[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on April 8, 2005]
Hello again! I'm still in Washington, getting ready to move back into the Gallaudet dorms for a second weekend after spending the week in a hostel. I apologize for the length of this message, but I've been busy!
This morning I rode the Metro to the Air and Space Museum and caught a shuttle bus from there to the museum's new annex near Dulles Airport, called the Stephen F.
This morning I biked to Shaw Ecovillage. As an urban nonprofit organization, it has more in common with the Rhizome Collective I visited in Austin than the ecovillages I've visited in rural areas. The basic idea is that the adults in the organization raise money and the kids -- teenagers -- decide how to spend it to improve the neighborhood. They've created community gardens, painted murals, and started a community bike shop. Because I visited during the school day, there were no teenagers at the shop, but the college-grad day managers, Max & Wakeel, were eager t
Today was forecast to be the only truly glorious day of the week, so I took my bike out for a spin. I followed about 3/4 of the Rock Creek Park bike trail, all of the Capitol Crescent trail, and the very end of the C&O Towpath -- that's the trail that Granny D covered on cross-country skis when she was running late for a press conference and an unexpected snow fell.
I tried to sleep in after staying out late last night, but I'm so used to waking up at dawn I couldn't help myself. I packed up and left Gallaudet for All Souls Church, riding through the neighborhood Marisa had warned me against last night, and I have to admit it looked pretty questionable in the daytime, too.
Late this morning I rode the Metro to the National Mall. I checked on the cherry blossoms, but most of the trees are still a day or two from full bloom.
Today's weather was just miserable: cold and rainy and windy. I stayed indoors as long as I could stand to -- Marisa let me use her computer while she was in a study group all afternoon -- but then I insisted on going out.
Marisa thought I was crazy, not only because of the weather, but because the neighborhood is considered to be very unsafe. I figured I had seen worse weather and worse neighborhoods, but I didn't make it off campus. By the time I got back to the dorm, my pants and shoes were soaked with shockingly cold water.
[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on April 2, 2005]
Hi, folks! I'm safe and sound at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC! It's hard to believe I've completed my three months in the South and crossed Virginia in less than a week!
I only had to ride about 2 miles on the highway today; near Mount Vernon I picked up a bike trail that parallels the Potomac River all the way into town. I stopped at a place called Gravelly Point for a first view of the Washington skyline, and I wound up watching a mother trying in vain to get her son as interested in the airplanes at Reagan National Airport as she was.
The wind shifted at bedtime last night so that I had to listen to the Interstate and railroad all night... they weren't loud enough to justify wearing earplugs, but the trains were loud enough to wake me several times. I got up bright and early, irritated by the highway that wouldn't leave me alone even in my sleep.
