Mockingjay

Michelle and I just finished Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, the third and final book of the Hunger Games series. We read this final installment the way we read the Harry Potter books - by actually taking turns reading out loud to each other. This was a quick read so it only took us a few days. I don't think I am going to do a real critique of the book and break it down analytically or anything like that, rather I mostly just wanted to say that it was our least favorite of the trilogy and we were slightly disappointed with the story and the ending...although it did provided enough closure and satisfied all the loose ends.

More than anything else though, I would love to hear what you have to say about the book if you have read it yet. Please share your thoughts!

An Amazing Summer

This summer has been one we will never forget. We went to Peru and Georgia, and we had great friends and family come visit and stay with us here in DC. We also did a ton of sightseeing right here at home. I guess you could say this is going to be one of those 'catch-up' posts since there are a lot of really cool things we did this summer that we haven't gotten around to blogging about. I will start out with the most recent. Last night we went to a Red Skins preseason game with some friends. I don't think I had ever been to an NFL game before so it was a lot of fun! FedEx Field is the largest NFL stadium and we could tell! It is also pretty far from the nearest Metro stop so it took us almost two hours to from our apartment to our seats. It was quite an ordeal to get there but it was totally worth it. The Red Skins were playing the Ravens so that added a few cool elements to the already cool setting. Michale Oher (from the movie The Blidside) plays for the Ravens so it was fun to see him play. Also, between the Red Skins and the Ravens there are multiple BYU and Utah alumni including John Beck and Dennis Pitta -- who had a great game.



Last weekend we went kayaking on the Potomac River. Some of our friends got a great deal through Groupon and were nice enough to invite us to join them. Each couple -- including us -- got into a two-person kayak and were free to go as far up or down the Potomac as we wanted (as long as we were back to the dock in an hour and fifteen minutes). We made all the way to the Lincoln Memorial and you could see the Washington Monument behind it. It was a great view and we rested there for a little while, took some pictures, and then turned around and made it back to the dock, albeit extremely exhausted. Kayaking is harder work than I thought, luckily Michelle is strong enough to pick up my slack :)







Last weekend we also went to a Maroon 5 concert with our friends the Hammocks. We found an incredible deal on tickets a few days before the concert, the venue must have needed to sale some more tickets, which was fine by us! We were both really looking forward to it and they didn't disappoint. They had VV Brown and Owl City as opening acts. I enjoyed all three groups a lot more than I thought I would. VV Brown's music was a little different but she really grew on me by the end of her set of songs. Owl City was also a unique performance, to say the least, but we enjoyed all the music. Maroon 5 put on a good show and played all the hits. Before the Maroon 5 concert we visited the US Marine Corps Museum in Quantico/Triangle. We had heard nothing but good things about it so we were anxious to finally visit it. It really was a great museum. There were many artifacts and lots of history in the museum. Sadly, we only got to spend about 45 minutes in the museum because the traffic was so bad and it took us so long to get there. I was certain that the traffic must have been due to an accident but I was wrong, it was just DC traffic. To give you an idea of just how bad the traffic was, when we were only about 5 miles away from the museum it still took us something like 2 hours to get there. We left with plenty of time to get there, or so I thought, and there were moments while we were stuck in traffic when I thought we might not even make it. Thankfully we did at least get to spend 45 minutes there!

Finally, going all the way back to the beginning of the summer, we had an amazing fourth of July here in DC. Michelle's cousins Phil and Noelle and their baby came and stayed with us for the weekend and we all went, along with a ton of friends watch fireworks from what has to be the absolute coolest place in the world to watch fireworks. We watched fireworks go off above the Lincoln Memorial from right in front of the Washington Monument. On our right was the White House and on our left was the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. The US capitol was also behind us, a little further down the National Mall behind the Washington Monument. We got to celebrate our country's independence surrounded by all of these magnificent memorials. Some people say its not worth the long Metro ride in and wading through what must be hundreds of thousands of people to see fireworks, but I would beg to differ, I think it was completely worth it! Muchas Gracias to Chance for his fine photography that you see on all of the 4th of July pictures.







