The DC Traveler

May 16th, 2008

Rude DC Drivers - Two Years in a Row

Once again, Washington, DC area drivers were ranked the fifth worst in rudeness and hostility on the road.

Sadly, I must agree with the latest AutoVantage Road Rage survey.  A large portion of our area drivers have become overly aggressive, drive as if the speed limit is as fast as you can go until a car blocks your way and assumes that using a turn signal is not an indication of intent, but results in a God-given right to force their way over without looking.

Another trend that seems to be growing exponentially is texting while driving, especially among younger drivers.

The most shocking part of the survey is that 1% of drivers surveyed stated that they had actually deliberately slammed their car into the car in front of them.

Neighboring Baltimore jumped onto the list at #4, while Miami drivers were rated as the worst nationally. And Pittsburgh drivers were considered the most courteous. 

Some additional national stats and trends were also reported, including that 59% of drivers think it would be helpful to require hands-free cell phone usage, and 52% of drivers believing that cell phone use while driving should be made illegal.

To help people understand the new nuances of driving in Washington, DC area, as I posted last year, here are my Ten Rules for DC Drivers:

1. The heavier the traffic, the closer you should tailgate the driver in front of you.  How else will they know you’re running late?
2. The speed limit on the Beltway is…wait, there is no speed limit on the Beltway.
3. Using turn signals telegraphs your next move in your personal road battle — never use them.
4. When driving on any highway, NEVER leave more than one car length (even at high speeds) between you and the car in front of you.  If you do, somebody will fill in the space.  Tailgating is a competitive sport in DC.
5. The overhead electronic traffic information signs are not there to provide useful driver information, just to make the DC region look more progressive.
6. Old Rule - The faster you drive through a red light, the lower your odds of getting hit.  New Rule - The more anti-photo reflective paint you have on your license plates, the lower your odds of getting a ticket from a red light camera.
7. Exiting the highway is properly accomplished by staying in the far left lane until you are just a few feet from your the exit, then violently swerving across 3 lanes to exit.  Points taken away for using turn signals (see Rule #3 above).
8. “Accident Ahead!” warning signs inform you of problems immediately after you pass the last exit before traffic comes to a standstill.
9. If you are late to work and it’s gridlock, feel entitled to use the shoulder on any highway.
10. Metro buses do not need to follow the Rules of the Road.

New Bonus Rule: Using a cell phone is no long a cool thing to do while driving. With all the area hotspots and the growing Wi-Fi availability, it’s much more productive to and in use your laptop while traveling at 85 mph. 

Feel free to add to my list. Just add your comment below.

And as a case in point, just yesterday on I-66, I experienced an all too typical road-raging maniac driver. I suspect if I could do a Vulcan mind-meld with him, his thoughts would be:

• The more I shake my fist at people, on the faster traffic in general will move.
• My immediate de it sire to change lanes without signaling, by forcing my way over is Constitutionally protected.
• If people do not instantly slam on their brakes to let me in when I change lanes, Iron Man or UN peacekeeping troops should be called in.
• Flipping people off is the cheerful nonverbal way to tell people “I love you man.”

Images - Raging driver, gridlock - from personal collection - © 2008 - Jon Rochetti

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May 15th, 2008

Great Falls Literally Disappears

From this….

To this…

With all the rain that we have had recently, Great Falls literally disappeared.

Visiting now will give you a rare perspective on the falls, that you only see after massive rain storms.

Here’s a quick clip of the falls from Tuesday afternoon (May 13, 2008)

Great Falls Park
9200 Old Dominion Drive at Georgetown Pike (Route 193)
McLean, VA 22102 (map it)

Days and Hours – Open daily, 7:00 a.m. until sunset.

Entrance Fee- $5.00 per vehicle, individual passes (on foot, horseback, bicycle or motorcycle) - $3.00, annual pass - $20.00

Nearest Metro subway station– West Falls Church or Dunn Loring - Orange line. Then a 7-10 mile cab ride to the park.

Images - from personal collection - © 2008 - Jon Rochetti 

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May 14th, 2008

I Feel the Need…The Need for Speed

Interested in aviation and flying?  Then this weekend is for you.

It’s the best air show of the year in the Washington, DC area. Everything from vintage bi-planes to the military’s most aggressive fighter jets will perform a FREE airshow at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland, this weekend.

