Tag: travel

The Dahon

It is with mixed emotions that I write about my 2003 Dahon Helios XL folding bike. I’ve had this bike for 4 1/2 years and it has served me well, but I’ve decided to replace it. Tomorrow I should be receiving a brand new Bike Friday Pocket Rocket.

The Dahon was never my primary bike. I got it to ride around town and to take with me on trips (both auto and plane). The wide, low pressure tires do better on bumpy city streets and sidewalks than the thin, high pressure tires on my road bike. It has fenders and an internally geared planetary rear hub to deal better with the nasty weather I sometimes encounter riding to & from work. The rack allows me to haul my computer or other miscellaneous items. It folds up in about 15 seconds. It fits into a nylon bag that can be carried around. In about 15 minutes it can be disassembled further to fit into a standard sized Samsonite Oyster suitcase for airline travel.

2003 Dahon Helios XL

2003 Dahon Helios XL folded

Dahon Helios XL frame inside suitcase

Dahon Helios XL inside suitcase

Dahon Helios XL inside suitcase

The bike has been great and it has served its purpose well, but it’s far from perfect. It works well to get around town, but it’s not great for long rides… or fast rides… or uphill rides… or downhill rides. It’s a bit on the heavy side. The internally geared hub is low maintenance, but it has a lot of friction, it’s a pain to install and remove from the bike, and it’s difficult to adjust properly. My new Pocket Rocket should shine where the Dahon has fallen short.

I have flown to San Francisco with the Dahon 3-4 times and taken it on numerous car trips. It is my usual transportation for marathon watching (Madison, Green Bay, Des Moines, Chicago Lakeshore). Aside from that I ride it to work on a rotating basis with a couple of my other bikes.

I’ll leave you with some photos of the Dahon in action:

Rob on the Dahon during Chicago Lakeshore Marathon, 2004

Melissa next to the Dahon after Chicago Lakeshore Marathon, 2004

Rob after crossing Golden Gate Bridge on the Dahon, 2004

The Dahon on Lombard Street in San Francisco, 2004

Melissa running Green Bay Marathon with the Dahon’s rear wheel in background, 2005

Rob with the Dahon at Marin headlands with San Francisco in background, 2005

The Dahon folded up under Rob’s desk, 2008

The Night Before the Madison Marathon

We made it to Madison, picked up Melissa’s race packet, checked into the hotel, and ate dinner at the Olive Garden. Soon we will complete the pre-marathon ritual by watching American Flyers then go to bed. The marathon starts tomorrow morning at 7:10 am CDT. I will attempt to post updates of her progress either on this site (http://rob.ragfield.com) or on Twitter (http://twitter.com/ragfield).

If possible I will try to post some photos as well, but that will be a little more difficult. The problem is that I’ll be blogging from my phone, but there’s not a good way to get photos from my camera onto my phone (yes, my phone has a camera, but it sucks). I have all the hardware necessary to transfer the photos using two different methods, but neither method has the necessary software to work correctly. I have an iPod camera connector, which will download photos directly from a camera to an iPod, but this connector is not software compatible with the iPhone. Additionally, I have an Eye-Fi memory card for the camera that can automatically upload photos, but only to the internet (not to other WiFi enabled devices like my iPhone). I would surely love an easier way to transfer the photos.

Anyway, check back tomorrow morning and prepare to hit the refresh button in your browser.

Apparently one of the parking spots outside our hotel room is off limits…

The Stage Race

Last weekend in West Lafayette, IN some friends and I participated in a bike race. Actually, it was three separate bike races which together formed a stage race. My Wild Card cycling team had 6 riders in the cat 4-5 race: Thomas, Luke, Mark, Karl, Dan, and Rob.