Michelle and I now blog for two reasons: the first is the same as before, to let our friends and family know what is going on in our lives. The second reason is because we recently discovered that you can have your blog turned into an actual book. The website blog2print.com will put all the posts, with their pictures, in order and into a hardcover book with a title page and page numbers. You can customize the book however you want and not include some posts if they are silly and you just don't feel that you need it in your book. We paid for all of our blog posts (up to the point about a month ago) to be made into a book and we absolutely love it. We will probably do it about once a year and keep them as something of a record of the fun things we have done.

My Life is About to Change...

Take a look at the books I spent the last couple of months reading:

• Hunger Games and Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
  
• Deadline - Clair Poulson
• These is My words - Nancy E. Turner
• The Third Option, Separation of Power, Executive Power, - Vince Flynn

Now take a look at the books I just checked out of the library for the upcoming month:

• First Day Jitters
• Chrysanthemum
• Listen Buddy
• Chick Chicka Boom Boom
• The Little Engine That Could
• Why Mosquito's Buzz in People's Ears
• The Honest-to-Goodness Truth

Yep, starting Monday I will once again be teaching first grade and life is about to change quite a bit! Hopefully I will have time to actually blog about it this year.

Awesome Road Trip To Atlanta

Atlanta is a really cool city. We spent this past weekend there with our really good friends, the Hammocks. The Hammocks were nice enough to invite us to stay at their house for the weekend with them and it was really fun to get to know their family. We managed to see a lot of the city and have a lot of fun in just a short amount of time. Atlanta has some very famous landmarks and attractions. We went to the World of Coke, the Georgia Aquarium, and Turner Field. Special thanks to Chance, an awesome photographer, who took the above picture and the pictures at the stadium. Atlanta was great, but I think what made the trip so fun was who we were with!

The World of Coke was a blast. It was a museum about the history of Coca Cola products and it ended with a tasting room where you were free to try coke products from literally all around the world. There were 24 products from North America and then 6 actual coke beverages from North America, 8 from Latin America, 8 from Asia, 8 from Europe, and 8 from Africa. It was a lot of fun trying the different flavors of sodas from all around the world. To be perfectly honest with you, a lot of the drinks from Europe, Asia, and Africa were pretty disgusting (see video of me trying a Japanese flavor of Hi-C). Michelle and I both tried every single kind, except for the Nestea beverages because we don't drink tea. In total, we tried something like 54 different soft drinks from around the world, we both felt sick afterward. The worst soft drink, if you are wondering, is an Italian drink called Beverly. Look it up on Wikipedia if you want, but take my word for it, it is awful. I thought it was really cool that Peru was represented in the Latin America section with Inca Kola. It was not as good as the real Peruvian beverage but it was a pleasant surprise that they had it.








The Georgia Aquarium was a real treat. It is the biggest aquarium in the world. Our favorite part of the aquarium was touching the rays and sharks in a section of the aquarium where they let you touch them when they swim by. It was also fun to walk through a tunnel with the aquarium and sharks and whales all around you.





It was 'Mormon Night' at Turner Field where the Braves play. We saw them beat the New York Mets, but the real treat was getting to walk around the field in a parade with all the other members of the Church a little before the game started. Chance took some awesome pictures of us walking around the field, but the coolest is probably one of me pretending I am jumping at the outfield fence to catch a home run. It was a neat experience to be on the actual grounds of a baseball field. After the game we went to a local legend of a restaurant called the Varsity. We enjoyed some chili cheese fries and chili cheese dogs.

From what we saw and all the people we met, Atlanta is an awesome place! What really made the trip so great though was the company we were with; really, we had such a great time!

