Showing posts with label upton hill park. Show all posts
Showing posts with label upton hill park. Show all posts

Saturday, February 27, 2010

long overdue snow stories, part one

With the snow fast receding, I feel the urge to share two D.C. snow(insert-second-half-of-portmanteau-related-to-disaster) stories.

After the Saturday storm on Feb. 6th, she and I were suffering from a bit of cabin fever. I decided to take a walk to a park near Seven Corners. In the summertime, I spent a few afternoons at the park playing on the waterslides, reading in the sunshine and playing minigolf with various too much free time afflicted friends. After this storm, it was a considerably different landscape.

A Cold Morning Sun

It doesn't look it, but the snow was nearly waist-deep in spots. It took quite a bit of effort to trudge through with my camera and tripod, but I did manage a few striking shots with the polarizing filter on my lens. This, however, is not my photo blog, and neither the point of this post.

As I was about to leave in a sweaty heap from the unfortunate lack of snowshoes, I saw two guys walking into the park with their snowboards. Curious, I tailed them to the lone hill in the park. These two clever guys had found a small, hidden gem to ride for distraction. I struck up a conversation with them. I quickly hurried home to get my board and join them.

My better half dropped me off on her way to the gym, and I got my first experience in riding fresh powder.

Not out west. In a county park. No lift ticket needed, but I had to earn every twenty second run with the hike back up.

Absolutely worth it, though.

Friday, July 10, 2009

mini golf practice day

Finally, I get a summertime day of being lazy. I didn't do anything today that was remotely productive.

Awesome.

Plan one, watch a movie. Tried to get into D.W. Griffith's landmark The Birth of a Nation. It's a tough one to watch, as it's a silent film that is over three hours long. Pretty tough for me to maintain my attention with stuff blowing up, let alone reading the screen. I got lost; I'll try again tomorrow.

No matter. I had other plans to hang out with like-minded teacher friends. Putt putt golf after a ginormous burrito at Chipotle. Yes, I went mini-golfing today. I needed practice for tomorrow night. It's her birthday and we're going to the H Street Country Club in northeast. I'll report on that more when I get there tomorrow.

Today was awesome. The county park that has the course has an amazing looking pool and batting cages too. The golfing was fun; I'll certainly make a return trip. I can walk there from my apartment for goodness' sake! My bored goal for the summer is to shoot for par. A 36 will be tough; that's 10 strokes fewer than today. No debris and no goofing off.

A little too serious for mini golf? You are talking to one of the many people in the DMV that chooses to pay to play in a kickball league after all...