Pandamania, Trip 2

Our bike ride today took us directly past the Reagan National Airport, where there were four of the Pandamania pandas.

I’ve posted pictures on Flickr, but here’s my favorite panda not only at the airport, but so far in our hunting:

Biking to Alexandria (Second Time)

Last year, one of our final bike trips was from the Rossyln Metro station down to Alexandria along the Mount Vernon Trail. This year, we got off the Metro one stop earlier, at Courthouse, and went from there to Alexandria. While this added a couple miles to the trip, it didn’t actually add to the difficulty, because the extra bit was all down hill.

I took a couple pictures along the way:
Toward Downtown DC (it was a hazy day, so this isn’t the greatest pic)

A cool ship docked in Alexandria by the Torpedo Factory:

The George Washington Masonic Memorial:

Along the way, we stopped at Regan National Airport to see the Pandamania pandas there.

Total miles: 14.5

Pandamania

Andrew and I decided to head out to DC this morning with our bikes and the map for this year’s city-wide art installation of Pandamania. So, we hopped the Metro to the Farragut West stop, with the intention of seeing all the panda’s in the northwest part of central DC.

I’ve posted pictures on Flickr, but here are a few of my favorites from our first trip out:

Total distance: 7.2 miles

Sigh and Yay

Here’s Arthur:

Completely unsuspecting that I’m about to betray him today. He’s been a very good car. He’s gotten me through 3 years of graduate school, 1.5 years of the “real world” and 1.5 years of part real world and part grad school. His original mission was to get me through to my PhD, and he probably would have done it, too, if I hadn’t taken some time off. But with the two flats in the last month, and especially with the nearly $1k work that needed to be done with him, I thought it might be time for him to retire. Sigh.

We took Arthur to the Toyota dealership today to test drive a new Corolla. I think he started to get nervous when we pulled in. He was a bit relieved when we left after the test drive, but that was short-lived, because we were only heading a mile down the road to the Honda dealership. He breathed a deep sigh when we left the Honda dealership after test driving a Civic, and probably felt pretty good when we stopped for lunch down the road. But, he knew what was coming when we headed back to the Toyota dealership. To his credit, he took it well. He didn’t whimper or cry (which is more than I can say about me). He did give me look, and I tried to reassure him that he’d been a great car, and that I appreciated all the time he’d put in for me, but that didn’t seem to make him feel much better.

But, here’s the new car that’s now parked in his spot:

Don’t get me wrong — I like the new car. I just need some time for the loss of Arthur to pass.

They never do this!

And, it didn’t last very long — Duncan jumped off about 5 minutes after I took this picture.

Wedding Napkins and Favors

The personalized napkins and ribbon we ordered came in last week. I was worried that they wouldn’t turn out, but they look great:

I used the ribbon to start tying up the favors in little tulle circles….that’s going to take forever! Though I was able to do about 30 tonight in just under 2 hours. I have about 50 more to do for the VA reception, but then 125 or so for the MN reception (plus, I still need to make more soaps for the MN reception).

Three Lounging Kittens

Two in one room:
   

And the third in another:

Artemis and Felicia

I bought a new outfit for Felicia on Friday, so she wanted to try it on and work on her thesis in my office. But not a few minutes later, I found her catching a few winks with Artemis:

Biking to Reston

I’ve been trying to think of fun bike trips that Andrew and I can make — like going to Hole in the Wall Books in Falls Church (we were about a block from there, as it turns out, when we stopped and turned around last weekend).

In last week’s Sunday Source, there was a blurb on a fun-looking mini-golf course in Herndon. We decided to look at our VA bike trails map, and see if there was a way to get there by bike. We found something promising and it was going to be about 7 miles each way if we started from the point on the W&OD trail where it crosses Hunter Mill Road. Andrew was concerned that I’d be able to make that, but I reminded him that besides being stubborn, we would be stopping and taking a break after the first half, so I should be fine.

So, we put the bikes on the car, and headed up. I noticed that I was going fairly slow much of the way (8-9 mph), so was concerned that last week was just a fluke, but later realized that the entire trip out was on an incline. It was a small incline, but incline none-the-less. Our plan was to follow the W&OD up to Wiehle Avene, then take Wiehle to Baron Cameron, Baron Cameron to the Reston Parkway, and the REston Parkway to Drainsville. That would have at least gotten us close.

Well, the sidewalk on both sides of the road disappeared from Wiehle just after North Shore Drive (the second time we crossed it, because it’s a big loop around Lake Anne). So we decided to take the North Shore Drive to see where it would take us.

It took us to a farmers market and craft sale in a little shopping area around Lake Anne. Cool! We locked up the bikes, found Reston’s Used Book Shop, browsed the crafts, bought some kettle corn, and sat by the lake. It was a very pleasant morning diversion.

When we left, we continued around North Shore Drive (spotting Baron Cameron Avenue just outside the farmers market), and headed back to the car. Total miles: 9. It’s not as far as last weekend, but the way was much, much more hilly. In fact, I made it up two hills I never thought I’d make…cool!

Cicada Update

My count continued over the weekend:

• Saturday, May 22, saw a bunch: 1 flying outside the door as Andrew left in the morning; 8 on my errands into Vienna; another 9 while running errands with Andrew. Total: 18
• Sunday, May 23, the count officially comes to an end. When I went out to get our bikes out of the shed, I saw a dried out cicada outer shell hanging on the door of our fence (not sure what it’s called, but when they crawl out of the ground, they generally attach themselves to a nearby tree and they develop an hard outer shell which they then shed).

  I screamed, and then calmed down a bit, until I looked over and saw two more shells on the fence, and a cicada. Andrew came over to see what was wrong, and then sighed, “This is going to be a long bike ride, isn’t it?”

  We got the bikes out, drove up to the W&OD trail, where more cicadas attached themselves to our bikes and then flew away.

  I stopped counting when I got to a bazillion. At that point, it’s really not useful to count anymore.^*

Here are a couple of the shedded-shells on our fence:
   

The sound of the cicadas is becoming annoying. There are so many of them that in the background it sounds like the hum of phaser fire, but it’s not intermitent — it’s constant during the daytime. I work in a trailer, and I start to hear the cicada drone about 10-15 feet before I get to the outside door. I just imagine that when I get out I’m going to see the horizon glowing red from the alien phasers that are surely razing the city.

^* A bazillion is mathematically like infinity. A bazillion plus one is still a bazillion. In fact, a bazillion plus a bazillion is still a bazillion. So, counting beyond a bazillion is just silly. (And I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Math to prove it.)