metro early enough to be ahead of some of the crowd.  The Cherry Blossom Festival is a major event and draws both locals and visitors.  We drove to the Metro station (parking free on weekends),  purchased Metro tickets (half price on weekends), and boarded.  The Metro is both above and below ground.  I don't know how fast we were going, but it was faster than the car traffic on the parallel freeway.  People were friendly and relaxed.

Reminder: you can double click on any of these pictures to make them full screen size.

We got off at the Smithsonian Station, called so because it's near this:

the Smithsonian Castle!  It was the first of the eye-popping edifices we saw this day.  We walked through this building without stopping.  As we exited onto the National Mall, I looked right and saw

the Capitol Building!

I looked left and saw

the Washington Monument!

It's hard to put into words how it felt to be in the physical presence of places I've only read about and seen as photos.  The exclamation points are only a token of the amazement I felt.

We walked to the Tidal Basin.  As described by Wikipedia, " The Tidal Basin is a partially man-made reservoir between the Potomac River and the Washington Channel in Washington, D.C. It is part of West Potomac Park and is a focal point of the National Cherry Blossom Festival held each spring."

 

Here are photos starting at the Jefferson Memorial! 

The FDR Memorial is behind this bank of trees

and around to the Washington Monument.

The walk way around the basin is through the trees.

The cherry trees were a friendship gift from Japan in 1912, and have continued to be a tie between our nations, despite the obvious break in relations during WWII.

Let me pause here to say that the National Mall area is a very popular destination, and especially so during the Cherry Blossom Festival.  One must immediately accept that you'll be there with thousands of your new best friends.  They'll be in your pictures and you'll be in theirs.


Inside the Jefferson Memorial

This is FDR's statue.  The whole of his memorial covers 7.5 acres!

MLK's statue! is new-dedicated in 2011.

The WWII Memorial! Each of the columns represents a State or Territory.

'Nuf for one day.  We went down to catch the Metro back to the car.

The Metro was now very crowded, and for awhile more people got on at every stop.  I stood, and at one point asked the young women sitting behind me if we were expected to sit on each others' laps..she said no, but it was okay if we ended up doing so!

Home for another delicious dinner planned & prepared by Paula.  Already on this first day my head  my eyes, and my heart were full.

Monday:  Today we used alternative transportation to go back to the Mall.  Ed & Paula have 4 bicycles and a rack for the back of their vehicle.  After Ed provided us with a hearty and delicious sausage-gravy breakfast, we loaded the bikes and drove 15 minutes or so to one of the parking lots that access a canal road that is used recreationally by bikers, hikers, runners, etc, and goes directly into Washington DC.  

Historically, this canal and its locks were used by boats to bypass the Potomic River where it was too rough.  Here's the lock house

 

and the lock.

and the river too rough

Though there are houses and highways in sight and hearing, the way is through woods and feels rural.  Until suddenly the city appears.  Then you're sharing the sidewalk, or in this case the boardwalk.  We had to walk our bikes here due to pedestrian traffic. Also of note is the large hotel in the background..that would be the Watergate Hotel!

After a picnic lunch, we began the day's tour of monuments and memorials.  This is the haunting Korean War Memorial.   

I found that the closer the war was to my personal experience, the more I was affected emotionally by the memorials.  Dad was a Korean War veteran;  Ron is a Vietnam War veteran.  Though I'd read about the Wall and seen photos, being in the presence of all those names and knowing they represented my generation's sacrifice brought me to tears.  People were very quiet in both the Korean War and Vietnam War memorial areas, adding to the impact.

The Lincoln Memorial! was stupendous.

This is the view from the Lincoln Memorial.  A bit of a breeze affected the reflection of the Washington Monument.

Among the other enjoyments of the day was to see how the National Mall is enjoyed by many people in a variety of ordinary ways.  It's really a park, a park that belongs to all of us.  People run, bike, walk their dogs, fly kites, play soccer, have picnics.  There are no bad views.  Every way you turn to look is a building, monument, or memorial of significance.

We next biked to this whimsical statue of Alfred Einstein at Ron's suggestion.  Ed and Ron posed with the great man.

Several blocks away from the Mall..the White House! 

This was one of the places I had that out-of-body experience that made me not sure I was actually where I was.

Our final stop of the day was at the US Botanic Garden.  It was getting late so we did a walk-through.  The featured exhibit was "Orchid Symphony" and included a piano, violin, harp and cello, each made with living plants.

 

Being at the far end of the Mall, we had a long enough ride back to the car, then home for more Paula-cookin'.  Tonight it was red beans and rice.  Paula is from the South, and it's a traditional Monday dinner when Mondays were designated laundry days and dinner needed to be simple and tasty. 

Tuesday:  A Rainy Day  We were all feeling the effects of two long days of being tourists, and chose to have a R&R day at home.  This day's storm had been the source of 10" of snow in the midwest on Sunday.  We were fine with it just being rain by the time it got to us.  We had a leisurely breakfast, played with Bindi, bribed Norbert with pieces of orange and nuts, and enjoyed visiting with each other, of course.  We lunched at a local Olive Garden, then decided to peruse the On-Demand channels for an afternoon movie.  "Seven Psychopaths" was the choice.....
 


"A struggling screenwriter inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends kidnap a gangster's beloved Shih Tzu." This description from the website IMBd leaves out the weird factor of this parody of serial killer movies.  Well reviewed, I found it hilarious, disturbing, & unbelievable in turns.

Paula made foccacia bread pizzas & salad-delish.  After dinner was getting drowsy, so On-Demand helped us get energized with "Jack Reacher".



Tom Cruise does a credible job playing his standard action-flick persona.  This movie is based on a series of books with Jack Reacher as the main character, written by author Lee Childs.  Ron is currently reading the series, and other than the difference between the  book character's  6'5"/250# and Tom Cruise's less-so physical presence, it was a good-enough telling. 

Wednesday:  Since Ed & Paula had never been to Gettysburg, we chose it as our destination today.  It's about an hour and a half north of Sterling, through both metropolitan and rural areas.  Very beautiful rolling hill country.  We arrived at the Visitor's Center,

where we made the choice to see a 40-minute orientation & history film and a 20 minute virtual re-enactment of some of the battle with a fantastic restored painting in the round call a Cyclorama.

With this in our minds we spent the rest of the day touring the battlefield, using a purchased CD guide that we played in the car as we went around the 24 mile loop.  The road is lined with monuments of all sizes honoring the various military groups that were there.  It's quiet now, and all but impossible to imagine the three-day battle that resulted in 51,000 casualties.

After the battlefield tour, we went to the Soldiers' National Cemetery

 where this historic event took place.

This is the very spot that Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address! 

This is a photograph of Lincoln at Gettysburg that day, discovered by historians in 1952.



A quiet drive home.  Paula's turkey and andouille sausage gumbo over rice was the evening feast.


Thursday:  We said our goodbyes to Paula at 6:10 a.m., and Ed drove us to Dulles Airport to catch our 8:14 flight.  We changed planes in Houston, and once again were fortunate to travel home without incident.  

This was an amazing trip for me.  Being in the presence of so much history made me feel both big and small.  Big because look what I'm so fortunate to be a part of!  Our country is fantastic!  Small because my privilege has been earned over and over by men and women who have been willing to give their intellects, their hearts , their souls, and their lives. 
 


"Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not n the mind." 

                                         ----Lionel Hampton