DC Car Free Day and Bikes!

So I realize that the title of this post is a little misleading, because it seems like I'm going to write about DC Car Free Day and the role of bikes within that, but I'm not. They're two separate entities that I'm going to talk about individually, but they're linked. You'll see in a little bit.

Car Free Day

I was reading a copy of Express, the Washington Post's free daily newspaper on the way to work this morning, and saw an ad that said today was Car Free Day in DC. There are a bunch of events today, but I think a couple might be more interesting than others:

Alexandria has a "Local Motion" website (http://www.alexandriava.gov/localmotion/) and there's a "Car Free Pledge" contest with the possibility of some sweet prizes (http://carfreemetrodc.com/Home/tabid/54/Default.aspx). (I can't sign up from work because I don't have flash on this computer and can't install it.)

Also, the Circulator Bus in DC is free today, so I was going to take the Orange Circulator from Union Station and go by the Georgetown Barnes & Noble and get a copy of the Washington, DC Moleskine so I can keep track of interesting places and things to see/do/eat in an organized fashion. I bought one of these for London and Paris when Pam and I went for Spring Break, and they were very useful for getting around -- I had also marked the location of our hostels on the maps inside, so that was more helpful that you can imagine. Anyway, the Circulator bus website is here: http://www.dccirculator.com/routemap.html.It's normally a dollar, so it's pretty cheap on a normal day when it's not free.

Official Car Free DC Day website: http://www.carfreemetrodc.com/Information/tabid/57/Default.aspx

Bikes

Pam and I walked around DC yesterday, starting from Dupont Circle, going up New Hampshire to U St, then down 16th St to Rhode Island, then across on M St to Georgetown before crossing over the bridge to Rosslyn. Just before crossing the bridge, we passed three bike shops (Revolution Cycles, Bicycle Pro Shop, and Big Wheel Bikes), and one was still open (Revolution Cycles) and carried the Trek bikes I've been eyeing for the past couple months, the 7.2FX and the 7200. I've kind of been dragging my feet with this because the only place in Alexandria that carries Trek bicycles is too far away to walk, and would take maybe half an hour to get to after walking to the bus stop at the Metro and then busing it up there. This bike shop, on the other hand, isn't too much of a detour off my route home from work, and they have a larger store in a neighborhood in Arlington that's close to an Apple store (Pam and I are also eyeing Spore).

Anyway, I'm excited. Sorry if this was incoherent.

Edit: Since my text-only description of where we walked didn't make sense, here's a Google Map of the route (blue line):


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