The Criterium

The first stage on Saturday was a criterium in a residential neighborhood near the campus of Purdue University. Criterium races are okay, but they’re definitely my least favorite. The idea is that the course is very short and racers ride several laps around the course for a set period of time. After the set period of time the first person to cross the finish line is the winner. Crits are generally very fast with lots of turning in close proximity to other riders, so there’s a little bit more danger involved. Perhaps danger isn’t the best word. There’s just more possibility for mistakes, both by you and the other riders.

On the bright side the roads are closed to traffic. Err, uh, at least they’re supposed to be. After warming up a little we were informed that the race organizers were having some traffic control problems. First, the course was going to be shortened by half, leaving only a 0.6 mile loop. Second, a couple of the roads were going to be open to traffic!

In the words of GOB Bluth, COME ON!

As we lined up to start the race the officiant explained a few rules. He explicitly stated that riders who get lapped should stay to the far right of the road so as not to interfere with the lead riders. Fine.

The race started. There were 57 riders. Now on narrow residential streets that may or may not be open to traffic, we could really only ride three or four wide across the road. This meant there was a huge distance from the first riders to the last riders at the start, probably a quarter mile. The fastest riders only needed to gain maybe a third of a mile to lap the slowest riders. That’s exactly what happened, and it didn’t take long.

I started a little conservatively in the middle of the pack. The lap had a short steep hill (which was to my advantage), then a long downhill with a sharp turn at the bottom (which was to my disadvantage). I passed around four or five riders each lap for about 24 minutes of the 35 minute race. The leaders were still well ahead of me and were close to catching up and lapping me.

When I finished the lap it sounded like the race directors yelled at me (as well as everyone else) to get off the course. What? The next lap they did the same thing. The pace car passed me and the lead rider was not too far behind so I moved over to the right. When I finished that lap I heard more clearly what the directors were saying, and indeed they told me to get off the course. I stopped (many other riders had already stopped) and asked one of my Wild Card teammates what was going on. Apparently they wanted all lapped riders off the course (I actually hadn’t been lapped yet). Okay, I guess, but that wasn’t what they told us before the race. Why on earth did they change their minds in the middle of the race? I guess I’ll never know. Only 13 riders remained in the race until the finish. My teammate Thomas finished 2nd in the final sprint. Kudos to him.

I apparently tied for 17th place with every other rider who was pulled on the same lap. Since this was a stage race the finishing time actually did matter, so there was some confusion how this was going to work when the majority of riders didn’t actually finish. The organizers prorated the finishing times. I was a little over one minute behind the leader after 24 minutes of racing. Worst case scenario I would have been two minutes behind after 35 minutes of racing. So my prorated time was… 5:21 back.

Whatever.

The prorating was equally bad for everyone, so it’s not really worth getting too upset. But lots of people take themselves a little too seriously and there were about 40 super pissed cyclists after that race.

The Road Race

Early the next morning was the road race. The 22 mile race took place mostly on a four mile loop in the country that included a pretty big hill that was clearly going to be decisive. Again, I started in the middle and worked my way up to the top third or so before we reached the hill. Several riders dropped off the back of the group on the climb. The same thing happened the next lap, and each lap after.

I stayed with the lead group the whole race. The group was down to 25 or so riders by the last lap. I thought someone might try to escape on the last hill, but the strong headwind at the top prevented that. We approached the finish line as a big group. The pace started to slow, as everyone wanted to conserve energy for the finish. Thomas was again well placed near the front of the group, so I shot to the front and whipped up the pace to lead out the sprint for him. I led for 400 meters or so until the sprint started about 200 meters before the finish. Thomas finished 2nd again, though a different rider won. My teammate Luke was also in the lead group and finished 8th. I rolled across the finish line in 15th. I was much happier with the outcome of this race than I was with the previous race. It was good that I not only stayed with the lead group, but was strong enough at the end to try to help Thomas & Luke finish higher up. I didn’t really stand a chance in the sprint anyway.

