Washington DC to Baltimore ride
This Saturday, I rode to Baltimore from DC with Adam using a route sourced from the Bike Washington website and the Google Maps bicycling directions. Bike Washington is great resource for local trails, and for this ride I only diverged from their route in a few places; in hindsight, I should also have used their directions for entering the city of Baltimore instead of the Google directions which involved a few dicey maneuvers. But that’s to be expected when Google’s routing is fairly automated while Bike Washington route is written by people who’ve ridden the route. Tried and tested.
We had a nice time in Baltimore, walking through a holiday bazaar in Fells Point, eating a huge lunch among the throngs drinking nog, and snapping a few photos. By the time we started to head back, our daylight hours were numbered so we grabbed the B30 bus back to Greenbelt Metro station. Good to always know your bail out options!
For those interested, here’s the cue sheet I wrote, as well as some commentary, after the cut. Directions begin from the Metropolitan Branch Trail.
Approaching Max Density: Kowloon Walled City
The 99% Invisible podcast recorded an episode about the Kowloon Walled City, a fascinating example of a city block that reached unrestrained levels of density. From the 1940s to 1980s, Kowloon Walled City (KWC) was largely ungoverned, “autonomous from both China and Britain,” run mainly by various criminal groups. People built upwards as well as into any open spaces – the chances of daylight reaching into the lower levels grew slimmer as more people moved in. At its peak, over 30,000 inhabitants lived in an area the size of a single city block. Without regulation, KWC continued to grow ever more complex and interwoven as residents flooded in. It was known as the “City of Darkness”. Trash was discarded out of the windows, electricity was pirated from the grid, and any business could set up without intervention from authorities. KWC was a massive city within a single block.
In the early 1990s, the Chinese and British governments agreed that it had to be torn down and the Hong Kong government began evicting residents. By 1994, Kowloon Walled City was demolished. Today there lies a neatly maintained park.
Kowloon Walled City (Photo by Ian Lambot)
The 99% Invisible podcast episode on Kowloon Walled City is worth the listen, a good summary in only 15 minutes.
Further reading and more background available online:
This Thanksgiving
Be thankful for what you have: health, family (no matter how unconventional), friends (whether near or far), and the courage to work towards the unknown future.
Allons! to that which is endless, as it was beginningless,
To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,
To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they tend to,
Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys;
To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it,
To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it,
To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you—however long, but it stretches and waits for you;
To see no being, not God’s or any, but you also go thither,
To see no possession but you may possess it—enjoying all without labor or purchase—abstracting the feast, yet not abstracting one particle of it;
To take the best of the farmer’s farm and the rich man’s elegant villa, and the chaste blessings of the well-married couple, and the fruits of orchards and flowers of gardens,
To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through,
To carry buildings and streets with you afterward wherever you go,
To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter them—to gather the love out of their hearts,
To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave them behind you,
To know the universe itself as a road—as many roads—as roads for traveling souls.
‘Song of the Open Road’, Walt Whitman
Wrap-up of DC Breweries Tour
What a day.
This is a tough one to write, because most of the ride went well but a friend in pain overwhelms other emotions. I’m still a little shaken by what happened towards the end of the ride but I’ll get to that.
A couple of weeks ago, I met a small group of friends outside of the DC Brau brewery who announced that it was their last stop on a ride to all three of the city’s breweries. I sent a message to a couple fellow riders on Twitter suggesting that we do the same sometime. They were interested enough, so I decided to pick a date and make it happen. After putting the word out to friends via email and sharing the plan on Twitter and Facebook, I put together a route that made a counter-clockwise 15-mile loop from Chocolate City to DC Brau to 3 Stars Brewing. I attempted to take quieter streets where it didn’t bring us off course, but inevitably there were a couple dicey roads with faster traffic.
