Ride Home 2/27: String Bean Theory

I rode down New Mexico Avenue and then up the tiny hill on Tunlaw past the Russian Embassy and down the tiny hill on Tunlaw where they're soon to build a new intersection to discourage drivers from turning off Wisconsin because it's now marginally less highway-y than it used to be, made that way in the name of preventing people from getting hit by cars as they try to cross the street. To my mind, Tunlaw and 37th Street, to which Tunlaw flows, make terrible cut-throughs on account of the stop signs every block, but I am not possessed of the peculiar trait of many people who drive, a trait of myopia that willingly trades continuous slow movement in place of alternatingly stopping and going. Wait, strike that. That's exactly my affliction and that's exactly why I ride a bike to work. I guess the affliction of which I am not afflicted is the belief that there's any way to "beat traffic" and that's why I simply opt out of it. There is also no way to "beet traffic" or at least no way to do it without staining your hands.

37th to R to 34th, which has a bike lane, but little else of interest. 34th to M, a street with much interest and many buses and some pedestrians and double-parking and fancy cars, both driving and double-parking, because M Street is the main drag of Georgetown, a neighborhood as posh as George IV, who was either a once dandy King of England or one of Foreman's eponymous-er kids. Truth be told, I derive greater pleasure from riding past stopped luxury cars than I do more pedestrian (?) vehicles. It's downright schadenfreude when I pass the German ones.

M to Pennsylvania to L, which possesses still a cycle track, though that cycle track no longer possesses the posts at its entrance each block. They were removed to make way for snow plows, which would subsequently make way for bicyclists, but the lack of snow has made this removal moot and the return of the posts (like this blog itself?) would make for bettering my overall commuting experience. It's not that drivers always drive in the bike lane, it's just that sometimes they do and why settle for sometimes when we could prevent it all of the time?

L Street to 11th and 11th to Pennsylvania. There are more Bikeshare stations on 11th (two more) than there were previously.

Pennsylvania Avenue to the Senate side of the Capitol and I rode on the driveway instead of riding on the path, which was otherwise occupied by middle schoolers in business casual. I would suspect that any business run by tweens would be casual, but my idea of dressing up involves changing into "formal" slippers, so I'm not really one to talk.

I rode down East Capitol to 11th Street, rounded the park and took Kentucky to the grocery store, where I parked my bike and went inside to buy, among other things, Canadian bacon. Alberta, was named after an English princess, Princess Louise and they named it Alberta because Louisiana was already taken. It is unclear what an Albertan Mardi Gras is like, but it's likely that they laissent les bon temps roul-eh. Cause it's Canada. Get it? #hockey #timhortons #stereotypes

I rode down D Street from the store and I desperately wanted to take a picture of the van with "Lady Ryda" graffitied on its trunk, but there were people outside and I wouldn't want them to think I was taking a picture in a mocking fashion. Mocking fashion is for Joan Rivers. Alberta's rivers include the Milk River, which flows eventually to the Missouri-Mississippi and eventually to the Louisiana Delta. You might think that Delta Blues is derivative, but probably only if you're into calculus jokes.

16th to A to home. Pups are good, Official Wife is good and I won my appeal against a misplaced fine on illegally overgrown shrubbery, so I'm good too. Things are good.