This week's weekend training post is going up a bit early, as I'm taking today off and heading down to Washington for the weekend. This weekend is ArtScape here in Baltimore, wherein ~350K people descend on our neighborhood for the largest free arts festival in the country (I think). Basically, it's three days of art exhibits, performances, food, music, etc. Which is wonderful for the city, but it's terrible for neighborhood residents. We live a block from the festival, and the last few years the whole weekend has been total loss. Roads get blocked off starting the Monday before and going until the Tuesday after; illegal street vendors set up their tents in front of our building and hawk their wares while blocking the sidewalk (a call to BPD usually puts an end to that, yet they return year after year); traffic along our street is jammed for a week, basically; we have to park our car and not move it, otherwise we'll never get a spot. Nevermind the trash and unpleasant people the festival brings in (a small minority of festival-goers, of course, but still it makes things nasty if they decide to hassle you).
So, last year we decided to pack up and get out of town for the weekend to avoid the awfulness. My sister-in-law lives in DC, so we're packing up, taking the dog and spending the weekend down there. I took today off so we can get out before the festival begins at noon.
I was going to run this morning before we left, but just didn't feel like it. I'll get 3 miles in tomorrow, and I've mapped out a nice loop in DC that will take me around Capitol Hill on Sunday morning, which should be lovely. Come Monday, I'll post that route.
In between, we're going to be tourists, of a sort. Having been born in DC and having grown up 90 minutes from the city, I spent a lot of time at the museums, monuments and other attractions in the city as a kid. It's been a good number of years since either of us spent time in the Smithsonians. So, we're going to hit up the tourist circuit in DC. I want to see an exhibit on the history of London at the Folger Shakespeare Library as well and I'd like to pay a visit to the National Archives, which I haven't visited since literally elementary school.
We'll also go to brunch on Sunday at a restaurant in DC with a patio so we can take The Bear. They even have a Pooch Menu, which includes non-alcoholic dog beer in addition to entrees like a raw bone or dog-friendly meatballs in gravy with rice. We'll stick with water and the meatballs...dog beer is a bit much even for this dog person.
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