Around seven this morning, I rode through the route to check it against what I had mapped out in Google Maps. (Geographers might refer to this as ground truthing.) I’m glad I did, because I was expecting to have at least 15 people on the ride and didn’t want to get lost leading the group, but also because, for instance, you don’t always realize which streets suddenly turn into one-ways. So, on this run I familiarized myself with the route and marked some changes to the cue sheet before heading back.
For the ride, we gathered for a 12:15 start at Big Bear Cafe. Adam, Brian, Veronica, and I were the earliest ones there, making time to grab bagels or coffee before the “official” meeting time of noon. I say “official” because this was the first ride I put together that reached outside my immediate circle of friends, and really the first time leading more than eight people on a bike ride. It was nice to see familiar faces from around town, including Kevin, Ted, Michael, and Ed and Mary (who unfortunately could only join for the coffee part). As we chatted and folks began arriving, I realized I had underestimated the attraction of riding to three breweries on a beautiful autumn day. People had brought friends, told others, heard the word and bravely decided to join without knowing what to expect, even sent people in place of themselves if they couldn’t make it. The sidewalk outside Big Bear quickly became crowded – must have been at least 30 riders there, ready to try some local brews.
Photo by Ted Nigrelli
We hit the road at 12:15, which gave us time to get to Chocolate City brewery at the start of their growler hours (12:30-4:30pm every Saturday). Chocolate City is the closest to my house of the local breweries, so we come often to fill our growlers. It’s a short ride up the Metropolitan Branch Trail, which I like for its street art and totem poles. As we arrived, we spotted John and Kate, who were there to join for awhile. I think Chocolate City’s setup lends itself well to a group visit – it’s a small building with one open wall that makes it easy to drift around and socialize. They had a food truck stationed outside, but their offerings looked a little too heavy for a bike ride bite. I took this time to try to meet everyone on the ride, a challenge in itself!
Got the group back on the road promptly since we had two more breweries to visit in a short time window. The next stop, DC Brau, always seems to have a crowd inside, redeeming their generous number of free tasting tickets or walking around touring the facilities. I sat in the sun chatting to friends awhile before going inside to get a sample of DC Brau’s Ghoul’s Night Out (a Belgian-style Quadrupel; like a Tripel but stronger). I’ve had it before, though, so guess it can’t be considered a sample. We arrived at the brewery right when they started a tour, so a large part of our group joined that. Leaving the brewery, we tried to sweep everyone out but accidentally left a friend behind. Realized our mistake ten minutes later, so waited a bit while she caught up with us on the Anacostia/NW Branch Trail.
Though we were able to take to the trails for part of this stretch, we had to take some bigger roads with faster traffic closer to 3 Stars Brewing. Managed that without too much of a hitch, then we started up one of the last hills towards the brewery.
That’s when I heard someone call out “man down” and realized people were stopped at the base of the hill. I rode back down and saw a friend lying in the street, his face bloody -and others had already lept into action, holding cloths to his forehead and nose to stop the bleeding, another rider on the phone with 911. We arranged for a friend of a friend to have his bike taken back while we waited for the ambulance to arrive. His scarf had gotten caught in his front wheel and the bike threw him over the handlebars onto the ground headfirst. A woman who didn’t know him was holding his hand, another trying to talk him through his shock. Neighbors even came out to see if we needed help. It was a moment that made me realize that people do come together most strongly in times of need. A mutual friend ended up riding with him to the hospital once the ambulance arrived, and I led people back to our starting point, too shaken by it all to feel like going to another brewery.
An accident like this is a reminder that even on a quiet road with no cars, things can happen. Going quickly or slowly, things can happen. I’m relieved to say that he’s okay and recovering, and glad it wasn’t worse.
Thank you to everyone for coming, for your patience, and for demonstrating that community really is defined by the great people that make it.
Flatbread 200k Ride Report
Or, “127 miles of riding the flats with friends new and old.”
Yesterday was the DC Randonneurs Flatbread 200k ride, an all-day long distance jaunt through eastern Maryland and Delaware. The ride started at the Good Guys Pizza in Cumberland, Maryland, went out to Slaughter Beach in Delaware, then wound its way back to Good Guys for the post-ride celebration.