Peru (Updated with Slideshow and Slideshow Link)

You can also click on the slide show to make it bigger.
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Machu Picchu, Cusco
Warning: This is a long post about our two week vacation to Peru, but I think friends and family will enjoy reading about our trip in this much detail. We posted a few pictures here on the blog but the slideshow which we will add soon will have many, many more.

Michelle and I recently got back from our two week trip to Peru. We had such an amazing time, we visited so many cool places and saw so many awesome ruins throughout the entire country. Despite all the cool places we visited, our favorite part was spending so much time with my friends and the families I knew in Peru on my mission. We were fortunate enough to not have to stay a single night in a hotel due to the generosity of my friends in Peru. In Lima, we stayed for a week with a family that I baptised and hadn't seen for over five years but while there I found out that they had been sealed in the temple. We also spent a week up in the high mountains of Cusco. The elevation in Cusco is 11,000 feet but some of the ruins we visited had an altitude of even higher. Needless to say, it took us a couple days to get acclimatized. In Cusco we stayed with the same family that I lived with and that prepared my meals while I was a missionary. We were very lucky that the families in Lima and Cusco both had extra rooms in their houses. Spending so much time with these families and other friends we met up with was by far the highlight of the trip. It was so hard to say goodbye. While in Peru, we filled every moment with fun things. We usually left the house pretty early and got home pretty late. We did so much.

Nazca

The highlight from our time in Lima was an overnight trip we took to Nazca to see the Nazca Lines. You may have seen these in the latest Indiana Jones movie. Basically, there are thousands of geoglyphs (drawings, designs, and shapes drawn in the dirt) in the Nazca desert that are so big that you can only see them from a plane. Michelle and I went on a 30 minute private plane ride at 2,000 feet elevation and saw the amazing drawings in the desert. There were birds, hands, a tree, a monkey, a spider, and many other things designed 500 years ago that are still there today. Nazca is a desert with so little change that the lines have been there for hundreds of years and never go away. The lines were formed by removing the darker rocks and soil from the top of the desert dirt, revealing a lighter whiter color below. This is all they did to make the lines that you can see from a higher elevation! The biggest formations are almost 700 feet long. The lines are only 10-30 cm deep but they never go away because nothing ever changes in the Nazca desert's climate. It is still something of a mystery why they made these lines. There are some very paranormal theories out there, like that they were used as landing strips for aliens, and some more down to earth theories that they may have been religious symbols or may have marked underground rivers.

Lima

Another highlight was the recently completed "Circuito Magico del Agua" (Magic Water Circuit). It is the world's largest public park of water fountains. Unfortunately our camera died while we were there so we didn't get too many pictures, but the ones we got were amazing. I thought this place was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. There were 13 tremendous, unique water fountains. There was an amazing show with lasers, lights, and videos projected into the water and into the sky. I think it would be worth visiting Lima just for this show. This large park somehow adds so much to the city of Lima, well done to the mayor who commissioned this project.

In Lima, we spent a day in a really nice part of town called Miraflores. We walked around the city and the beach. There is a famous park called Parque Del Amor (Park of Love) and a really nice shopping center called LarcoMar. We also made a visit to the Lima Temple. Michelle says it looks a lot like the Boise Temple. In the city center of Lima, which they call the Plaza De Armas, we saw the Palacio del Gobierno (the Peruvian president's mansion, like the White House) and watched the changing of the guard that they do there every day. There are also some huge cathedrals that you can tour at the Plaza de Armas. The coolest part of the Plaza de Armas was the Catacumbas (Catacombs) of the Catholic Church. Here we toured a very old Catholic Church and got to go into the basement where thousands and thousands of people are buried and whose bones are still on display. There were literally rooms, filled over 20 feet high, with people's bones. Interestingly, they had them organized very neatly and sorted by bone (skull, femur, etc.). In the colonial times in Peru the Catholics thought it would help them 'rest in peace' and get into heaven if they were buried under a church.

