Next year, if you haven’t already, I would recommend getting out to some of the regional parks during the spring wildflower season. It’s great to walk through a deciduous woods that is just leafing out while the ephemeral spring flowers are springing up on the forest floor.
My office used to be in the Smithsonian Arts and Industries building on the Mall. It was always a nightmare during the summer trying to zig-zag across the Mall through the slowly ambling herds to get over to a meeting in another building. It was like a zombie apocalypse, except that they only rarely tried to bite you.
Yeah, it’s great. It opened when I first lived in DC and I would go up several times a season.
I agree. I used to live halfway between Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan. Unfortunately I haven’t lived in DC since 1992 so my restaurant recommendations wouldn’t be very up to date.
In addition, that was where I first encountered Cecil’s column. It apparently still carries it.
We’ve been meaning to get to Shenandoah and just haven’t done it, yet. But it’s on the list. I like this idea.
Also, Colibri’s appearance in this thread reminds me of one of the other perks I’ve encountered. My wife set up a couple of bird feeders off the back deck, and we’ve been treated to views from our dining room table of many beautiful birds that I’d never seen before. Probably all commonplace to folks used to being out here, but my LA experiences never exposed me to birds with some of the brilliant reds and golds I’ve been seeing just in the last couple of months.
I must urge you to get out to Udvar-Hazy ASAP. It’s even better than the Air & Space museum on the mall due to the latter needing to be renovated so badly.
My sister in Alexandria refuses to use the metro anymore. We took a taxi into the district and it was way quicker and really worth the extra cost.
Be advised that they’ve had some health code violations. Cold items being stored improperly and getting too warm, for one. Might want to say “no” to that sour cream!
If you like canoeing/kayaking, the Shenandoah Valley is great. There are rental places in Front Royal and Luray that offer good beginner day trips. By August, the rivers are down quite a bit and it gets more challenging.
If you go to the Shenandoah National Park, do yourself a favor and buy an annual pass for $30, it will equal the cost of the two of you entering the park once ($15 ea) and pays for itself in a single return trip.
Fall is also lovely in the valley with the leaves changing.
If you are at all interested in fly fishing, I can point you towards a lot of resources.
One other observation: I’m pretty sure there’s only one Metro driver capable of correctly pronouncing “Judiciary.” But my wife and I get a great deal of amusement out of the daily variations we hear.
The last time I was on Metro, I could not understand any of the announcements at all, amid the squalls of speaker static. Good thing I knew where I was going.
But I do remember fondly the times, years ago, when our train pulled into Elephant Plaza.
The funny thing to me is that most of them are perfectly understandable when they’re sitting down and driving, since they seem to have their face right over the mic. But when they stand up to open the door, they seem completely oblivious to the fact that NO ONE can hear or understand them. The other day when we were all kicked off the train, a lot of folks stood around puzzled because they couldn’t actually tell from the announcements what was happening.
Hah! I also am not sure I’ve heard a consistent pronunciation for Grosvenor, but I don’t hear that one said nearly as often.
Seeing as you’re on the Maryland side on the Red Line, you should check out Wheaton. There’s a half-dozen good Chinese restaurants (I like Full Key but they’re all about the same), a good spot to get great, cheap banh mi (Saigonese), an excellent Thai place (Nava Thai), and El Pollo Rico has a location there.
If you’ve never had Peruvian charcoal chicken, you owe it to yourself to hit up El Pollo Rico, at any of their locations. There are charcoal chicken joints everywhere around DC, and they’re all good (one of the beautiful things about it is even when it’s not great, it’s still pretty damn good), but El Pollo Rico is unquestionably the best.
Dim sum, the spot in Maryland is Oriental East across the street from the Silver Spring Metro, but they only have it Sundays, and it’s always packed. If you ever drive down East-West Highway past there, you will see a crowd out in front of that place. There are a lot of other places if you want to venture fairly deep out into MoCo and beyond.
I keep trying to find the great places I liked when I was growing up there. But they’ve all disappeared over the last 25 years. My sister keeps pushing the Ethiopian and Korean BBQ. Apparently Alexandria is a hot spot for Ethiopian.
It used to be Rockville and north, but at this point it’s probably Gaithersburg or even Germantown and north. Honestly I haven’t gone for dim sum in forever so I don’t know where the best places are besides Oriental East, but there are tons of legit Chinese restaurants in Rockville and beyond.
