Bike to the blossoms

Despite the over night snow, I decided to hop on my bike and ride into DC to see the cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin. The weather was in the 30's when I left my place which definitely helped keep the tourists away (Yeeeeees!). Usually there are so many people it's near impossible to really enjoy the simple beauty of the trees at the Cherry Blossom Festival.

The bike ride was 4 miles from Arlington to the Tidal Basin. Using the W&OD Trail, Custis Trail and the Mt. Vernon Trail, I pieced my way along the Potomac quite easily to my destination. On the way back, I went along the Mall and Constitution Ave, through Georgetown, went on the C&O Canal path and then back over the river via the Key Bridge. DC is super easy to bike to from Northern Virginia. Check out the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) site for great information and trail maps.

Some background on Washington, DC's famed cherry trees: In 1912, Japan sent 3,020 cherry trees to the United States as a gesture of friendship. First Lady Taft and the wife of the Japanese ambassador planted the first two trees on the Northern end of the Tidal Basin. Each year the National Cherry Blossom Festival is held around peak bloom which can vary from early March to early April. Predictions from the Chief Horticulturist often help determine when the festival will be held.

The Mt. Vernon Trail along the Potomac

'Low Tree Limbs Ahead'

Jefferson Memorial in the background

FDR Memorial

The Washington Monument

C&O Canal in Georgetown

Doing Philly in a Day

The other week I was contemplating a destination for a road trip since it was President's Day and I was long overdue for an adventure. My roomie (who was at home for the holiday weekend) and I started Gchatting and ultimately I wound up with an invite to Philadelphia. The last time I was in Philly was in 6th grade on a field trip to Valley Forge, Independence Hall, and Betsy Ross's house. It was time for some new perspective on the place.

I left Arlington around 7:15am after hitting up my favorite Dunkin Donuts for a cup of road trip French vanilla coffee. After plugging my roomie's address into the GPS, I decided to take I- 95 so as to keep time on my side and allow a full day for any spontaneous deviations. This proved to be a fantastic idea. I got up there in no time, though I was $11 poorer from all the tolls!

On the exit ramp, I saw a sign for Villanova. I knew Villanova University was somewhere in PA, but I had no idea it was near Philly, let alone 5 miles away from my roomie's place! It was part curiosity, part wanting to size up another CAA school, and part knowing some alums that made me reposition my car and follow the signs to the university. The place was teeming with prospective students and their parents- luckily parking wasn't an issue. I grabbed my DSLR and hit the campus!

It was nice to stretch after a few hours in the car. The first building I saw was the chapel, which was beautiful inside. I then did a long lap around the main part of campus, saw the football field (JMU's is wayyyyy better!), went into the student union, and even got mistaken for a student by a family visiting the school! Not to keep my roomie waiting too long, I jumped back in my car and hit the road.

We drove into the city and lucked out finding a reeeealllly tight parking spot. The Franklin Institute was the first stop of the day! Everyone and there mom was there because it was a holiday aka. tons of kids, strollers, and loud parents. The lines were ridiculous. Fortunately, we called ahead and the roomie had a family membership which got us a shorter line and entrance into the Leonardo DaVinci exhibit for free. The exhibit was very interesting and it explored Leonardo's folios (Codex) in depth with life-size recreations of his inventions. The thing that bugged me the most were the grammatical errors on the displays. To save my sanity, I refrained from counting the number of punctuation marks outside of quotation marks.

We went around the rest of the museum, walked through the giant heart, saw an IMAX movie, and had some chili at the cafeteria. Note: I was taken aback at how cheap the food was. I'm used to Smithsonian prices that jack up the price of food threefold. At this point it was close to 4 pm so we hopped in the car and went to the Philadelphia Art Museum to do the obligatory Rocky poses at the top of the steps. Parking was a cinch near the water, behind the building. The thing was, it was freezing cold out and walking all the way to the front of the building was not such an appealing option. So we decided to walk through the museum.

Yes, you have to pay to get into the museum, but we were well aware of the fact that if you act like you own the place and go about your business, no one will question you. We were so right. We walked right in and found a hallway that led us to an elevator which eventually led us to the main entrance. If we wanted to game the system, in theory, we could have seen all that art for free. Anyway, we went outside and took pics a la Rocky (along with all the other tourists)- it was kind of epic!

We left the museum and headed to Jim's on South St for my first real Philly cheese steak. Oh man, was it good! I got mine with whiz and onions. I loved looking around the place and seeing all the pictures and autographs of the famous people who visited. Denzel Washington's was in the corner (you know a place is good if Denzel endorses it). Since I had work the next day, I headed home after Jim's. The drive back took an hour longer because I took a non- toll route west through Lancaster County, and York, and it started snowing heavily around Baltimore. All in all, it was an easy and doable road trip only a few hours from DC!