4/27/2015
Crystal and I stayed up later than usual at the Residence Inn. We had our dinner at Fireworks Pizza, the restaurant down below. The line for the place was out the door. The smell of pizza lured the people into the building. Once they went in, they had libations and atmosphere. That night, the D.C. Wizards were playing their third game of their first round playoff series. You can bet a good portion of their customers were glued to the screen. Of course Crystal and I were mainly interested in filling our stomachs. The mushroom pizza had three types of mushrooms and it jumped off the page. There wasn’t a moment of hesitation in our order. We were surprised at their efficient and prompt service. We were sure that navigating through the crowd was harder than navigating our trailer through the city streets. We enjoyed our evening out; even if it was just downstairs.
The excitement on this trip had mostly been found in the extremes. The cities provided a fast pace with endless options. Of those options, trailer parking was not one of them. On the other side of the coin was the open fields of the country. The suburbs were my bridge between the two. The time had arrived for us to move from the smell of concrete and steel to the scent of flowers and trees. Of course Crystal and I had to drop off a box of books to Kai from the Throne Orphanage of Sierra Leon before we resumed the journey. It was our last engagement in the area.
We met Kai at a storage facility to see the kinds of things she was shipping to Africa. When she opened the door to one of her units, several large plastic bags spilled out before my feet. She had collected tons of clothes, school supplies, and books for the kids of the orphanage. I flipped through the pages of her photo album to see photos of the kids that were about to receive the Papa Dido’s books. I was happy to send them a part of me. We parted with a hug and a few photos.
The time was already seeping into the afternoon and we needed a bite before returning to the television station. Crystal spotted a Café Rio close by, pulled into the crowded center, and wandered in to see if they would like to help us on our journey. We had seen the restaurant around our home in California but had never tried it. After the first bite of our burrito the place shot up to the top of Crystal’s list of places to eat. We ate quickly because we had begun to burn daylight.
I rested as Crystal took me back to the place where we stopped running. I did find it strange that we weren’t taking the same roads back. She had assured me that we were on our way to WJLA. I didn’t think anything of it until I saw the sign that read “Welcome to Maryland”. Evidently WJLA had several stations. The starting time of the day moved from two to three and from three to four.
When I finally took to the streets, the weather was dark and gloomy. Runners were out in full force so I felt as if I had no excuse not to run. I ran right into Georgetown where the streets were packed and the hills were paved with bricks. The traffic showed no signs of letting up and the streets didn’t get any wider. I couldn’t help but wonder if Crystal had any luck finding a place to park. As I ran up Wisconsin Ave. I realized that I had run on that street before. It was the same road I had run down four and a half years ago. Each step came flooding into my memory. It wasn’t until I had to cross a dangerous overpass that I remembered the trouble I had reaching the city. I made it to North Bethesda before dark and we discovered a community center that didn’t have a problem with us parking overnight. It was a good thing too. The rain had turned into hail. I had been soaked and the pelting by the iced drops was beginning to hurt.
The next day was dry but still very cold. It was strange to think that I had spent my winter sweating and my springtime shivering. As I ran, my core temperature heated my body. Of course my running gear grew damp. This meant that I froze any time I slowed down. The suburban neighborhoods I had run through all gave off a very clean scent. At times the communities looked as if they had been manufactured by lego. The areas were fairly predictable. I ran through plenty of suburbia before finally hitting the country. The concrete became creeks and the masses of people transformed into masses of animals. Cows stared at me like a foreign object, sheep baaaed at me, and badgers ran for cover. I was suddenly alone on the long hilly roads. It was hard to pinpoint the exact line of transition. But it was nice. Serenity was mine once again.
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