Adam and I had reserved a campsite at the nearby Tuckahoe State Park for the night before, but the evening’s cold forced us to car-camp rather than tent-camp as an attempt to stay a little warmer. We arrived at the campsite around 10pm after a nice big dinner of crab cakes and red velvet cake at Davis’ Pub in Annapolis, and managed to fall asleep by midnight. Our alarm was set for 5am to give us time to shower, pack up the bikes, make breakfast, and drive to the starting point.
We parked in the public lot down the street (where we also saw John, Ed, Mary, and Lisa arriving) and rode to the Good Guys Pizza, where sign-in took no longer than a minute – the volunteers find your name on list, give you your control card and a pencil and you’re ready to go. It was a chilly start, everyone bundled in layers we would eventually shed as the sun came out and warmed the day.
Chip, the ride organizer, gave a few announcements about the ride: Milton was an open control, meaning we could choose any business there and get a receipt to prove we made it there within the time limits. He also talked about the route, which had been checked out the weekend before and was good to go. Chip sent off the riders – some 70 or more people – and said he’d see us back soon for pizza. “Soon” in our case being 11 hours later.
In the beginning, most of the group stayed together, with the fastest riders already long gone. Adam and I were riding for stretches with Chris, John, Ed, Mary, and of course Lisa and Mike on Mike’s interesting Da Vinci tandem bicycle. It was Lisa’s first time riding a tandem, so kudos for her for sticking it out over 200 kilometers. That’s also a long time to spend with a person, though they’re both easygoing and funny so I can’t imagine it was an issue. The group eventually started to spread out, but the controls gave us the chance to catch back up with people. We also met a lot of new folks, some of which had traveled from further away to do this ride.
In Milton, Delaware at the lunch stop, we couldn’t find Magnolia Deli, which was one of the options suggested on the cue sheet, so we stopped in at the espresso bar on Federal Street. Met Bob from North Carolina, who’s been randonneuring for three years and says the Flatbread is one of his favorite rides. We ended up sticking with him to the end, and he helped us make sure we were on the right course. Navigation using a cue sheet is one of the challenges of randonneuring – there are no arrows painted on the road like on charity rides – especially if you’re riding after dark and trying to find unmarked roads. With Bob’s familiarity with the route, we didn’t miss a single turn all day.
When the sun started to set, we still had about 20 miles to go, so I was thankful to have a bright light and the company of several other riders including Eric, who is in the process of starting up a randonneur club in Long Island with the help of New Jersey Randonneurs. (They should have 200k and 300k rides next year, which we’ll definitely try to join.)
Though I’ve ridden my commute home in the dark before, it’s different being on unfamiliar ground and seeing the little points of light cast in the distance ahead by cyclists on the same ride. One mistake I made was having no way of reading my cue sheet when it got completely dark. Fortunately, Bob called out our turns in advance, like “Half a mile until we make our left.” The last ten miles were really tough, with saddle pains that made me want to stop pedaling, but Adam started motivating me with thoughts of pizza and beer at the end. We finally rolled in to Good Guys a few minutes before 6pm, where we were warmly greeted by the ride volunteers. They made sure it was known to everyone that this was our first brevet (the term for a randonneuring ride, where 200 kilometers is the minimum distance) and told us that some pizza had just come out. Many folks were still hanging out, eating and drinking up after a long day of riding. Soda and pizza were free (amazing for a ride that has a registration fee of 5 bucks), and there were $2 beers.
I didn’t take any photos on the ride, but you can see Mary’s photos here. It was a beautiful day and the best part was the company! Can’t wait for my next 200, though I’m not sure yet where that will be.
Bike Tour of DC’s Breweries – Saturday, November 17, 2012
I’m posting this as an open invite to join me on a bicycle tour of all three breweries in Washington, DC:
- Chocolate City Beer
- DC Brau Brewing Company
- Three Stars Brewery
This ride will take place on Saturday, November 17th. We’ll meet at noon at Big Bear Cafe, located at R and 1st St NW – or likely the park in front of it as the group grows.
Tentative route can be found here on Google Maps. I’ll be checking out the route beforehand. Please be comfortable with city riding and hand signals. And I know it’s DC, but there are a few hills along the way.
No one will be left behind unless you beg us to leave you with your beer. Estimated to get back to Big Bear around 5pm. Let me know the morning of if you’ll need to drop off earlier than that.
Your reward is good company, and of course free beer tasting! There’s no obligation to buy anything at these breweries (and the sample pours tend to be generous), though tipping is always appreciated. Bring a water bottle for that between-brewery hydration.
Hope to see you there!
Directions – though not a proper cue sheet with mileage – follow the cut.
Autumn Coffeeneuring in DC
What is “coffeeneuring”? It’s an act of combining two great loves of many Washington, DC residents: coffee and bicycling. Mary has a write-up of the official rules here: 2nd Annual Coffeeneuring Challenge. Essentially you write up your weekend coffee bike ride experiences to share with the community. The true reward is exploration and caffeine! Last year, twelve people completed the challenge of 7 different coffee shops in 6 weekends, and I’m willing to bet that even more people participate this year. It’s a creative, seasonal idea. Excuse the poor photos – most were taken on my phone.
Here’s my entry in this year’s coffeeneuring challenge:
1. SOVA Espresso & Wine at 1359 H St NE on October 8th
Took a Capital Bikeshare bike from Eastern Market to SOVA on H Street. The ride was brisk and fast, waking me up from my commuting haze even before ordering a coffee. It sure gets dark early on these fall nights. SOVA is a combination coffee bar and wine bar that I had only ever been to for live music before. The downstairs cafe area is cute, with good service, good tunes, and (huge mugs of) good coffee. Stopped by in the evening and got a cup of their drip coffee (Intelligentsia), but would like to try their espresso drinks soon. Bike ride home was uneventful – took Florida Ave as I often do, but being on a Bikeshare made it harder to keep up with traffic.
Distance: 3.3 miles
Drink: Medium-roast drip coffee, black
2. Kafe Bohem at 600 Florida Ave NW on October 13th
Rode to Kafe Bohem, the cafe connected to Bistro Bohem, early on a Saturday morning to get the day started before heading over to the unveiling of the St. Elizabeth’s East Gateway Pavilion. The staff was pulling shots of espresso for customers and baking strudels in the back. Kafe Bohem is only a short ride from our place, yet this was our first visit to this new coffeehouse in Shaw. I ordered a cappuccino, Adam had an Americano, and we split a tasty onion, cheese, and tomato strudel. The interior is cozy, with European touches here and there, and drink presentation is refined. One of these Bohemian spa wafers are included with your drink, and are available to purchase if one isn’t enough. Staff was very welcoming – joked around with us and even brought glasses of water over to our table without being asked for any. Other customers seemed as comfortable there as the staff: some reading, others settling in to work on their laptops. Kafe Bohem is a much-needed neighborhood spot, helping to revitalize this little corner of Shaw.
Distance: 11.0 miles
Drink: Cappuccino
3. Baked and Wired at 1052 Thomas Jefferson Street NW on October 20th
Located in Georgetown near K Street, Baked and Wired is a great place to meet up with friends before any ride that starts off on the Capital Crescent Trail or the C & O Canal Towpath. John chose this as the launch point for his Hoppy 100 ride, and then three of us decided to meet here before getting onto the C & O. I tried the “dirty chai” which adds espresso to a chai latte (effectively both coffee and tea?) and had a slice of spinach and feta quiche to fuel the ride. Friends had coffee, a slice of ham quiche, and a scone. They only have two outdoor tables, but we snagged one of them by getting there early.
