June 29, 2016
Washington, part 1
Riding through the suburbs of Washington was a challenge until we got on to the bike trail system at Mount Vernon. From there we were able to travel completely by trail all the way to our hotel which is right on the Washington & Old Dominion trail in Falls Church. It is a testament to the steep hills in Falls Church that when we rolled into the lobby in the front of the hotel, we found ourselves on the second floor. It's a good thing our rooms were on the second floor. When we walked down to the end of the hall we had to go down a flight of stairs to the first floor, then go down more stairs outside the exit door to reach ground level at the back of the hotel. There is no way to roll a tandem into the first floor of this hotel. Go figure.
We went to a middle eastern grocery store to stock up on food. One of the staff members heard Viktoriya talking in Russian to someone on her phone. He asked where she was from and she replied the Ukraine. He told us a story he had heard as a child about the musk used to make perfume. The musk comes from the scent glands of a certain deer. The deer are rare and difficult to find in the woods. Ukraine has many Tatars - descendants of Genghis Khan and his Mongol hoards. These Tartars have an uncanny ability to track the deer by smell. Only Tatars are able to supply the musk needed for perfumes.
In addition to sharing this interesting story, he gave us some cheese and crackers for free.
We visited Alain's sister who lives in Falls Church, not far from our hotel, although of course a big hill lies between the hotel and the house. Jeanna started making origami birds. Jeanna spent years teaching elementary school and it was obvious from the way she taught Alain's 9 year old niece to make an origami bird that she is an excellent teacher. Jeanna also taught Viktoriya to make a bird.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Jeanna pointed out that when she was teaching elementary school, the girls were all able to master origami but many of the boys did not have the patience or dexterity to make an origami bird. Neither Kerry nor Alain took the bait. Why take a chance, however slight, of proving this groundless and sexist theory of male incompetence correct? Besides, those birds looked really hard to make...
Wednesday was the first of 4 consecutive days off with no scheduled bike travel and the luxury of remaining in the same hotel room, so no packing or unpacking. We removed our panniers and took the much lighter bikes out for a baggage free ride on the W&OD trail. It was wonderful to see how much use the trail gets from commuters, joggers, recreational cyclists, pedestrians and dog walkers. Kerry made extensive use of his bell to warn pedestrians as we came up behind them.
We enjoyed the serendipitous discovery of the Meadowlark botanical gardens just off of the W&OD trail. The gardens are largely maintained by volunteers and we enjoyed meeting and talking with several of the volunteers. The busiest workers at the gardens were of course the bees.
We learned a lot while strolling about in the garden and greatly improved our ability to identify crops.
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 0 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |