Late for Slacking

I woke up late for the rest of my life. That’s how it felt anyway. I looked at the alarm clock and it said 6:45. Nooooo!

I swear these thoughts actually entered my brain on my first “work” day of retired life. All of a sudden I felt like I needed to maximize every second of the day.

Then I took a deep breath. Actually about 15 minutes of them. And did my back exercise routine. And it was just another day. I read the newspaper over a cup of coffee and headed out on Big Nellie to get a certified letter being held at the post office.

Once the chore was over, I could do whatever I wanted. I could go home and continue repainting the shed or I could go for a bike ride. My back was achy from yesterday’s chores so it was not a difficult decision. Big Nellie won the day.

My neck of the woods has more elderly people than any other in the DC area. They toot their horns at bicyclists, don’t bother with turn signals, and change lanes at random. It was good training for riding in Florida.

I rode down flat streets aimlessly. At Ft. Belvoir I decided to check out the new bike lanes. There is a wide side path and an unprotected bike lane in the road. The speed limit varies between 35 and 50 miles per hour which begs the question, why did they bother putting the bike lane in?

I rode all the way to Lorton then came back on the unprotected bike lanes on Telegraph Road. Going downhill I did a waltz with a massive pickup truck. Its driver wanted to turn. Then he didn’t. Then he did. Into and out of the bike lane. I finally said fuggit, took the lane and past him going 30 miles per hour.

I rode into neighborhoods just to add miles. As I went, my legs adapted to Big Nellie.

After 30 miles (not coincidentally the length of my round trip bike commute), I arrived at home after noon. After lunch I sat on the deck and watched the partial eclipse. We here in DC were at about 80 percent of totality. So for those woo woo folks who think an eclipse is a time of oneness with the universe and all living things, I hate to break the news. We were at 80%ness. So even at its closest to a full eclipse, 20% of the universe and living things didn’t give a rats ass. It was more like woo wo.

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My intent was to finish the shed painting project. Alas. as the eclipse just passed its peak, clouds rolling in. Rain drops started plopping. Doppler radar showed storms all around me. So I will paint another day.

So at 4 o’clock I threw in the towel on my first day at my new job.

Slacker!

Rebirthday

Well I’ve done it now. I retired. Threw in the towel. Jumped the shark. Rode off into the sunset. No reason to worry about impostor syndrome anymore. Fooled them all for 33 years.

By design it was a two-fer. My birthday and retirement day all in one. Once you ;e 62 your federal pension increases by 10 percent. Bueno. Also, I get to cash out my vacation days. Muy bueno. I had beaucoup vacation days because I only took 3 or 4 days off this year and, until recently, rarely took long vacations. I could have used them to take the summer off and ride cross country but I decided to work instead and do the cross country ride next year. With a fat wallet.

I have a friend who would object. Do it now, she says, the future may not come. Setting aside the fact that she has put off seeing me into the future at least six times in the last 2 1/2 years, I disagree. If I can’t do it next year, it will be because I am dead. I won’t care a whole lot about riding a bike.

I rode to Friday Coffee Club with a tailwind. Thank you bike gods. The conversation was pretty interesting with lots of congratulations sprinkled in. I rode to work with Lawyer Mike. We had a 13- or 14-block conversation while riding in the M Street cycletrack. After Mike peeled off, I continued on to work through a surprisingly empty Georgetown.

As I rode across Key Bridge, an on-coming bike commuter made eye contact with me. She gave me a big smile. I may be old, but I still got it. (For me, “it” is a bad case of lumbago, but whadda ya want?)

At work, the IT staff had already left me a message. They wanted my computer and iPhone. Dang. Even vultures let the body die before they pick it clean. I put them off for a few hours, did about 10 minutes of work, said goodbye to people and called the IT folks. Okay. Come rip the technology from my cold dead hands.

And they did. And I left. Will a big smile on my face.