Distance: 63.2 miles
Drink: Dirty chai
4. Big Bear Cafe at 1700 1st Street NW on October 21st
Big Bear is also in my neighborhood, but I don’t spend a lot of time here. It’s usually just a quick stop when I’m at the Bloomingdale Farmers Market. I like the interior because it’s cozy and welcoming, and the exterior is cute with the bear painted on the side and the vines crawling over the building. We stopped by on our ride home from Harper’s Ferry – one metric century from there to here – and grabbed some hot chocolate and coffee. Nice to take a moment to relax after spending a whole day riding.
Distance: 65.1 miles
Drink: Hot chocolate
5. Pound the Hill at 621 Pennsylvania Ave SE on October 28th
Everyone is preparing for Hurricane Sandy! After going to the Farmers Market, where all vendors had signs saying something to the effect of “Stock up for Sandy!” I rode over to Pound the Hill – appropriately named for its location on Capitol Hill. It was quite a windy ride. More seats than I expected at the cafe, with ample room to find a place to plug in the laptop and work for a little while. The drinks are good and the food looks good, but I wish the music was a bit less ‘smooth jazz’. Missed John who stopped by, but he did recognize my bike outside. Coffeeneuring takes the city by storm!
Distance: 5.3 miles
Drink: Soy chai latte
6. Qualia Coffee at 3917 Georgia Avenue NW on November 3rd
A very cozy coffeehouse with friendly, talkative staff. This is the kind of place you go to meet up with friends or read a book or magazine. They discourage laptop-sitting, which is refreshing since there are already so many other cafes in DC overrun with people soaking up wifi. Qualia is the sort of place where you’re probably a local, and if not, you happily share that it’s your first time stopping in. They seem to know their coffee and also offer pastries and bagels. We grabbed mugs of drip coffee, a salted caramel bar, and a honey sticky bun, and read a few magazines. It was a welcome reprieve from the chill outside.
Distance: 16.3 miles
Drink: Drip coffee, black
7. Lot 38 Espresso Bar at 1001 2nd Street SE on November 4th
Lot 38 has a pretty simple design – downstairs is a narrow espresso bar where they take drink and food orders, upstairs is a single room with tables and chairs. The tables near the windows are the best, because you can overlook the street below. The clientele included families with young children, couples reading the paper together, and a few people working on laptops. I noticed that everyone in the vicinity seemed to have the dog. Perhaps it’s just the demographic that’s moving into the Navy Yard area. Navy Yard (maybe it has a hip new neighborhood name I’m not aware of) seems to be developing rapidly. It already looks completely different from a couple years ago, and from Lot 38 you can look out onto the construction across the street. The cafe serves up illy coffee, breakfast and lunch sandwiches, smoothies, and pastries. This would be a good place to work because it’s pretty quiet. Lot 38 definitely looks like it serves a need where there is growing demand – and it’s a better option than the Starbucks down the street.
Distance: 25.1 miles
Drink: Chai latte
That’s it for this year’s run at the Coffeeneuring Challenge. It was a tasty way to explore more of DC’s coffee options and discover some neat new places. Out of these 7 coffeehouses, only 2 were ones I had been to before.
Sandy in DC
All in all, Washington DC wasn’t hit too hard during Hurricane Sandy. A few hundred thousand without power for a day or two, some felled trees but mostly small branches, and minor flooding of low-lying areas. The fact that the Bloomingdale neighborhood didn’t flood was a story in itself (on DCist).
Can’t say the same for New York City and surrounding areas. There it’s clear that Sandy’s effects were disastrous. Last I heard, there were around forty storm-related deaths recorded. The east coast saw around 8 million without power. People are working around the clock to pump out floodwater and restore service to get their lives back to normal. We were lucky here, but many weren’t.
Ride Report: Washington, DC to Harpers Ferry, WV
Made an overnight bike trip to Harpers Ferry from DC this beautiful fall weekend. Three of us met up at Baked and Wired in Georgetown on Saturday morning for pre-ride caffeine and quiche before setting off. The plan was to start off on the Capital Crescent Trail (CCT) and take that until Fletcher’s Boathouse, where we then switched over to the Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O) Canal Towpath. The C&O runs parallel to the CCT for awhile, then the two trails branch off. We didn’t get going until around 10am, which made for a late lunch stop.