The Time Trial

Finally, on Sunday afternoon was a 5.8 mile time trial. This is a race where each rider is timed individually, starting 30 seconds apart so they can’t work together. The course was the same as part of the road race, and it included the same big hill. As an experienced triathlete I generally enjoy time trials (which are identical to the bike portion of a triathlon). I also enjoy riding on hills. Perfect… except for one thing. Take a guess what that was.

The course was point to point and it was almost entirely into the wind. Heavy riders have a harder time riding uphill than I do. I have a harder time riding into the wind than many others. The reason? Physics. I’m fairly big/tall and I’m kind of lightweight so I have a high surface area to weight ratio. Higher surface area causes more wind resistance. Lower weight (mass) means less momentum one can use to counter this effect. I shouldn’t make excuses, but when it’s related to physics I can hardly resist…

I rode reasonably well, but not as fast as I would have liked. I tied for 19th place. I averaged around 21 mph into the wind, while the winner averaged around 24 mph. Thomas also tied for 19th, and Luke was 13 seconds faster in 15th place.

The General Classification

Since the time gaps between the riders were not that large after the criterium and the road race, the time trial results pretty much determined the final overall stage race results. Here’s how the team did:

Thomas 11th
Luke 12th
Rob 15th
Mark 29th
Karl 39th
Dan 46th

We were not quite as dominant as we were in Hillsboro, but we had a solid race.

The Race for the Cure

Okay, so this is a little late. The weekend before last Melissa and I travelled to Peoria for Mother’s Day weekend and while we were there we both ran in the Race for the Cure. We missed this race last year while we were in Nicaragua, and we were somewhere else the year before. Prior to that Melissa has run this race most every year.

This Peoria Race for the Cure used to be women-only, so I could go and watch but I couldn’t participate. A couple years ago they changed that and allowed men to run and walk at the event. I think this was a good change. For the actual race they still started the women first, so a woman will be the first person to cross the finish line. This is great. Unfortunately, they only left a 10 minute gap between the women’s start & the men’s start. That means that men running 18 minute 5k times will be finishing at the same time as women running 28 minute 5k times and finishing ahead of women running slower than that. Out of a field of 433 women, this turns out to be quite a few (around 250 according to the results).

The race itself went as well as I could have hoped. I ran 18:23, which is only 11 seconds slower than my last 5k and this one had more hills. I ran more even splits this time (5:53, 6:01, 5:53) than the last race, so I’m pleased with that. I finished in 6th place overall (out of 145) and 2nd 1st in my age group.

The only real problem, as I alluded to a moment ago, was that I had to dodge 250 women as I was running. We passed a couple of stragglers in the first mile. As soon as we hit the first mile marker we caught up with the back of the pack. Over the second mile there were people spread out maybe five wide across the road, which wasn’t that bad. There was usually a clear path along one side or the other. By the time we reached the third mile the runners were spread out more like eight or ten wide and there wasn’t always a clear path down one side or the other. So for the third mile we had to do some fancy footwork to weave in and out of the runners.

To put it simply, the 10 minute gap was not ideal. I like the idea of having the women start first in this event which is primarily aimed at women, but in that case the gap needs to be longer to give more women a chance to finish and clear the course a little better for the next wave of runners. Even waiting an extra five minutes would make a big difference. Waiting an extra 10 minutes (20 minute gap) would have cleared nearly all the runners off the course.

Despite my complaining, it wasn’t that bad. I was happy just to be able to run my first Race for the Cure. As Melissa mentioned we couldn’t track down any of the little cards to write down the names of people close to you who have been affected by breast cancer, but we certainly had them in our thoughts. My aunt Sharon passed away two years ago after a nine year battle with breast cancer. Despite her deteriorating health she was one of the most cheerful people I’ve ever known. She set great example how to live life to the fullest and I miss her dearly.

The Diabetes

I received a letter today from my health insurance provider that began as follows:

Dear Member,

Our records show that you have been treated for:
 • diabetes

The American Diabetes Association recommends that people with diabetes...