I rode off with a big smile on my face. For about a block a sense of melancholy came upon me. I cleared the Intersection of Doom turned down the hill to the river and a stupid grin came over my face.

I decided to use my early departure to find some eclipse glasses. I visited about 8 or 9 places for naught. Then I decided to ride to Fort Washington, Maryland to buy my National Park senior pass. $10 for lifetime admission to national parks. (An annual pass for young folk is $80.)

The ride was brutal. My tank had a (super high calorie) doughnut, some orange juice, a banana, and a mocha java. All from several hours earlier. Caffeine and sugar fumes. The heat and humidity was truly oppressive. The headwind didn’t help a whole lot either. add in some pretty nasty hills and you’ve got yourself a hurtin’ unit. But the pass was only $10! (Online it costs $20 so the ride really wasn’t necessary. You want rational, go somewhere else.)

The ride back featured a gloriously breezy 1-mile ride downhill from Oxon Hill to the Potomac River. Once at the river, it was sauna all over again. I rode home on fumes. Then Mrs. Rootchopper and I drove to an outdoor happy hour in Crystal City, near National Airport. They were giving away eclipse glasses so we got some. And some beer and some pizza. We were joined by my daughter and her college friend who was visiting. And then we were joined by torrential rains. We got soaked. I was actually getting chilled. The rain let up. More beer. More pizza. Then the rains returned. The vendors said no mas and we were drove home.

At home I watched a Neil Finn concert from Roundhead Studios in Auckland. It was recorded live at about 3 a.m. DC time. My favorite musician. On my Retirebirthday! Yes! And what better song to play but “Taking the Rest of the Day Off.” Perfect.

After that we had cake and ice cream. I got underwear! (No lie.) A pair of socks. (No lie!) Some bug spray. (No lie!) A sleeping bag liner (redundant since I ordered one a few days before!) And the piece de resistence, a Montreal Expos baseball cap. YES!!! Not the multicolored one either. The dignified dark blue one. So cool. I’m not taking it off. Ever. Bon anniversaire!

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My first official day of retirement was pretty mundane. I read the paper and did a heap of puzzles. Returned the sleeping bag liner and bought two new tires (Schwalbe Marathon Plus), citrus degreaser, wax lube in a small bottle, and a new helmet. Tour shopping. (My new panniers are on the way with the sleeping bag liner.)

I went to dinner with friends from grad school. Birthday dinners have been a thing for us for about 30 years. It’s a pretty cool tradition. When we got home, my wife and I talked to our son on Facetime. He was calling us at 9:30 am Sunday from Phuket Thailand. What a treat! He is a teacher and classes start in a couple of days. He seems pretty upbeat.

Today, I put the tires on The Mule. Then I took it for a 16-mile test ride in search of brake pads for the rear wheel. The three bike shops I visited were mobbed so I gave up. I’ll pick them up on the way to my volunteering gig on Tuesday night.

Next up was painting. I repainted the trim on the refurbished shed. Then I mowed the lawn. Oh, and there was laundry.

Ain’t retirement great!?

In all seriousness, thanks to everyone for their well wishes on this blog, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and, can you believe it, in person.

Tick, Tick, Tick

I feel like I am riding the last couple of days of a bike tour. The end is just down the road a bit. I want to savor the last bits of riding but the anticipation of completion is yanking at my monkey mind.

That’s what the last week of work before retirement is like. It would feel worse if not for the fact that DC is a sauna this week and I am mighty happy for the air conditioning in my office.