The section of the C&O going out to Great Falls was gorgeous – trees ablaze with autumn colors, crushed gravel path tracing the Potomac River, the sun drying the puddles from the previous day’s rains. The cool weather made it a perfect day for riding in shorts and a light windbreaker. Since we were staying in a hostel overnight, we didn’t need to carry much other than a change of clothes and snacks. There were lots of hiking paths that met up with the towpath, which made me wish we had more time to stop and hike. Future plan: bike-to-hike trip?
At one point, we stopped to help a boy whose pedal had fallen off of his new bike – his parents didn’t have tools with them, but we were carrying a mini adjustable wrench. The karma didn’t pull us through for long, because we had a flat tire in our group about three hours into our ride. Luckily it was the only flat of the ride. While stopped, we helped another woman pump up her flat wheel as well. Being such a mild October day, there were plenty of cyclists and hikers out. We even saw a horse towing a boat full of passengers on a little tour down the C&O.
At Edward’s Ferry around mile 30, we stopped to stretch after too many miles of the rocky C&O towpath. A man walking by told us that we had to stop for lunch at White’s Ferry: “I wasn’t expecting much from the ‘snack bar’ but the burgers are phenomenal and they have hand-cut french fries.” His ardent recommendation pulled us through the next five miles to White’s Ferry, where we ate great burgers (and a veggie burger) with a boatload of french fries. We sat on one of the picnic tables outside and watched the cars line up for the ferry across the river. Hunger is the best sauce, second best being ketchup and hot sauce. If you’re planning on stopping here, make sure you have some cash on hand as they don’t take plastic money.
The last 25 miles to Harpers Ferry were less eventful – we were starting to grow weary of the constant vibration from riding on rocky trail and promising ourselves we’d ride on paved roads tomorrow. There were many puddles and muddy patches left on the C&O towpath, so we were dodging those as well as the green balls that fall all over the trail. The miles peeled away slowly because the riding took our whole concentration. We were happy to finally make it into Harpers Ferry, even though there was a spiral staircase we had to ascend carrying our bikes and then a steep climb up the road to our hostel! When we got near the top of the hill, we spontaneously ran into two friends from DC who were also spending the night in Harpers Ferry. We quickly made plans to meet up for dinner, checked into our hostel, and took well-deserved showers.
The Teahorse Hostel, where we stayed, really felt like a home away from home. The owner, Laurel, is a friendly and accommodating woman who named the hostel after a place she visited in China near the ancient “Tea Horse” trading route. She provides bike storage for cyclists, and told us that she had two other groups of cyclists staying there that night. We ended up meeting one group the next morning who had ridden from Great Falls, but the other group left earlier than we woke up. Laurel made us a generously portioned waffle breakfast before we checked out on Sunday, great to get us going until lunch time. Orange juice, coffee, strawberries, bananas, waffles – the works.
We decided to get back on the C&O towpath for just a few miles until we reached Brunswick, then switch to on-street riding until Leesburg where we could connect to the familiar and smooth Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) trail. Though we were riding on fairly wide tires (knobby 35mms), the C&O had been rough going – many others we passed were on mountain bikes. It was a blissful moment when we reached Brunswick and our tires once again felt the welcoming embrace of paved roads. Brunswick has some steep hills, however, and we got to ride up a few extra hills by making some wrong turns. Bonus miles!
Once we finally crossed the bridge to the south of Brunswick into Virginia, the views were really spectacular. It was a two-lane road most of the way with little car traffic, weaving up and down past farmlands and vineyards. It was pleasant riding and the kind of bright autumn weather that feels infinite. We got on the W&OD at Clarke’s Gap and took the trail to my parents’ house to have a long lunch together. Back on the W&OD, we passed a group of four riders on horseback, as well as rollerbladers, joggers, families, and many other cyclists. Though much more crowded than the C&O, the W&OD is smooth sailing.