I don’t have diabetes, but I do appreciate the concern. I did have diabetes for a few weeks in the fall of 2006. Okay, I didn’t really have diabetes then either, but a Nicaraguan doctor told me I did, and who was I to argue.

It began with the unfortunate incident of my extreme dehydration our first week in Nicaragua that resulted in a trip across the island to the hospital. As I was lying in bed swatting gnats away a man came in the room and started asking questions (in Spanish) about my diabetes. This caused a great deal of confusion to both Melissa and me, as I didn’t have diabetes. Eventually, despite the language barrier, we realized the guy was telling us I had a very high blood sugar.

A normal blood sugar level is less than 110 mg/dl. 126 or higher is considered diabetic. Mine was 246. We tried explaining to the guy that I didn’t have diabetes, but he didn’t believe it. As we were trying to figure out what was going on we noticed the word “GLUCOSE” “DEXTROSE” printed on the IV bag that was draining into my arm. Hmm. We pointed this out to the guy and he agreed that a non-glucose IV would be better in this situation. Unfortunately, this hospital didn’t have one. So we took an “ambulance” ride (in an SUV) to the other side of the volcano to the other hospital on the island which did have non-glucose IV bags on hand.

We spent the night there. By morning my blood sugar had dropped to 170. By the next afternoon it was down to 101 and I was released. A couple days later I came back for a follow up and my blood sugar was 105.

My friend Brett mailed me a blood sugar testing machine, which arrived in less than one week (one of only two parcels we successfully received in the year we were there). I watched what I ate for 6 weeks or so until I took a trip back to the U.S. My blood sugar was holding steady in the low 90’s. My doctor at home verified that I did not in fact have diabetes.

Since that time I occasionally start stories with “Back when I had diabetes…”

The Highest Point in Maryland

On my way back from Washington D.C. last weekend I took the opportunity to knock another state off my list of high-points-to-which-I’ve-bicycled. The previous Friday it was Pennsylvania. Monday it was Maryland’s turn. Backbone Mountain, the state’s high point, is nestled in the far western corner of the state, within walking distance from West Virginia.

I spent a good deal of time studying the area with Google Earth on Sunday night in my hotel room. Oakland, Maryland was the clear choice for my starting point. This was only 25 minutes off I-68. The actual peak is not accessible by any road, so I made due with the highest point on the closest road to the peak (U.S. 50), which was conveniently labelled as the Highest Point on the Maryland State Roads System. Perfect.

I had a little bit more time for this ride than I did a few days prior in Pennsylvania, so I decided to do a slightly longer ride and make it a loop instead of simply turning around once I reached the top. Since I would be riding down the other side of the mountain, this meant that I would actually have to ride back over the mountain a second time on a different road in order to return to my starting point. The temperature was a chilly 39˚ when I started, so I bundled up.

Backbone Mountain ride map

The unfamiliar roads and dense fog made for some interesting navigation challenges. Like Pennsylvania, there were many rolling hills as I started the loop on U.S. 219. Soon after I turned onto U.S. 50 the road turned upward. The climb itself was shorter than Mt. Davis was a few days prior, but it was much steeper. I spent some quality time in my lowest gear moving along at what seemed like a snail’s pace, but I made it. Six states down (TN, NC, KY, HI, PA, MD), 44 to go.

Rob at the top of Backbone Mountain

Plaque at the top of Backbone Mountain on U.S. 50

I descended the mountain, turned a corner, then started going back up it again, only this time I was on a different road. The second climb seemed roughly the same length and steepness as the first, though it was even foggier. Again I spent much time in my lowest gear. From the top I coasted most of the rest of the way back to Oakland.

Backbone Mountain ride elevation profile

Once back in town I picked up a 12″ veggie sub on wheat bread with pepper jack cheese, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, pickles, green peppers, & black pepper from Subway. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize until I was driving out of town that the “lemonade” was actually some kind of disgusting carbonated junk instead. I think they must have had some hoses crossed in the fountain machine.