Today, I erased all the scribblings on my office white board. The list of hikes I meant to do this year. (Intentions count, don’t they Ultrarunnergirl?) And the list of 17 states I have ridden a bike in. And the list of 31 countries that various members of the family Rootchopper have visited. (The family Rootchopper sounds a bit like we should be escaping the Nazis over the Alps. Given the recent news, it might not be a bad idea.) Down went the list of clever phrases I came across during my six years while at this job, such as

The future is a foreign country – Finn Quinn
You are what you do, not what you say you will do – Carl Jung
Is this useful? – Joseph Goldstein
Simply begin again. – Also, Joseph Goldstein
Ride and shine – Me. A fortuitous typo of “Rise and shine,” the words my mother used to say to wake me up for school
Fusiform gyrus – the part of the brain for name/face recognition. By way of Katie Lee who says mine is broken. She’s right. I am pathetic.
Full hearts, clear mind, can’t lose – from Coach Taylor’s pre-game speeches in Friday Night Lights.
Culo y calzon – literally “ass and panties”. Spanish language idiom that (very) roughly means “thick as thieves.” Used with coy double meaning in one of Florencia Renedo’s blog posts.
Let it go. Move on. Fuck [’em] – Katie Lee who had to tell me this too many times before I finally listened to her. Still grateful.
Are you happy? What will make you happy? Do it with everything you’ve got. – Speaker after speaker quoting their departed friend Lorena Gimenez at her memorial celebration.

So tomorrow is closing time. Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

Time to get to know the feeling of liberation and release.

Dueling Odometers

Friday began with what is becoming a rejuvenated tradition for me: Friday Coffee Club. The ride into the city on my Cross Check was run of the mill. I was in a good mood and the ride only made it better.

About 1 mile from A Baked Joint, the interim location of the FCC, I happened to run into Andrea. Andrea and I chatted for a bit about how hard it is to get to ABJ. The streets are one way or closed off from construction or the traffic lights are numerous and interminable. Basically, it’s DC. Deal.

Andrea, however, has figured out some tricks. New York Avenue is a main drag that runs on a diagonal to the grid of lettered and numbered streets. Intersections often result in small triangles with traffic lights going every which way. When you get to a red light at one of these the trick is to take a right then a quick left, essentially going the long way around the triangle, then a right to continue on the diagonal. Not only does this save time at the first red light but it allows you to catch a few more green lights along the way.

Andrea’s real genius came when she took me down K Street. A left on 7th Street is illegal so Andrea does a Copenhagen left. She rides to the far side of the intersection and pivots her bike. And from there ABJ is but a short hop away. Watch me screw it up next week.

We had our coffee outside. We told tales of our bike touring adventures. Andrea advised me to get a silk sleeping bag liner. Genius again! Then PLINK! A sheared off screw fell on the table from above where some construction was happening. Fortunately we survived a few more insults from on high before moving on.

On the ride to work I fell in behind Lawyer Mike and Pancho. Until I met him at FCC, I’d never met a Pancho before. I can’t get over what a cool name it is. Right up there with Augustus.

The ride to work went surprisingly fast. I had figured out a few tricks of my own last week. It involves getting through the worst of the badly timed lights on the M Street cycletrack. Several of these lights last a minute so hitting them all is pretty frustrating.

In the evening I rode to Mount Pleasant, a neighborhood in the north central part of DC. The ride there was remarkably pleasant. especially given the fact that I rode through two insanely congested traffic circles. At my destination, I met a bunch of co-workers present and past for happy hour. This turned into dinner. It was a pretty darned nice evening. Unfortunately, when I got out of the restaurant a little after 10 pm, it started to rain cats and dogs. I put on my rain jacket, hopped on the Cross Check and carefully rode toward Virginia down 11th Street. I could barely see and was sure that the drivers and other street users could barely see me. I took my time. I stopped to put on my headlight and made my way to the Pennsylvania Avenue cycletrack. Then it was on to 15th Street and past the Washington Monument. The rain started to abate.

I have no idea how long it took me to ride the 16 miles home. Once it stopped raining it was actually pretty nice. The trail was empty. It was just me and the breeze and the sound of thousands of frogs croaking and peeping in the night.

I arrived a home just after midnight. I stayed up another couple of hours before falling asleep in an easy chair. Then I staggered to bed only to be awoken at 6 am with cramps in my feet and calves. Perhaps I should drink less wine and more water on these outings. Ya think?

During yesterday’s festivities the Cross Check managed to cross over a mileage threshold.

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In the evening, my wife, daughter, and I went out to get some dinner. Just before arriving back home, the car odometer hit a milestone of its own and easily won the odometer competition.

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I gotta get pedaling. It’s catching up to my bikes!

Five Buck Bikeabout

Yesterday’ weather was fantastic. Good weather for goofing off is also good weather for getting stuff done around the house. Sorry to disappoint you, my friends, but I chose responsibility over slacking.

I mowed the lawn and painted the shed. Most of the painting had already been done by Mrs. Rootchopper during the week but I took on the tedious chore of painting the trim. Four plus hours of pure fun. Not. When I was done I reloaded the shed with all the stuff. It’s good to be back to normal, but my efforts were rewarded with lower back pains.

So I started the today with my usual noga (My wife says it’s yoga, I say it’s back exercises so let’s just call it noga, okay?). After that I languished on my deck reading the Sunday paper. Had I stuck around it would have been tea and buttered scones but I decided to go on a recon ride to DC. I am riding my ninth 50 States Ride in a month and need to find a parking spot near the start. (It’s not too late to sign up. You have to be a WABA member, or come as the guest of one. )

So off I rode to DC on the Mount Vernon Trail. It was busy, mostly with tourists on rental bikes. You can tell because they gape at all the stuff I see every day. On the Dyke Marsh bridge I caught up to a bike tourist. We had a ten second chat from which I learned that he is riding around the perimeter of the 48 contiguous states. He started in Minnesota and is riding counterclockwise. So he’s already been from midnight to three o’clock. The ride will take him 14 months. Go dude! (I found his journal when I got home over on Crazyguyonabike.com. The journal notes say that he also took a side trip to Hawaii and dropped down into Mexico for a few days.)

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After ten miles of weaving around the rent-a-bikers, I made it into DC and headed for Rock Creek Park. Along the way, I spotted a cricket match because this is DC and DC is eclectic as fuck.

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The weather was nearly as good as yesterday. The park side trail is being refurbished and looks great for most of the way from Georgetown to Military Road. At one point, people were gathering along the trail to look into the creek. Five bucks were making their way across the creek. The road crossing had all us bystanders holding our breath. I think they made it across without incident. (The picture shows only the southbound half of the road just after a merge to the left out of frame. The grassy median is wooded and wide. They had to make it across another two lanes of northbound traffic after that.)

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I made it to the new Klingle Valley trail which I had ridden downhill recently. Today, I slogged up the hill. I kept my breathing and effort constant and had no trouble making the climb. Of course, neither would you at 7 miles per hour.

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Once i reached the top, I check out some of the local streets for parking. As long as you are willing to ride a mile (or less) to the start of the ride, you’ll have no trouble finding a place for your metal fart barge (Colin made me say that.)

After the recon was over, I rode to Meridian Hill Park for no other reason than it’s one of my favorite places in DC. The water cascade was dry earlier this summer but it is now flowing in all its glory. The park is built into a hill. Looking down from the top (near the swordless statue of Joan of Arc) the cascade is pretty. Looking up from the base of the park, it is just WOW! And it sounds so soothing you could sit beside it all day canoodling with your canoodle-ee.

DSCN5983 — Cascade from the top of the park

I thought it would spoil the vibe if I started canoodling with myself so I made my way home down the 15 Street cycletrack. This was a mistake. It took a really long time. I could have been bombing down 16th Street instead. Riding in a cycletrack in DC feels like you’re in a video game. People, ubers, delivery vans, dogs, and other random stuff seem to appear. You’ll never score enough points if you don’t pay attention.

The ride home was a breeze. Literally. I took a side trip through Del Ray for a change of pace. After 40 miles, I didn’t feel the slightest bit tired. I’m ready for my tour, Mr. DeMille.

Some more pix of my ride are on my Flickr page.

Whale Sharks, Fearing the Reaper, Bandolier Booze, and Other Thoughts

Friday Coffee Club made my week. I love how DC has so many interesting clever people.

For the second week in a row, I got all turned around getting to A Baked Joint, but I made a rather splendid recovery and avoided riding on sidewalks or through nearby construction zones.
Friday Coffee Club is best when it is about tales told well. Michael B. was in fine form telling us all what it was like to scuba dive in the Philippines among whale sharks. Their tales look so smooth swooshing slowly back and forth. This, combined with the sheer mass of the fish, makes it look like the shark is moving slowly. Quite the opposite, so divers beware. Also, if the tail hits you, you’re chum, dude.
Andrea then weighed in on tales of bike touring and RAGBRAI. She and her husband concocted a three-month cross country tour. For comfort, and to be in harmony with her bent hubby, she bought a Tour Easy, the same recumbent as Big Nellie. She went to pick it up two weeks before the tour only to find out that the wrong size had been order. Ack! After some phone calls to a competing bike shop, she scored a bike in the right size and color two days before the tour. I can’t imagine jumping on a recumbent for the first time and riding 4,000+ miles. Dang.
Next Andrea told us about her recent participation in the annual cross-Iowa bike event called RAGBRAI. The ride starts on the banks of the Missouri River on the west border of Iowa and heads to the Mississippi River on the east side. She flew to Minot SD only to learn that her bus to the ride start had been canceled. Within minutes she had hitched a ride on a converted school bus designed around a Blue Oyster Cult theme. This never happens to me. Ken Kesey phone home.
RAGBRAI is also a rolling party with pie and alcohol and other ingestible goodies. Being somehow in possession of numerous airplane sized liquor bottles, she needed a way to carry them. So she acquired a bandolier from a hunter friend and put the bottles in the shell holders. Genius! We don’t need no stinking glasses.

It doesn’t take much to be a thoughtful friend.

We sometimes forget to stay in touch with friends. And when we do, the communication can be somewhat perfunctory. I am heartened to know that there are people who I don’t often see but who go to the bother to let me know they are thinking about me.
- Today, Rando Mike sent me a message out of the blue congratulating me on my retirement. You are two weeks early, my friend. No worries, I’ll stop by your house (an official rest stop) during the 50 States Ride before heading off to Key West. Mike has been trying to talk me into riding somewhere else. He won’t succeed.
- From time to time, when I haven’t heard from her, I send Klarence an email just to make sure she is doing okay. I’m sure she’s fine, but it doesn’t hurt to check on a friend who did me a massive good turn two years ago. A few hours after Mike’s tweet, Klarence sent me an response to my most recent “Are you okay?” email. She has been busy stalking her favorite jam band, working her ass off, and moving so it has been a while since our paths have crossed. Somewhere in all that chaos she quietly kept tabs on me via social media, liking this tweet and that Instagram picture, a sort of electronic way of waving. Regardless, I have no reason to believe she has any idea what’s going on in my life. So she ends her email: “Ready for retirement??” And you wonder why I am ever grateful, Klarence.
My co-workers are busy trying to squeeze some fun out of my imminent departure for Seizure World. Their glee is palpable. They’ve already scheduled chips and quac during an afternoon in the office. My co-workers vastly prefer chips and quac to actual work. Or to me, for that matter. There also will be a happy hour of sorts. Kelly, who once ran her sorority in college, is losing her mind. She’ll be away for all this social stuff. Of course, she couldn’t care less about me. She’s just a maniac for parties.
Co-worker Amanda returned from her vacation, a birthday recon trip to Key West. She reports that Key West is chock-a-block full of good restaurants and saloons. She sampled them all. Well done, my young apprentice. I may need you to scout out west coast destinations for my cross country bike tour next summer. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to travel to San Diego, San Francisco, Astoria Oregon, and Seattle. Eat, drink, and take notes.

Home is where the chores are

The contractors finished the refurbishment of the 8 x 14 shed we call the Rootchopper Institute’s Headquarters. We are dumping the forest green color scheme and matching the shed colors to the house: gray with white trim. Mrs. Rootchopper has taken over the painting. The particle board is sucking up paint like a sponge. It’s taking as long to paint the thing as it did to rebuild it. So it goes. Looks great though.
The contract called for all kinds of extra payments for additional work. Despite doing quite a bit of extra tweaking to the framing, the bill arrived with no additional payments on it.
My car did not fare so well. I took it in for an inspection and after replacing the front brakes and doing an alignment (as well as other assorted maintenance), I walked away $600 poorer. Andrea, got any of those bottles left?

July – Going, Going Long

I finally got off the consistency schneid and broke the 800-mile barrier for a month of bike riding this year. 812 to be exact.

532 miles riding back and forth to work with a couple of side trips to Nats Park. That’s 18 more bike commutes. Little Nellie did 50 miles and the Cross Check provided the rest of the transport.

My long ride of the month was the Whites Ferry century (101 miles) on my Cross Check. Little Nellie jumped in the trunk of my car for romps in Rhode Island and New Jersey.

So far this year I’ve ridden 4,869.5 miles. If I just straightened this out I’d be somewhere south of Lima by now.

3,489 miles are attributable to 119 bike commutes.

That could get me to the west coast. By now. If I started in early May.

Just sayin’.

P. S. I am really grateful for the help Laura Miller from WABA gave me today to get a friend signed up as my guest for this year’s 50 States Ride in September. Ella no será un novato esta vez.

Stood Up by a Katie, No Problem

Last night Katie Bolton. (a member of the raucous band of BikeDC Katies including Katies Harris, Lee, and Fignewton – don’t ask) asked if Rachel (Don’t Call Me Bob) Cannon and I were going to Friday Coffee Club. I don’t normally go to FCC these days because it is hard to get to and hard to get to work from. I am, however, three weeks from retirement so, in terms of arriving at work at a specific time, I am all out of fucks to give. And I am a complete sucker for Katies on two wheels. And off I rode.

The weather forecast called for ark-worthy rain but there was no precipitation when I left home at 6:15. The ride was pleasant until I got lost within a quarter mile of A Baked Joint, the interim home of FCC. I have ridden every street in the area dozens of times but I can’t help but end up going the wrong way or, as I did today, overshooting the city block I was looking for.

When I finally arrived, there were several folks I knew there. Yay!

Jeff, Jacques, Ricky, and Leslie were already getting their caffeine fix on. I ordered a mocha and it was delish.

FCC Three — In which Ricky (r) takes a selfie with Jeff (center) and me at Friday Coffee Club

I joined the group and we soon added Scuba Michael and Mr. T. It was like an old Friday Coffee Club reunion without the young women. So naturally the newly married Megan and her newly married husband Nate. We chatted about their honeymoon in France which they Instagrammed the bejesus out of.

Holy crap, the young ‘uns from Friday Coffee Club are getting hitched!

Now that I think of it, there are several second generation FCCers who were born in the years since Mary, Ed, Brian, Lane, and Lisa started this shindig.

And then Ed walked in. And walked out. He sat with a cycling friend (who’s name escapes me) outside in the muggy morning air. Ed just came back from a tour in the Rockies. He must be craving humidity. DC rarely disappoints.

Alas, the only disappointment was that Katie and Rachel didn’t come. Sad face.

At work my telecommuting co-worker Kelly sent me an email “You didn’t ride to work today, did you?” Kelly was nearly swept away by a flash flood during one of her first bike commutes. She freaks out over weather. I try to remain calm but all day my phone erupted in flash flood warnings.

