View Down the Northbound Railroad Tracks at the Halethorpe MARC Station

It’s the new year and I’m back from one final vacation trip–an overnight with S. at the beach. Oh, it was just a perfect mini vacation! But today it’s time to get back to work, so I woke up early, did some reading, packed my lunch, and headed to work, taking my Brompty to the train station. Yep, the car’s still sitting at the mechanic’s in Virginia, so its the multimodal commute for me. It takes about six minutes to race down the hill to the station, and then just 14 or so minutes on the train, and then another 15 minutes on the bike to campus.

Brompty Tucked Away on the MARC Train Between West Baltimore & Penn Station

My car is in the shop–yes, I own a car–getting itself fixed from the break-in it suffered in June. After months of driving around with tape for a back window and opening the driver’s side door through the passenger side, on Monday the door wouldn’t open at all, and it was finally time to face the price tag and get the thing fixed. All of that meant no car for the commute to work, so I got to give the multi-modal commute a try.

People Standing in the Sprinkler in Front of the Lincoln Memorial

Oh, man, it was hot today, and I was travelling by bike in a city I don’t know well. By the time I righted all my wrong turns from Columbia Heights to Georgetown to meet H. for brunch, I was a sweaty, frazzled mess. I folded down the Brompton and went into the air conditioning to wait. The bike tucks so neatly under a table, and I think I’m finally over my nerves that folks won’t let me bring her inside. After we parted ways I headed down to the alleged bike/ped path along the old C&O Canal, but I just wasn’t up to dodging rocks on the unpaved trail or hopping upended bricks on the other side. The heat was already geting to me, so rather than try to follow the googleymap, I just gon on Pennsylvania Avenue and pedaled until I got a nice breeze going. Eventually I saw a sign directing traffic to the Lincoln Memorial, so I took the soft right until I was in the well-signed tourist area. The place was summer-crowded with school tours in matching t-shirts, so I got off and walked until I found myself on the right side of the memorial~the side with the sprinkler. Oh, thank you, National Park Service! I snapped this picture before getting myself sprinkled, and then I was back on my way, past the Korean War Memorial, around the Washington Monument, and past museum after museum after museum until I reached the Capitol Building. Union Station’s right behind there, so I took a right, pedaled up the hill, dodged cars and pedestrians in the roundabout, and was finally back in air conditioning. I sucked down a couple bottles of water befoere boarding a delayed MARC train back to Halethorpe for a quick pedal to my car that I left on campus yesterday. And now I’m home, rehydrating, and looking at maps of DC for my next trip, hopefully after the heat wave has waned a bit.

View of the Halethorpe Train Station From the Francis Avenue Overpass

It was a crazy beautiful day today, so you can imagine how I felt about being in my office all day and into the evening with meetings, interviews, and student events instead of out pedaling around on my bicycle. I had a gap in my schedule between 5:30 and 7:00, so brainstorm! I brought my bike with me so I could sneak in a ride. I finally got out of the office closer to six, but there was still plenty of time to do a test ride from campus to the MARC train station in Halethorpe, a mere 2.2 miles, in preparation for the multi-modal commute the clown bicycle will enable. (Yes, that’s my one track mind you see running its paces.)