Some of the highlights will include:

• Blue Angels (Navy)
• Golden Knights Parachute Team (Army)
• Vintage warbirds and current fighter jets, including the vintage WW-II P-51 Mustang, AV-8B Harrier, F-104 Starfighters, F-15 Strike Eagle, and the aggressive 1,325+ mph F-22 Raptor
• C-17 Globmaster
• Red Bull Air Force

The other major air show near Washington, DC is the Oceana Air Show in Virginia Beach at the end of the summer.

Here are the Blue Angles…takin’ care of business.

2008 Joint Service Open House and Air Show
Andrews Air Force Base
Parking at FedEx Field
Lottsford Road and Fedex Way
Landover, MD  (map it)

Dates and Times - Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18, gates open at 8:00 a.m., Saturday show starts at 9:00, Sunday at 10:00.  Both days end at 5:00.  Click here for the show schedule.

Tickets - FREE

Nearest Metro Subway Station - Branch Avenue, Green line, then take the 20-minute shuttle.

Parking - No parking at the base, but parking is available at FedEx Field where shuttle buses will transport guests to Andrews. Shuttles also run from the Branch Avenue Metro Station.

Security - All attendees are subject to search. No coolers, backpacks, pets or large camera bags.  Portable lawn chairs and collapsible strollers are allowed.

Images - P-51, Blue Angles - public domain, C-17, F-22,

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May 13th, 2008

DC’s Other Ball Team - The P-Nats

Did you know that Washington, DC has more than one professional baseball team?

Besides the Washington Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles, and 5 other mionor league teams, the Potomac Nationals, of the Carolina League, play home games in nearby Woodbridge, Virginia, just 40 minutes from Washington, DC.

The Carolina League formed in 1945 with just a couple of games in southern Virginia. Currently it has seven other A-level minor league teams, besides the Potomac Nationals, representing the Orioles, Pirates, Royals, Indians, Braves, White Sox, and Astros.

A few Hall of Famers have come out the Carolina leaguers, including Johnny Bench, Wade Boggs, Barry “steriod” Bonds, Darryl Strawberry and Carl Yastrzemski.

The movie “Bull Durham”, staring Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins was about a factious Caroline League team, the Durham Bulls.

The P-Nats play in the 24-year-old Pfitzner Stadium, which has a seating capacity of around 6,000 fans.  The stadium is nothing like a “bigs” ball park but looks as if it would be very enjoyable as you get an upclose look at the players and great opportunities for autographs of future Nationals players.

Tickets are cheap compared to Washington Nationals game, as low as $7.00 for an unreserved grandstand seat. 

Every Monday night when the Potomac Nationals are playing at home, you can buy an unreserved grandstand seat for only $1.00.  Hot dogs are only a buck as well.  Tickets for Monday night games are only available at the box office, the night of the game.

You can listen live to games on the web. 

Potomac Nationals
Pfitzner Stadium
7 County Complex Ct., off of Prince William Parkway
Woodbridge, VA 22192  (map it)

Dates and Times - Most evening games start around 7:00 p.m., with some afternoon games starting at 1:05 p.m.  Click here for the Potomac Nationals schedule. Gates open one hour before game time.

Tickets - single-game tickets are available online or by calling 703-590-2311 ext. 215.

• Field Box Seats - $13.00
• Box Seats - $11.00
• Reserved Seats - $10.00, $1.00 Military discount
  Senior Citizens (62 & older) - $9.00
• Grandstand Seats: Adults - $8.00, Kids 6-12 - $7.00, Seniors and Military w/ID - $7.00

Handicapped parking and seating is available.

Nearest Metro Subway Station - line, then a  block walk or use the DC Circulator.

Parking - $4.00 per car.

Image - Uncle Sam mascot

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May 12th, 2008

Photo of the Week - Gold Cup

Here are a few photographs I took at this year’s running of the Virginia Gold Cup.  

Special thanks to Jimmy and Sonya for the invite.

Images - from personal collection - © 2008 - Jon Rochetti

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May 12th, 2008

A Wacky Brain Teasing Urban Hunt

Are you good at solving brain teasers? Do you finish the Sunday crossword puzzle in record time? Are you the next Jeopardy rock star?

Then you might want to participate in the first Washington Post’s 2008 Post Hunt.

The hunt is an urban safari consisting of puzzles built into the DC’s Penn Quarter neighborhood, home to countless restaurants, Madame  Tussauds Wax Museum, the International Spy Museum, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial and the National Portrait Gallery.  The hunt should take teams on an interesting neighborhood tour while hunters search for cues and answers to a series of brain challenging questions, all requiring a number as the answer. 

Started by the Miami Herald in 1984, this wacky hunt held annually on the beach in Miami, has drawn teams of trivia players, brainiacks, families and people just looking to exercise their brains and powers of observation on a Sunday afternoon.  And this year, the Hunt kicks off its first year in Washington, DC.

