A Carless Weekend

I didn't have any plans for Friday night, but I was looking forward to spending a relaxing night with Jon.  It had been a busy week - dogsitting in Gaithersburg, fundraisers, etc, so a night of catching up on Glee sounded perfect.  (I admit - up until two weeks ago, I had never seen an episode of Glee in my life.  I can now say that I'm hooked, my favorite character is Rachel, and that I intend to watch the Rocky Horror episode next week even though I'm only half way through the first season.)

I took RideOn Route 47 from my office in Rockville to Bethesda.  Route 47 winds south past Montgomery Mall before hooking back east to the Bethesda Metro.  It was a great evening for a run, and after another unsanctioned pitstop at Starbucks, I took off for Van Ness.  I was pumped for the new running playlist that I had put together on the bus ride down to Bethesda.  I like routines (more on that in a later post) and I've got a running playlist of about 40 songs that I usually listen to in the exact same order.  In fact, on my normal run on the Sligo Creek Trail near my apartment in Silver Spring, I know exactly where I should be when a certain song comes on if I'm maintaining the pace I want.  (Of Montreal's "The Party's Crashing Us" comes on when I turn around at University Boulevard if I'm maintaining a 9:30/mile pace, for example.)  But it was time to change things up, so I rearranged and added some songs and put together the playlist to the right.


I was so zoned out that when I got to Chevy Chase Circle and crossed into the District, I exited the Circle too soon and took Western Avenue out instead of following Connecticut Avenue out.  I realized this... eventually... and checked the map on my phone to right my course back to Jon's apartment.  I ended up taking Reno Drive most of the way, which is a nice quiet street that I'll probably use in the future.  It's definitely less busy and I also found it to be a little less hilly than Connecticut.  It took me about 33 minutes to get down to Jon's.

Saturday morning I got picked up by Roger's campaign manager Heather to meet everyone in Potomac for the Potomac Day Parade.  It was a beautiful day, and the parade had a great turnout.  It marked one year since our first real campaign event, and I feel just as good now about being part of Roger's campaign as I did then.  I was grateful that Heather was able to pick me up and give me a ride back to Silver Spring - I could have ridden my bike but given that I had to get several things done that afternoon I was appreciative of the ride.

Saturday night Jon had box tickets to the Capitals game against the Atlanta Thrashers.  I was psyched, since I'd never been to an NHL game before.  It ended up being a great game:  Alexander Semin recorded his fourth career hat trick and the Capitals won 4-3 in overtime.  We took the metro both there and back - I forget that sometimes the metro actually is affordable.  Since for once I found myself actually riding the metro during "reduced fare" hours, it only cost $1.60 each way.

The coming week is my last week of carlessness.  Can't believe how quickly it's gone by.