It was a nine hour drive back to Urbana from there. Interestingly, an hour or so later the temperature in West Virginia was around 70˚ and I was actually hot for most of the rest of the trip.

High Point Ride Information
Date: 2008-04-07 9:52 AM EDT
State: Maryland
High Point: Backbone Mountain
Elevation: 3095 feet
Climb Distance: 1.14 miles
Climb Ascent: 469 feet
Climb Average Grade: 7.8%
Climb Maximum Grade: 12%
Ride Distance: 26.8 miles
Ride Total Ascent: 2656 feet
Ride Maximum Speed: 38 miles/hour
Ride Start: Oakland, MD (2372 feet)
Ride End: Oakland, MD (2372 feet)

The Air and Space Museum

(Simpsons episode CABF05)

Warden: Look, he painted a unicorn in outer space. I’m askin’ ya, what’s it breathin’?
Homer: Air?
Warden: Ain’t no air in space!
Homer: There’s an air n’ space museum.

When I was younger I wanted to be a pilot and astronaut. This wasn’t just my answer to the question of “What do you want to be when you grow up, little boy?” I really wanted to be a pilot and astronaut. Every Monday night my dad & I would watch Wings, a show on Discovery channel that each week chronicled a different type of aircraft. I watched them all. I spent hours reading encyclopedias (remember those reference books that existed before the internet) about every single NASA space mission that had taken place. I had it all memorized. I hoped that one day I too would have the right stuff. My career ambitions may have changed over the years, but my fascination with flight and space flight remain. Needless to say, the National Air and Space Museum provided me with hours and hours of (free) enjoyment.

I woke up late last Sunday morning in D.C. after getting to bed late following the ASP reunion. I was planning to leave D.C. early that afternoon so I didn’t intend to spend much time at the museum, maybe an hour or two. Melissa & I toured the museum extensively when we were there in 2003, so I figured there probably wasn’t as much to see the second time around. I was wrong. My hour or two trip ballooned into four or five hours once I was within the museum’s walls. I covered every inch of the museum, aside from the National Treasures exhibit which inexplicably had a one hour wait.

There were many oldies but goodies. As soon as you walk in the door you are greeted by the Apollo 11 command module. The first humans to walk on the moon used this spacecraft to return to earth. Hanging just above that is the Sprit of St. Louis, the first aircraft to fly non-stop across the atlantic ocean.

Apollo 11 Command Module

Sprit of St. Louis

There were some new items added to the museum in the past five years. They added a test unit of one of the recent Mars rovers. Two similar rovers landed on mars in 2004 and are still performing experiments to this day. They also added SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded civilian spacecraft to carry a human into space (also in 2004).

Mars rover

SpaceShipOne

Then there were the interesting artifacts I new a lot about in the past, but had completely forgotten. Among them were the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, a joint USA/USSR space mission in the 1970’s where astronauts & cosmonauts docked their spacecrafts together (and presumably had some kind of party). Then there was Skylab, the first attempt at a space station by the USA (also in the 1970’s) that fell back to earth (nobody was aboard at the time) and crashed in Australia. Whoops.

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (right), Hubble telescope (backup unit, on left)

Skylab (backup unit, covered in gold foil)

Finally, something particularly interesting to me is the Gossamer Condor. This is a 70 pound bicycle with wings that was the first human powered machine to sustain flight. A similar machine to this crossed the English channel a few years later. I have a decent power to weight ratio, I could totally fly that thing :)

Gossamer Condor

So I stayed quite a bit longer than I intended. It was no problem. I returned to my quarters then departed D.C. late in the afternoon. My next stop was western Maryland, where a certain mountain awaited my arrival.

The Reunion

Last weekend in Washington D.C. there was a reunion of former ASP summer staff members. I worked for the Appalachia Service Project during the summers of 1997-2000 while I was in college. Around 75 former staffers descended upon the nation’s capital (well, a number of them already live there) for festivities.