Teams sizes can range from the lone Einstein wanna-be to teams with as many participants as you like; but four participants per team are recommended due to prizes being designed for teams of 4. Each team is provided with a map and clues, with additional hints and clues found along the route.

And the clues aren’t that easy. It takes thinking WAY outside the box and careful examination of your surroundings to come up with correct answers.

Here’s a couple samples of the questions and answers from a past Miami Hunt, to give you an idea.

Hint - Along the Hunt’s route, participants pass four volunteers wearing sandwich boards. One has the image of Mark Twain on their board; the second, a drawing of a waffle ice cream cone, the third is an image of few links of chain; and the last, a key.

Answer - Hunters had to first rearrange the images to arranges them in correct order (not too hard) — link-cone-mark-key, for ‘Lincoln marquee’. And not surprisingly, the Lincoln Theatre was close by.  The theater’s marquee was lit up, but several letters were not.  The answer could be found in the the letters that were lit - ‘inThetre’. Rearranged, the letters spelled ‘Thirteen’, which was the correct answer.

Hint - Hunters were handed a small purple flag with a white flower on it along the route.  The hunt map also had a similar flag, showing a location at the beach. Heading to the beach, hunters witnessed a strange volleyball game in progress. The players were not using a ball, but inflatable animals, each with a number on them. A sign at the net said ‘you need to know why you are here‘.

Answer - It starts with the flag and the surroundings.  Next to the volleyball net, was a lifeguard stand, also flying flags.  A sign on the lifeguard stand indicated that a purple flag, meant dangerous marine life was in the water, near the beach.  The only inflatable animal the volleyball players were using was a shark, with the the number 27 printed on it. So the answer was “27″.

The final clue will be given at approximately 3:00 p.m. at the Main Stage and the first three teams to correctly solve all the questions win. The top three prizes are a four-person 3, 4 or 5-day trips (airfare and hotel) to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Washington Post’s 2008 Post Hunt
City Center Parking Lot
10th & H Streets, NW, at the Old Convention Center site
Washington, DC (map it)

Dates and Times - Sunday, May 18, 2008. Noon until about 3:30 p.m. Rain or shine.

Admission - Free, but to participate, your team must be at the Main Stage located at the City Center Parking Lot by noon. You must apply the noon clue to information found in the Washington Post Magazine special section to begin your play, so bring a copy of the 5/18 Washington Post Magazine.

Nearest Metro Subway Station - Metro Center - Red, Blue and Orange lines or Gallery Place-Chinatown - Red, Yellow and Green lines.

Parking - Street and paid garage parking is available.

Images - Flickr - cube, puzzle, maze, Metro sign

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May 11th, 2008

Mother’s Day Trivia

I searched the web for all kinds of Mother’s Day trivia.

Here’s what I came up with:

• The percentage of women with 4 or more children - dropped from 36% of American women in 1976 to 11% just 30 years later. 
• The number of new moms each year - 4 million, with 11% being teen mothers and 2.5% accounting for moms over 40+ year old. 
• Percent of births occurring in a hospital - 99+%.
• Number of Mother’s Day cards sent annually - 155 million, the 3rd highest of any holiday.
• Dollars spent on Mom on Mother’s Day - just under $100 on average, including dinner, gifts, flowers and cards.
• World’s youngest mother - Lina Medina, who, in 1939, delivered a 6½-pound boy in Lima, Peru, at an age of 5 years and 7 months.

• World’s oldest mother - Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara of Spain, delivered twins at the age of 66 in 2006.
• Shortest interval between births - Just 208 days (just under 7 months) was how quickly Jayne Bleackley gave birth in 1999 and 2000.
• Longest interval between births - 41½ years, by Elizabeth Buttle, who’s first child came in  1956 when she was 19 and her second child was born in 1997, when she was 60.
• Most children born to a mother - An unbelievable 69 by Feodor Vassilyev in 18th century Russia. Her family (actually a small city) included 16 sets of twins (32), seven sets of triplets (21), and four sets of quadruplets (16).  All but two survived infancy. But that’s nothing compared to the female oyster, who can produce 100 million offspring during her lifetime.

Images - Mom & son, hippos, geese 

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May 11th, 2008

Happy Mother’s Day

If anyone in my life deserves a special day, it’s my Mom. 

The fact that I didn’t drive her to drink, cause her to ring my neck or cause her to end up in a padded cell with a monogrammed straight jacket, is testament to her undying patience and love.

