Rides 4/3: a chicken who plays checkers

There was some rain, but it was inconsistent. If it were still March, I would've complained about its lousy Smarchiness, but since the calendar changed and it's April now, this just comes with the territory. A victory for April's branding of its rain as requisite for May's flowers. Back in the day, the corporate honchos at April must've hired a top notch ad agency. It also helped that it's been warmer lately. Rain is typically more tolerable when not paired with coldness.

In the afternoon, the traditional Washington mugginess resumed, the surest sign of spring and summer yet. There are few blossoms upon which to report, though I didn't really go out of my way to find them, sticking the 21st and L and 11th and E, which are all city streets in the middle of a city and not especially verdant or bucolic. There should be more blooms soon and in the mornings of this upcoming week, I'll go out of my way to check them out.

I rode towards Union Station, but bailed before making it the whole way around Columbus Circle, taking one of the mostly closed streets towards the capital. Then, I rode into a fully restricted street, the kind I call a 'security woonerf' except it's totally unintentional. It wouldn't be very difficult for the Architect of the Capitol to change the thinking around the streets/parking lots around the Capitol to make those areas vary better spaces for pedestrians and cyclists that only sometimes need to accommodate cars and drivers rather than treating them like 24/7 car-first places, which they simply aren't. I'm not sure there is either appetite or vision for this, but it would be nice if these 'temporary' permanent security measures could adopt a more pleasing manner. But that, I guess, presupposes that idea that the AOC/Capitol Police et al actually want people to walk/bike/hang out near the Capitol, which they very much might not. Tourists and commuters incidentally traveling the grounds might be seen as a necessary evil and going out of the way to make the experience more palatable might counter the goal of 'keeping it safe.' I don't know.