Pictures of the Year – 2017

Kind of hard to top this. I rode solo to Key West. Over 2,100 miles on two wheels for a little over a month. The middle keys were still in the midst of recovery operations, so I had to run the keys, riding 100 miles from Key Largo to Key West in a day. The buoy marking the southernmost point in the continental US states was the finish line. It too was ravaged by hurricane Irma.

Before leaving for Florida I did the 50 States Ride in DC for the ninth time. Emilia who rode with me in 2014 came along for the ride again. She joined an awesome posse inlcuding Michael, Rachel, Kevin, and Stephen. Emilia is a much stronger rider now. Me, not so much. Pasando a tu izquirda.

Michele used to run WABA’s events. Most of the rides she organized seemed to be designed to kill me. Michele left WABA earlier this year, but, to keep the tradition alive, Colin invited me to do a ride in Montgomery County Maryland. The ride included single track, basically narrow dirt paths strewn with rocks and tree roots. I’d never ridden single track before. What could go wrong? It was nearly the end of me. (We tried again in the fall on Mason Neck. I did no better, and maybe, worse.) At least there was beer and chips and salsa.

She’s an educated Bulldog! My daughter Lily poses after graduating from Butler University. She maxed out her college experience including spending her entire junior year abroad in Australia and Sweden.

Everyone went eclipse crazy. Many of my friends went to places where the eclipse reached totality. I took the partial eclipse in in on my back deck with goofy eclipse glasses. Next time I’m going for the real deal.

Photo op art has become a thing. I went to the National Building Museum to check out The Hive.

I rode a bike trail along the Narragansett Bay on a trip to Rhode Island. I stopped for frozen lemonade because when in Rome….

On the way home, I stopped in New Jersey to check out the Pine Barrens. As this sign attests, it is less barren than when John McPhee wrote about it 40-odd years ago, but it’s still an island of calm in the madness of New Jersey.

Mrs. Rootchopper and I went to a thing called the Women’s March. A few hundred thousand other people came too. It was one of four marches I attended. (Women’s, Climate, Science, Immigration Ban.)

Mrs. Rootchopper has tried to find the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens several times. If you are coming by car, good luck. It’s tucked away in a neighborhood in Northeast DC. The signs need some work. But bike riders can take the Anacostia River Trail there. Yay bikes! We drove anyway. It was well worth the aggravation.

I didn’t do a lot of hiking this year but the climb to Raven’s Rock on the Appalachian Trail on the Blue Ridge was fun.

I went to a bunch of baseball games this year. On the way to a spring training game I was hit by an SUV. I managed to survive the experience without a scratch. Go figure. I went to several games with Lily. To celebrate Lily’s graduation we bought some good seats behind the Nats dugout.

And this is from my last Bike to Work Day. I retired three months later.