So to you Mom, thanks for being the best mother a kid could have.

And cheers to all the 80 million Moms in the U.S. on their special day.

The history of Mother’s Day in America actually dates back to the Civil War. In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother’s Day. It was intended as a day for Americans to fly the American flag in honor of mothers whose sons had died in war.  Within ten year, the person who had promoted the concept of a day honoring mothers who lost sons in battle, was so fed up with the commercialism of the day, that she filed suit to get the holiday canceled.

Mother’s Day is the most popular day to dine out and historically, more phone calls are placed on Mother’s Day than any other day of the year.

                   Happy Mother’s Day!!!

Images - Pulmeria

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May 10th, 2008

If I Could Dine and Dance with the Animals - ZooFari

The National Zoo’s annual fund-raiser, ZooFari, is this weekend and it brings close to 100 of Washington, D.C., best chefs, restaurants and wine makers,  for an evening of dancing, live music and entertainment, animal encounters, and gourmet foods.

A few of the notable restaurants include DC’s Kinkead’s and Vidalia as well as 2941 in suburban Falls Church, VA.

Since this year’s theme highlights the zoo’s efforts to save amphibians from global extinction, I doubt frogs legs will be served.

ZooFari at The National Zoo
3001 Connecticut Ave., NW 
Washington, DC  (map it)

Dates and Times - Thursday, May 15, 2008, 6:30 - 10:00 p.m.

Tickets - $175.00 and are available online or by calling 202-633-4470.

Nearest Metro Subway Station - Woodley Park/Zoo/Adams Morgan or Cleveland Park - Red Line then a 3-block walk.

Parking - Limited parking is available at the zoo as well as street parking is available, but watch for rush hour limitations and parking meters hours, as some my be in effect.

Images - panda, frog

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May 10th, 2008

Cheers…It’s Cocktail Week!

World Cocktail Week is a project sponsored by The Museum of the American Cocktail to acknowledge the American cocktail culture and recognize your friendly bartenders.

According to the museum, the first recorded use of the printed word “cocktail” was on May 13, 1806, in The Balance, an Albany, NY paper.

And to help us celebrate, (as if we need an excuse), events are planned in 11 cities, including a cocktail-themed dinner at Proof, here in Washington, DC (775 G Street, NW) at 7 p.m. on Monday, May 12, 2008.  Tickets are $135 per person and includes hors d’oeuvres with five specialty cocktails created by some of DC’s more interesting mixologists.  Then sit own for a five-course tasting menu with an additional five specialty cocktails.  Bottom line, plan on having a designated driver or taking a cab home that night.

In honor of the week, I came up with my own version of a quintessential  (tongue in cheek) cocktail for Washington, DC.

The Inside the Beltway Martini

In a $286 government-funded shaker, mix:

• 2 parts hot air
• 1 part broken promises
• 1 part lobbyist bribery
• a dash of shameless partisan posturing
• 2 parts sanctimonious speechmaking
• a dash of sex scandal
• top it off with a big splash of righteous indignation

Serve in a large feeding trough and garnish with a piece of braised pork fat. 

This drink is guaranteed to make you drunk with power.

Some of my fellow bloggers got in the “mix” and came up with their own tongue in cheek versions of a cocktail in their city or destination.

• The first is another version of a DC Cocktail, from my fellow Washington, DC blogger at Starked DC, J.Michael.
• Then we have Susan, at The Disney Traveler, with something I assume Mickey Mouse might serve his pals.
• Justin at The Toronto Traveler has one from up north.
• From Japan, Shane at The Tokyo Traveler bring us her version of a saki margarita.
• Alex at Sirened shakes up his version of the “tini”.
• Mary Jo at Fly Away Cafe, tells us about her version of the perfect Flight Attendant cocktail, just remember to keep your seat belt fastened. 
• Another one from Mary Jo who also writes The Seattle Traveler, and her version of the Seattle Space Needle.
• Matt at The Chicago Traveler, bring his take on a Windy City libation.
• Geoff at The Switzerland Traveler came up with a couple of Zurich-inspired cocktails as well.
• From The Las Vegas Traveler, Heather brings us three unique local cocktails, plus the real Las Vegas Cocktail that I suspect even Elvis would have enjoyed.
• Coming to us from the Mile High city of Denver, Shawn from The Denver Traveler, gives us the Denver Cocktail, which of course is served…on the Rockies.
• And a late entry from Paul at Starked SF, the San Francisco Treat…and it has nothing to to with Rice-A-Roni.

CHEERS!!

Images - martini, sign, bartender

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