Great Falls
November 9th, 2009
Yesterday was a gorgeous, warm November day that felt like it was somehow leftover from the first week of September. I went hiking out at Great Falls (on the Virginia side) along with my friends Riles and Alison, as well as Bowser and Alison’s dog Winston. There was lots of tromping through the woods, into leaves and puddles, as well as plenty of homemade trail mix and Riles’ backpack (very important for carrying the trail mix). Bowser and his little legs did surprisingly well, walk-running the entire hike and still not being tired at then end of it.
It always amazes me that, even while living in the city, it only takes a 30 minute drive and a quick walk to be in the middle of nature, and what feels like the middle of nowhere.
Malcolm X Park
October 25th, 2009
Taken on Saturday, October 24th, the worldwide International Day of Climate Change . In our neck of the woods, that included a gathering in Malcolm X Park followed by a mass bike ride to the White House. There were over 5200 similar events around the world. Check out the rest of the photo set here .
I happen to like this bridge
September 28th, 2009
Not much to write about this morning, especially after one of the worst sports weekends in DC area history, at least that I can remember… So here’s a photo I pulled from the archives, taken 3 years ago in March, of the old stone bridge on Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park. We used to run in that direction, over the bridge, more frequently when we lived at our old apartment, but it’s been awhile now. When we would go by, I always expected an old troll to be sitting under it, eating little children or whatever it is that trolls do. Now that the leaves are starting to change, it would be a good time to go back and see it.
better wear your highwaters
September 2nd, 2009
This morning was one of those mornings where I really wish I was strapped with more camera fire power than my blackberry camera phone. But alas I was out doing a training bike ride and that is not the most conducive activity to lugging around a DSLR. The waters over the Washington Channel and the lawns of the East Potomac Park Golf Course had a very strange effervescent mist wafting along their surface. Combining this with the soft light of the morning and the reflecting lights from the SW Waterfront in the Channel brought about a very eeire scene.
The photo above I snapped on my way out of Hains Point when I noticed that the Channel was running extremely high, so high that it had flooded the banks along a large portion of the river walk that wraps the island (or is it a peninsula?). These benches are often utilized by older gentlemen getting in a morning fish/read/smoke and enjoying the sunrise. Clearly that was not an option today. Not sure what would be causing the high water levels, maybe a remnant of the weekend deluge.
giant bird bath
June 16th, 2009
We took a nice little evening sit in Meridian Hill Park the other night and watched some giant birds take a bath right in the center of the fountain waterfall. Seemed as good a place as any…
Dumbarton Oaks
May 20th, 2009
We’ve written about it before, Dumbarton Oaks, our favorite garden in the city. We visited this past weekend, again 
, with my parents. The rose garden was in full bloom. Good time of year to go!
eat me
April 16th, 2009
What a crazy little mushroom, just hanging out in Rock Creek Park. It definitely looks poisonous, but I am not much of a fungus expert, so I’ll probably never know. An orange mushroom Flickr search lands some really cool pictures though.
Drummers
November 14th, 2008
On Sundays there is often a drum circle in Meridian Hill Park , so we went to check it out last weekend. We were probably on the late side–it was close to 5:00 in the evening– so by the time we arrived there were just these two guys tapping away. It seemed like the old guy was teaching the younger guy as if it was his first time there. I sat and listened for a little bit while Matt took this shot. It was definitely a good background beat for fall in the park, but we gotta go back later to catch a bigger group of drummers…
Chucktown by water
October 6th, 2008
DC this is not, but we got back from our little jaunt down to Charleston, SC over a week ago and I had still not posted any of the pictures from this lovely city. This shot is from a little sail boat cruise that we decided to take on our Saturday evening. It was a “two-hour tour” but thankfully we did not get shipwrecked like Gilligan and crew of the S.S. Minnow.
All things considered, Charleston would not be a bad place to get “shipwrecked” and have to stay for a while. The historic core was beautiful and had more restaurants and bars than you could shake a stick at. Tremendous efforts had clearly been made to maintain the size, scale, and character of the development, redevelopment, and growth in and about the downtown area. This is great from a preservationist point of view but I felt that the area could really be re-energized by some new development and more progressive architecture. Part of the charm of old European cities (much, much older than Charleston) is the way that the fabric of the city has been able to absorb new ideas and adapt to tasteful changes in architectural styles and forms. This enriches the built environment in these regions and allows you to see them as living, growing, changing cities instead of ones that locked in to a certain time period and refuse to see beyond their own immediate horizon. Judging by the number of permits that I saw in the windows for the most minor changes to the exteriors of the buildings I suspect that it would take a paradigm shift in the thinking of the Charleston Board of Architectural Review to see new development of this character.
As you get away from the historic area (which as far as I could tell only inhabited by tourists and which “locals” generally avoided) and closer to the University of Charleston the town started to feel a bit more real. Throngs of people were out on King St. doing general life things, shopping, getting groceries, going to class, working out, etc, etc. Marion Square had a lively farmers market that made the market downtown feel like a cheap flea market full of worthless chotskies and overpriced sweetgrass baskets. Marion Square also supplied Charleston with a much needed open piece of green for residents and passer-bys to congregate in and partake in the oh-so-important activity of people watching. The historic area had Waterfront park which was equipped with a few “wading” fountains and offered visitors some beautiful views but lacked a central focus and was too spread out to ever seem very populated. It was a pleasant enough place to go and read if you could snag one of the swinging benches but the location and design of the park kept it somewhat isolated from any of the “action” happening in the city surrounding.
The scale and speed of Charleston was ideal for seeing on a nice beach cruiser style bicycle. We rented a couple of these from our hotel and perused the town. As the city itself is not very large this allowed us to get a nice quick lay of the land within a couple hour time frame. At the end of the day we enjoyed our time in Charleston very much and while the city seems to have a bunch of things to work on it I would be hard pressed to name a more “pleasant” town with seeming genuinely nicer people. That being said I think I would start to get a bit claustrophobic if I was to spend an extended amount of time here, at this point in my life anyway….maybe I’ll work on getting that vacation home down there…
a grenade. awesome.
October 1st, 2008
My commute was rather long this morning, and I just found out why. There was a grenade found in Rock Creek Park, just off 16th Street. Obviously this picture has nothing to do with it, because I couldn’t get anywhere close to the scene… and also it’s not that autumn-y here yet. But anyways, where does a grenade in the park come from???
