Fail of the Day

While I love my church, it usually takes me an hour or more to get there on the subway, best case scenario, after which I have to walk about a mile to actually reach the church building. Since I have a new bike, I decided that this morning I would try to bike there instead. It’s only about eight miles by Google Maps’ reckoning, so I thought I’d have a nice, scenic ride instead of two hours of dark subway time.

Scenic? Yes. Nice? Not so much.

Turns out, at about the midpoint on the route I plotted between my house and my church, the Potomac River courses through a valley so steep that, according to the historical markers on the way, the Union Army used is as a natural defense for the Capital against the advancing rebel army.

Robert E. Lee I am not.

The bike path descends sharply downward into the valley, crosses the massive Chain Bridge, and then promptly runs into a highway with “no biking” signs posted everywhere. On the other side of the highway was a hill even steeper than the one I had just come down.

At that point I was already ten minutes late for church. So, I pushed my bike back up out the valley and pedaled sadly home.

At least it was a nice day.