Taking the Scenic Route

My blog posts have gotten fewer and far between, mainly because I've been sleeping in on the weekends. I don't suppose sleep counts as a hobby for most people, but it does for me. Anyway, I did manage to wake up at 8AM on Saturday to run a few errands, do some work, and then head down to DC to go kayaking with Beney.


It was pretty humid by the time I got there around 10:30, and I was also fuming a bit. Georgetown is a bit of a debacle when it comes to how the roads are laid out, so the 27th St. turnoff that I was looking for wasn't marked on the Whitehurst Freeway. I ended up driving around DC for a bit, driving in the general direction of the Potomac until I finally stumbled across the boathouse. Once we got on the water, everything was fine, though. Kayaking is a great way to work off a little road rage (or maybe a lot, in my case). It was a bit overcast for the rest of the morning, but that was just fine because the water was about 80 degrees and the air temp was around 85-90, so I wouldn't have lasted long in the sun. We paddled upstream for about an hour, dodging the faster kayaks and the random day boats that were tearing up the river looking for a good place to anchor. Along the way, we saw something distinctly DC - 3 Presidential helicopters flying overhead, making their way to the White House. I suppose that is better than the motorcades which make DC traffic even worse than it already is. The planes flying overhead on their way to DCA were another interesting sight...the last time I saw the underside of a plane that close overhead was in Hong Kong, where it felt like the planes could at any second clip the top of one of the skyscrapers. I couldn't help but think about that plane that crash landed in the Hudson...can't recall if that happened in the daytime, but if so, that must have been a hell of a sight for anyone on the water.


We spent a couple of hours kayaking up and down the Potomac, chatting and catching up, especially on plans for her birthday party. It'll be an interesting one, as it includes some thinking (Spy in the City - basically a scavenger hunt sponsored by the International Spy Museum), good food (Georgia Brown's for dinner), and general chaos (bowling at Lucky Strikes...beer + 12 lb. bowling balls + general clutziness = good times and potentially broken toes). We headed back to the boathouse around 1, having communed with nature for the 2 hours that we'd rented the kayaks. All in all, it was fun and pretty good exercise. I counted that towards a 40-min. cross training session that I was supposed to do that day anyway (since I wasn't paddling hard the whole time, I figured I did at least 40 min. of real exercise). And for under $20, it wasn't a bad way to spend the morning.


Sunday morning was mostly spent on work, but I did manage to venture down to the farmers market in Bethesda again. My food snobbery has reached new heights with this latest focus on buying as much of my food from local organic producers as possible. I have a budget of $50/week, $25 of which is allocated to purchases from the farmers market, and the remainder to be spent on sundries at a regular grocery store. My parents would freak out at the idea of spending $2.50/lb on fresh peaches, but ultimately, I am buying fresher, better tasting food, supporting the local economy and small businesses, throwing out less food because I'm only buying what I can finish in a week and not buying in bulk (sorry, Costco), and still spending the same amount of money. My 3 week experiment in organic eating has resulted in slightly improved mood and a slight drop on the scale...so far, so good.