Pandamania, Trip 6

We are not insane. I just want to see allof the pandas, that’s all.

We went out on our sixth panda hunting trip today. This trip was not as prolific as previous trips because we’re starting to go for the pandas that are out in the fringes. We spend way more time on the Metro than actually seeing pandas.

I’ve posted pictures on Flickr.

While we didn’t see as many pandas today, we saw a lot more that were intersting than on our previous trip. Here a just a couple of my favorites:

Bearnaked Ladies
Crouching Tiger Hidden Panda

Oh and one other thing we saw was almost too weird to be beilevable. When we approached the Panda of the Opera, there was a little girl there with a Crayola marker, drawing on his vest. Where were her parents? Her mother was standing there watching. What is wrong with people? Fortunately Andrew walked up the the girl and gently pulled the marker away from the panda and said something like, “These are not to draw on.” The mother and daughter then returned into a nearby restaurant. If I had taken care of the situation, I would likely be in jail right now for assault and battery. What f*&#ing nerve.

Pandamania, Trip 5

We went out for our fifth panda-hunting trip today. This time we used the Metro a bit more than on other trips, picking up smaller pockets of pandas in downtown DC.

One of our stops was at the Shops at 2000 Penn. There were originally two pandas inside the mall in 2 pandas outside the mall; however, this has become a sancutary for the pandas that have been vandalized in their original locations. As a result, there were actually about seven pandas inside the mall. The ones that have been moved included Red Pandagon, Cro-Magnon Panda, Jazz-E Panda, and The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, all of which we’d already seen in their original DC locations (though, the Cro-Magnon Bear had already been vandalized before we saw him). In addition to these bears, Rail Fence Panda, Coin Panda, Booted (which we’d tried to find on our last trip), and PandArt! are now in the mall. It was quite upsetting to see these vandalized bears in the mall, and I nearly cried when I saw what the vandals had done to PandArt!. People are so inconsiderate.

I’ve posted pictures on Flickr.

Pandragon II	Dreamtime Walkabout
Pandulum
Pandominium, The Bird Sanctuary

Pandamania, Trip 4

Yup, that’s right. We went out Panda Hunting again this weekend. My secret goal is to see all of the pandas without completely wearing us down. When the Party Animals were in town a couple years ago, we didn’t go out until late in the summer (September, even?), and we wore ourselves out for two weekends seeing as many as we could. I wanted an earlier start this year, and more manageable trips each time.

I’ve posted pictures on Flickr.

We saw many, many cute and fun ones today. It was refreshing to see some new ways to do Washington landscapes. Most of the landscapes we’ve seen, both in the Pandamania exhibits and the Party Animals, are traditional, which, while nice, get old after you’ve seen a couple. This time we saw a couple neat ones, specifically Panda-a-round town and Phosphroescent Panda.

It was diffucult to pick just a few favorites, but here goes:

Panda van Gogh
Panda-Monet-um
Bearly Discernable	A little lizard on the bear…hee hee hee
China Doll	Detail of her hair decoration

Arlington Oddness

On our way to the Rosslyn Metro Station yesterday, after panda hunting, we saw a couple weird things. First, on the Key Bridge, we saw these faces painted on one of the cement squares:

Andrew commented that it looked like the Sliders guy, Jerry O’Connell. Then, after we crossed the bridge, we saw this:

Andrew realized that the face was the same as what we saw on the bridge (plus, there was another face painted on a concrete pillar on the other side of the sidewalk).

Anyone know what this is about??

Pandamania, Trip 3

We went out for our third trip panda hunting today — the trip we’d planned for Saturday, but had to abort due to back pain. Fortunately, Andrew was back up to par today, so we took advantage of the holiday.

I’ve posted pictures on Flickr, but here are a couple of my favorites from the day’s trip:

Peter Panda, that shows scenes of the story of Peter Pan:

The Pur-r-r-fect Panda:

We stumbled upon another group of panda-hunters at the Pur-r-r-fect Panda, a mother and her two kids. She told us where we could find the official printed map up by Gallery Place. We’ll try to seek that out on our next trip to see the pandas near the Capitol Building.

Biking the W&OD on my own

Andrew and I were going to go down to Georgetown to go panda hunting, but Andrew’s back started to spasm about half an hour before we were going to leave. He seems to be doing okay, but it continues to twinge at odd times, so it seemed best not to do all that walking today.

So, I packed up my bike and drove up to the W&OD trail to get some biking in. I first tried to park at the Hunter Mill Road lot, but the car in front of me got the last spot, so I drove down to Vienna and parked there. The one thing I had forgotten was that while biking out of Vienna, north towards Reston is all on a slight down-grade. That’s all well and good, but that means that the last 3 miles of the trip back to the car is on a slight up-grade. That’s a miserable ride, especially with temperatures of 85° F and 50% humidity. Oh, and I reached bicycle-seat intolerance around mile 8, making that last two miles a real joy. Oh well, at least I got out and met my 10 mile goal.

Total miles: 10.1

Biking, Odd Sermon, and Errands in Vienna

We went out on the bikes again today, though this time just up to Vienna for a few errands (a stop at the bike shop to get Andrew a kick stand and me a small bag to carry an extra inner tube and a few tools).

On the way, we took a picture of a sermon title Andrew had spotted earlier in the week:

(I googled “+cat +bedpost +tie” and found the origin of this sermon title on several pages. Here is one called, The Center of Your Home. Do a search for “cat” on the page if you don’t want to read the entire sermon.

Andrew pointed out that this is similar to another urban legend where the bride cuts off the ends of the brisket because that’s the way her mother prepared it.)

Total miles: 8.0 miles

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