Overall, our stops were well-placed through the weekend and I felt like it was pretty well-organized (that’s a pat on the back). The pace was leisurely, riding about 35 miles each day before lunch and another 30 or so after lunch. I’m not sure I’d take the C&O towpath for such a long stretch at a time again, but it was fun riding and had nice views.
Highlights from a long weekend in Georgia
Spent the last weekend and some change in Georgia visiting a couple friends who have moved out there recently. I’d never before been to Atlanta, so it was a good chance to explore what lay beyond the reaches of the Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) – the world’s busiest airport.
High Museum of Art in Midtown
The High Museum is the largest art museum in the Southeast, housing a huge and varied collection. It is part of the Woodruff Arts complex, which includes a theatre, symphony hall, and restaurant. In their own words, the High’s collection includes “an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American and decorative art; significant holdings of European paintings; a growing collection of African American art; and burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, photography and African art.”
The museum also has a focus on folk art, with many pieces pushing the bounds of art brut (outsider art). It was fascinating to see the work of self-taught artists working in a variety of mediums, including found materials. One of these artists was the Reverend Howard Finster, whose outdoor museum Paradise Garden is a strange and exaggerated celebration of god. Finster was a Baptist minister who heard a voice one day telling him to devote his life to making religious art. The High Museum owns part of the original Paradise Garden installation, and dedicates a room to his work.
We saw furniture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as the famous Red Blue Chair by Gerrit Rietveld. I tend towards the more modern and contemporary works, and my favorite exhibits at the High included Anish Kapoor’s concave dish of mirrors (you can play with light and sound) and the special exhibit “Fast Forward: Modern Moments 1913-2013”. One strange rule was that for the special exhibit we couldn’t take photos with dedicated cameras, but cell phone camera photos were allowed – anyone know why that would be the case?
As with many other institutions in the city, Coca-Cola is the largest benefactor of the museum. The Coca-Cola Company headquarters is in Atlanta, as well as the World of Coca Cola – which we didn’t visit.
The High is located on Peachtree Street, but so is supposedly everything else in Atlanta. The name “Peachtree” is a popular street name here, which makes things just a bit confusing for outsiders. There are even places where streets of the same name cross each other. I’ll meet you at the intersection of Peachtree and Peachtree.
It’s easy to while away half a day exploring the High Museum, and that we did.
Georgia Aquarium
We went downtown to visit the impressive Georgia Aquarium on Monday, since it would be less crowded than on the weekend. This aquarium is notable for its size – the largest in the world – and the number of species it holds. Especially interesting is that is the only place you can find whale sharks outside of Asia; the Georgia Aquarium houses four of these strange and beautiful creatures. There are several enormous tanks in the Ocean Voyager gallery, the most impressive of which you can walk through in a glass tunnel.
Getting Around
Atlanta is a city built for driving, with highways cutting straight into the city and a major spaghetti junction that’s often referenced on the traffic report. Luckily, we managed to avoid driving during rush hour, which I’ve heard is horrendous (though probably not much worse than Tysons Corner traffic, I assume). Though walking within certain areas in the city is manageable, it can be tough to walk from one neighborhood to another, due in part to the sprawl of the city and in part to the highways that divide Atlanta’s urban areas. I did see a few bike lanes, but only a handful of cyclists.
However, there is a limited public transportation system in Atlanta, named MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority). MARTA consists of four subway lines, but they only run in two lines within the city: east-west or north-south – with stations spread relatively far apart. And the buses run about every 40 minutes, making it tough to rely on for quick trips.
Despite these major walkability issues, Atlanta has a lot of culture and history, strong economic drive, and is well worth exploring. It started as an important southern city at the crossroads of major rail lines and has a proven record of rebirth through times of hardship. I’m hoping to return one day to learn more, catch up with friends, and explore the many parks of Atlanta.
Aesthetics of Everywhere 