[SkateDC] Sunday Skate Report for Inauguration Weekend

[Bill English]

Skating was relatively normal today, except for the lack of parking. George gave up and went home when he couldn't park. Other people were delayed by traffic & parking. I was late in arriving mainly because I was fooling around on the computer too long before departing from home.

 I skated from home to the Takoma Park Metro Train Station and that worked fine and was not crowded. 

Some skaters, including Mo & Steve, went off to do the Capitol Crescent Trail to Bethesda. Kent, John D. and I found each other in LaFayette Park and we decided to skate around downtown to check out the inauguration preparations. 

We went to the Lincoln Memorial area and saw the people lining up along Independence Ave for the big concert 2.5 hours early. Then we went around Capitol Hill by way of the Fish Market. We checked out the 3rd Street tunnel, which will be just for pedestrians on Tuesday. It was full of car traffic today so we did not try to skate it. 

We ended up in the Mall area. I could not resist checking out the temporary MSNBC broadcasting studio in the middle of the Mall. John & Kent headed for home at that point. There was a robot boom camera getting crowd shots and I was in the crowd for a while waving to get on TV with the rest of them. Departing from there I immediately saw a car with a flat tire at the stop light. I let the driver know about the flat, and offered to install the spare. The driver was lucky to find a parking spot just ahead, still near the MSNBC studio. The driver  wanted help, since she and her passenger were two women dressed up fancy in fur coats and taking care of a baby. The tire change went well and I sent them on their way. Maybe MSNBC got pictures of me in skates doing that chore.

Police were very friendly toward us today. We got to skate on a few different roads which were closed to auto traffic. We were politely turned back only once after entering a closed portion of Independence Ave.

Today's Sunday Skate was a good dry-run for Carl's Tuesday Inauguration Skate. That one will meet at 11:00 AM at DuPont Circle.

Bill