The rains did arrive in late morning. There were very much ark-worthy. I rode home in a deluge that lasted for about half the ride. Streams and runoff crossing the Mount Vernon Trail were filled with very fast running water. Eek! There were big puddles on the trail. Eek eek! The geese were really happy. Honk! I rode right past. Splash! Ding!

There was no thunder or lightning. There was no wind. So I just basically got wet. No big deal. At the half way point (roughly 7 1/2 miles) at the power plant north of Old Town Alexandria, the rain stopped. There was intermittent light rain for the rest of the commute. I though maybe I should jump in a creek and get a selfie of me hanging on to a bridge for dear life. It would have made Kelly happy.

When I arrived home, I learned that Lawyer Mike had successfully ridden his 100 mile charity ride. As of this writing, I have not heard from my friend Emilia who did the 70 mile version of the ride. Emilia started two or three hours later than Mike and rides quite a bit slower. I do hope she is okay.

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

There are many massive old trees along the Mount Vernon Trail in Belle Haven Park south of Alexandria. A few years ago a true behemoth started falling apart and was taken down. Over the weekend storms claimed another tree, much smaller but still a welcome producer of shade along the trail. This is what the tree looked like this morning.

Ten hours later this is what remained.

Sad face.

There were several other much smaller trees and limbs that had fallen across the trail. These were cleared before this morning’s rush hour.

The credit here goes to the National Park Service that maintains the trail and the nearby George Washington Memorial Parkway.

No good deed goes unpunished around here, however. If the Park Service can provide such excellent storm debris clean up, it can do other things that trail users have wanted for years. Here are a few:

Plowing and treating the trail after winter storms
Grinding down the bumps from tree roots
Repositioning stop signs so that they force cars to stop not trail users.
Finding an alternative bridge material to the wood that is currently used. Wood bridges become skating rinks and cause many bike crashes. I don’t know if she fell on a bridge but I saw a young cyclist tending to a very bloody wound below her elbow this morning.

Tonight on my ride home I was flagged down by Adam Schildge. He and his wife Amy are new homeowners down my way in the Fort Hunt neighborhood. They were signing people up for a new bike advocacy Facebook group called MVT South. If you are a user of the southern part of the Mount Vernon Trail (south of Old Town Alexandria) check it out.

A Long, Long Way from Rotorua

On our trip around the world in 2015, we made a stop in Rotorua, a resort town on the north island of New Zealand. We used it as a jumping off point for various adventures. One evening we went to a local Maori site and had a fantastic cookout and watched a traditional Maori performance called kapa haka.

Rotorua is a geothermal area and the cookout was done in the ground over geothermal vents of some sort. Just wrap the food in aluminum foil, leave it on the vents, and voila dinner is served.

The performance was extremely entertaining. Dancing, weapons, intimidating faces with bug eyes and tongues displayed. Maoris are large humans. New Zealanders of all stripes admire their fierce competitiveness on the rugby pitch either for the national team called the All Blacks or as players on other countries’ teams all over the world. Before each All Blacks game the team performs a haka as a way to acknowledge their roots, fire themselves up, and freak out their opponents.

During the performance I spotted #bikedc man about town Joe Flood taking pictures. He’s a pretty darned good photographer . Joe’s in the purple shirt in the center of the picture below.

Today we saw Maoris perform a kapa haka in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Abe was impressed. I am pretty sure he was clapping along with the rest of us. There is obvious European influence in the songs (which were accompanied by acoustic guitarists and other musicians), the performance is unmistakably something else entirely. My favorite singer songwriter, Neil Finn, is from New Zealand. He credits the Maori strum as the rhythmic underpinning of many of his songs, including the Crowded House hit “Don’t Dream It’s Over.” From time to time Maori music and singers appear on his records.

The performance ended just as a storm approached. I took this picture as we made our way back to the car. We didn’t make it. The clouds opened up. Summertime in DC.

Storm in DC

A few more pictures are on my Flickr page.

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