June 28 couldn’t come sooner…
June 17, 2006, 12:33 AM
June 28, as you may recall, is my first day of vacation. And I can’t wait. What do I have planned? Not much. I’m planning on going to Washington twice during that time – once on both ends of the vacation.
June 28 will be a trip similar to the “accidental” DC trip, where I approached DC from the south (I-95), rather than my usual westerly approach (I-66). This time, though, I’m going to run it on local roads. Instead of I-95, I’m going to take US 1. I believe this will take me close to the Huntington station, which is one that I’ve never originated from before. That ought to be exciting. That would bring the number of Metro stations to which I can confidently drive up to four.
Currently, I can confidently drive to Vienna, West Falls Church-VT/UVA and Franconia-Springfield. And when I say “confidently”, I mean that I could give someone good directions to drive to the station from outside the DC metro area. Now mind you, I can get to a good many stations by walking – more than I want to list. I can follow the route of the Blue and Orange Lines on foot from Foggy Bottom all the way to L’Enfant Plaza, Green all the way from Shaw to L’Enfant Plaza (and Yellow by extension), and Red from Cleveland Park to Judiciary Square, among other little station-to-station walks. But driving is a whole different ballgame, especially with the suburban stations. Trust me here.
Then in leaving the Metro, I plan on doing that drive-into-DC thing again. I plan to go over the 14th Street Bridge and find my way out onto I-66, and then go home the usual way. I also plan on checking out Fredericksburg, and making a stop at Potomac Mills on the way up. Yes, this will be more of a road trip than a DC trip.
My other DC trip will be more conventional on the approach and escape, but not inside the DC itself. That’s because the other trip will be July 4, when Metro runs a special service pattern. Orange goes to New Carrollton and Largo, Blue runs from Huntington to Rosslyn, Yellow runs to Franconia-Springfield instead of Huntington, and Red and Green Line trains short-turn at Silver Spring and Fort Totten respectively. But for that day, I plan to park at Vienna and take my usual I-66 approach coming in.
Otherwise, maybe I’ll finally clear my backlog on the Web site. I have a backlog of four photo sets right now – “Night March” (a World Bank protest), “Downtown Waynesboro”, “Town of Motels” (Breezewood), and “No Armageddon For Bush” (an anti-war protest). I would love to see that backlog cleared.
Web site: Article on US 1...
Song: The Llama Song
Quote: "I can't wait for vacation... I am counting the days..."
Categories: DC trips, Schumin Web meta, Travel