This was an outdoorsy weekend. On Saturday, Amy and I headed up to Rock Creek Park to do a 2.5 mile hiking loop. Starting from the Van Ness Metro, we got on the Soapstone Valley Trail (the start of which turned out to be fairly well hidden a couple of blocks down Albemarle Street from Connecticut Ave), which gave us a few challenging bits, including a jump over the creek as it babbled over soapstone ledges, and a fallen tree which the Park Service had not yet chainsawed through. At the end of this trail, it joins with Beach Drive, on whose narrow shoulder one must walk for a few meters before arriving at the Western Ridge Trail, a backbone biking trail down which one may connect to grassy picnic areas and the Melvin Hazen Trail. From there, we walked over to the National Zoo to look at nautiluses and kangaroos, then capped off the day with a sunset dinner of rogan josh and shrimp vindaloo at Woodley Park.

Sunday after church, I broke out the rollerblades and skated down the Mall, across Memorial Bridge into VA, and down the Mount Vernon Bike Trail to Gravelly Point. That’s a park just a few hundred meters from the northern tip of National Airport’s runway, so that landing planes are practically in your hair. If you don’t mind the deafening scream of jets flying overhead every five minutes, it’s a great place for planespotting, soccer, fishing, and just lounging, which is what I did, catching the sun with a book and some rice crackers. Next time, I should bring an Airliners.net Info printout so I can tell the Airbuses from the Boeings.