ASP Summer Staff 1998 (I’m the one in the bright yellow shirt)

After a 12 hour drive (and a one hour bike ride) I arrived at the Potter’s House bookstore and cafe for some live bluegrass music. As soon as I walked in I recognized four or five familiar friendly faces… and about 30 very unfamiliar ones. Has it been that long?

I scanned the store and noticed my former staffer Jill on the other side of the room. The way ASP works is there is a separate center in each of 20 or 25 counties throughout central Appalachia. Each center is run by four staffers. Jill & I worked together at the same center in the summer of 1999. Great, I thought, I’ll go say hello.

Jill & Rob in 1999

As I walked about half way across the room I took another look, then I stopped in my tracks. Wait a minute… that’s not Jill… is it? She looks like she hasn’t aged at all. My confusion was further compounded when she made eye contact with me and showed absolutely no sign of recognition. This was a person I worked with very closely for several months, what’s going on???

While I was standing there, not knowing what to do, Phoebe walked by and I asked her if that was Jill. No. It was Jill’s younger sister, who looks exactly like Jill, and who apparently also worked for ASP. Well, that solves that mystery. The real Jill was present at the banquet on Saturday night. We had a good chance to catch up a little. She is finishing up with medical school and getting married soon. ¡Felicitaciones!

After the long drive and a few hours in the coffee house I was really ready for bed. Will works in D.C. for CEDC, a nonprofit that has dormitories, and he arranged for me (and a few others) to stay there fairly inexpensively. It was nice, and the price couldn’t be beat. I slept in a little Saturday morning before heading downtown to see the monuments.

In the afternoon, the event organizers planned a service project at the Capital Area Food Bank. Around 20 or so of us from ASP helped unbox bulk canned foods and reorganize and repackage them for distribution to individuals and food kitchens. It was a good time. I used the opportunity to get to know some of the younger people who were on staff in the years following me. Interestingly, a few of them already knew who I was. You get bonus points if you can guess how — The Rob Song.

After finishing up at the food bank I got ready and headed over to the banquet on the other side of town. During my cross town trip I encountered four roundabouts (traffic circles). Fantastic. Anyone who knows me knows that I love roundabouts. I believe they are the greatest traffic control device in existence. The problem is that D.C. has the worst roundabouts I’ve ever seen (in the U.S., Nicaragua, France, or Belgium). Typically, traffic entering the roundabout has to yield to traffic already in the roundabout, but traffic in the roundabout should keep moving. Not only did these D.C. roundabouts have stop lights (rather than yield signs) upon entering the circle, they also had stoplights inside the circle itself. ¡Que terrible! So instead of none of the traffic stopping ever, all of the traffic stopped multiple times. This is how the first three roundabouts were. When I reached the fourth roundabout, it was normal (no stop lights, no stopping). Traffic moved so much more smoothly and safely through the fourth roundabout. I cannot possibly fathom why the first three were so messed up.

Once I got to the reunion banquet I saw many more familiar faces. There were a couple dozen people whose employment with ASP overlapped mine. One of the first people I saw was Ben, who immediately asked me “were you ever on stage during a Steve Jobs keynote?” That came out of nowhere. Yes, I was on stage during Steve Jobs’ 2005 WWDC keynote presentation. My boss (Theo) & I demonstrated Mathematica running on the just announced Intel based Mac computers. Ben watched the video of the keynote (here’s the relevant clip), recognized me, and remembered to ask me about it the next time he saw me (three years later). Funny.

Besides Jill, my only other former staffer (with whom I worked closely) at the reunion was Meryl (a.k.a. Marl, who was recently married). We too had a good chance to catch up with each other (though we didn’t get the chance to reenact our infamous, no holds barred wrestling matches).

Rob stuffs Meryl into a trash can in 2000

Meryl gets her revenge

Some poor, innocent bystander gets caught in the middle

The banquet was a really good time.

