Sunday, June 6, 2010

The Weekend Report: Old Rag, among other things

One of the best things about my office is how "green" it is. We recycle. We compost. The cafeteria doesn't sell plastic bottled water. All the straws and carry-out containers are made of paper rather than styrafoam. Reduce, reuse, recycle! (Sesame Street taught me well.) 

All these measures are great, but by far the best thing we do is Green Fridays. What does that mean? Well, we save the environment by not going to work every other Friday in the summer (to, ahem, reduce on a/c and building operation related energy expension)! Genius. Pure genius.
Because I firmly believe that every weekend should be a 3-day weekend. Two days just isn't enough.

So on Friday I arrived at work at 9 am...but I wasn't there to work! I met up with 4 members of my company's Outdoors Club to go hike
Old Rag in Shenandoah (Almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River...anywho, you can listen to the whole song here). This was my second DC hiking experience.
It was hot, sweaty, and awesome! Old Rag is considered the toughest hike in Shenandoah...it's about 9 miles, but it really wasn't that challenging (compared to the Collegiate Peaks, the Appalachians are pretty tame). The trail started with nicely packed switch-backs, and eventually progressed to really fun bouldering up to the top. I love scrambling over huge granite rocks! Growing up, my sisters and I would "rock-jump" around Lake Tahoe (not to be confused with "rock-gliding" which involves playing on rocks partially under water).
We ate lunch on the peak (360* overlooking Shenandoah valley - it was beautiful), pb&j's all around...the ultimate hiking food! The 4.5 mile return-hike was a nice gradual downhill that eventually became a fire road. A lot of the hike reviews online warn about crowds, but since we were there on a weekday, it really wasn't that bad. For more Old Rag resources, go here.
We also had a few wildlife experiences: we saw the biggest spider I've ever seen outside the zoo (shudder shudder), and a few vultures, and wood-peckers, and a ton of colorful beetles, butterflies, and centipedes, and a big black snake!

We finished the day off with a refreshing slurpee. (No joke. I dream about slurpees when it's hot out!) And the best part of it all was that I still had two whole days of weekend ahead of me...

On Saturday I went for a 50 minute run with my new roommates. You can't even begin to imagine how
HAPPY I was to run that long! It was absolutely glorious, in an extremely hot and sweaty way. Mid-run we went up in the Post Office tower to see awesome views of DC. I can't believe I've never done that before! It's free, and so easy - you just walk in and go up the elevator.

Then LLC and I hit up the Phillips Collection (say hello to Luncheon of the Boating Party!), the Textile Museum, and the Woodrow Wilson House as a part of the free Dupont Kalorama Museum Contortion Walk Weekend. This is my third free Phillips Collection experience - I just love that museum!

Saturday night involved a house party in Logan Circle (I'm so social this weekend, right?!?!). Then Sunday I did brunch at The Tombs (they give you coffee cake on your table!), followed by Georgetown Cupcake! (Have I mentioned that my new roommate works there?!!!!!!!!! Are there enough exclamation points in the world to convey my enthusiasm about free cupcakes???? No. There just aren't.). The rest of Sunday I just lazed around, then hit up the drum circle.

Hope you had a good weekend too!