  • We ate Appalachian food (whatever that is).
  • We viewed a wonderful slideshow of old ASP photos.
  • A preselected representative of each decade (70’s, 80’s, 90’s, 00’s) shared some of their fondest ASP memories. Michelle K. (from my decade, the 90’s) did an exceptional job.
  • We sang a few of the songs we used to sing on a daily basis while working for ASP. It was a little emotional.
  • There was an auction of memorabilia to benefit ASP. I ended up with a really neat framed photograph of a curvy mountain road. I like mountains.
  • There was a contest to guess the number of skittles in a jar. Michelle R. & I both guessed 1200, which was the closest to the actual count of 1106. For this we won the skittles, which she yielded to me. Fortunately, the rest of the group helped pare that number down a little before we left.

After the official reunion ended, the unofficial reunion moved to some bar in an extremely busy area of D.C. I should have planned a little better, but I didn’t, and I ended up driving there. I searched for 25 minutes to find a parking place and I ended up in the tightest spot in which I’ve ever parked (and remember Iris is a very small car).

We all got a little carried away chatting it up with old friends. I ended up getting back to my quarters at 3:30 am. I haven’t stayed up that late in many a year. Juech was planning to run the Cherry Blossom 10 mile race at 7:30 am on Sunday. I since found out that he did indeed finish… barely. It was still probably before I even woke up.

The D.C. Monuments

I woke up Saturday morning in D.C. with nothing to do until 1 pm. I grabbed my camera, water bottle, and a Clif Bar, and I headed out. I walked a few blocks to the nearest Metro station and took the subway downtown. I exited the Metro onto the National Mall, which was kind of neat. There I was surrounded by the Capitol, the White House, the Smithsonian museums, the Washington Monument, and tens of thousands of other people.

Melissa & I travelled to D.C. six years ago to run a marathon. We walked around the Mall a bit and saw the Smithsonian Museum of American History, the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum, and the Capitol before it was time to leave. So this time I decided to explore the other direction. First I approached the Washington Monument. Immediately I noticed the spring foliage and quickly realized this was the weekend of the national Cherry Blossom festival.

The Washington Monument

The Washington Monument

Next in line was the National World War II Memorial. I didn’t realize until just now when I was geocoding the photos that this memorial is not very old, only about four years. The satellite imagery on Google Earth showed it still under construction.

Incidentally, in case any readers out there haven’t yet noticed, I geocode nearly all photos posted to this blog. If you click on the photo it will load a Picasa Web Album page that includes a map showing where the photo was taken.

The National World War II Memorial

The National World War II Memorial

From there, across the Reflecting Pool was the Lincoln Memorial. During the 1/3 mile walk I began to realize that while these things all appeared to be very close to each other, they were actually quite far apart. No wonder everybody looked so tired from walking.

The Lincoln Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial

Next was a stroll along the Potomac river, through the Cherry Blossoms towards the Jefferson Monument.

Cherry Blossoms near the Potomac

Last weekend was the National Cherry Blossom Festival

The Jefferson Memorial

The Jefferson Memorial

After that I made my way back to the White House. I really should have done that first, since it was slightly out of my way going back to the Metro station. I was tired of walking at this point, so I didn’t get as close to it as I could have. Thank goodness for telephoto lenses.

The White House

Walking back across the Mall to the Metro station I also took advantage of the telephoto lens to snap a quick pic of the Capitol, which was deceptively far away.

The Capitol Building

On the escalator down to the subway some Metro workers were fiddling with a different escalator that had apparently been acting up. The stopped the wrong one and everybody on my escalator nearly fell over. So that was a bit dangerous. They then started it back up, but going the reverse direction. Everybody nearly fell over again. Finally, they stopped it for good and allowed everyone to walk off before doing any more potential harm.

By this point I was running a little late for my 1 pm engagement, so I hurried back to my quarters. By the time I got home was was already showing signs of sunburn on my forehead. Next time I’ll have to wear a hat, even if it is overcast.