In Lima's major port city of Callao, we toured an old military fortress called Real Felipe. Here, we got to see the inside and out of the fortress Peru used to unsuccessfully fight of off Chile, but Chile was nice enough to give Lima back after a few years. In one of the rooms of the fortress there was a 'wax mannequin' of a pirate. While the tour guide was teaching us about the history of pirates in colonial Peru, the 'wax mannequin' started moving and talking. Everyone screamed as we realized it was actually a real person. Inside the fortress we also saw an old prison that Spain used for anyone that opposed them.

An interesting note, before moving on to our week in Cusco, is that a neighborhood I lived in for 6 months in Peru that was nothing more than an invasion of squatters from the mountains (no plumbing, no pavement, most of the houses were shacks), was now much more developed and had paved roads. As they say in Peru, "Juntos Avancamos!" (together we advance).

Cusco

Machu Picchu

Cusco is a mysterious, breathtaking, marvelous, historic, city. It is full of ruins that the Inkas and some pre-Inka civilaztions created that have been preserved for hundreds of years. The crown jewel of Cusco, and possibly all of Peru, is Machu Picchu. We were fortunate enough to visit Machu Picchu and many other ruins. We arrived at Machu Picchu by riding a train through the mountains for 4 hours and then taking a bus for another half hour. It really feels like you are going into the middle of nowhere and then somehow you magically arrive at Machu Picchu. The Spanish probably would have destroyed this ancient Inka city for the upper class if they knew it existed, luckily they never found it. We spent several hours walking through the rooms of this ancient city, playing with the llamas, and looking at the amazing view (despite how cloudy it was that day).

City Tour

Despite going from the coast to well over 10,000 feet elevation in one day, the first day we arrived in Cusco we went on a tour known as the 'city tour.' This starts at the second most amazing ruin in cusco: Saqsay Waman (not a joke, that is its name in the Quechua language). This was a fortress used to protect the city of Cusco when the Inkas lived there. I like this place a lot because it has the largest rocks in all of the ruins in Cusco. The largest in fact, is so big that it is hard to get a picture of the whole thing and still be able to see the people's faces that are in the picture. Saqsay Waman has three walls on a hill, the first hill is made up of very large rocks, the second wall was made of medium sized rocks, and the third wall is made up of small rocks. The other reason I love this ruin so much is because the rocks in the walls, no matter how huge they are, have been transported from very far away and have been carved so that each rock fits perfectly together without and type of cement. You can not even stick the point of a needle in between the rocks, it is spectacular. Other ruins that we visited here were Pukapukara, Q'enqo, and Tambomachay.

Sacred Valley Tour (Valle Sagrado)

We went on the Valle Sagrado Tour, a tour through three ruins up in the mountains of Cusco. We started at Pisaq, which has a very large terraces going up the side of the mountain. Terraces basically look like huge shelves going down the side of the mountain that have been carved out of the mountain. They speculate that the terraces here, along with the other terraces all throughout Cusco, were used to conduct experimentation with their plants on the different terraces. Because of the terraces and the wind around the top of the hills, there were very different temperatures on the different levels of the terraces. Also at the Valle Sagrado Tour was Ollantaytambo and Chinchero, where they taught us how the Inkas died and wove articles of clothing.

We visited many other ruins in Cusco, but you can only write about rocks and ruins for so long before it starts to sound all the same. Some of the other highlights of our time in Cusco though was a stop we made on the way to Moray at the Salineras near Maras. Salineras was a salt mining area where a hot river flows out of the mountain and brings tons (literally)of salt with it. There were thousands of small man made pools full of water and salt that each yield 1,000 kilos of salt per month. At the Salineras you can reach down and grab a handfull of salt, rinse it off in the river, and taste it.

Going back to Peru made me realise how much I miss everything about it: the people, the culture, the language, the ruins, and especially the food! We really want to go back.

Comments from Michelle: Like Chad said, Peru was amazing! I just wanted to add a little more about my experience there, specifically living in a country for two weeks where I can't speak the language. I know a little bit of Spanish, but not a ton. I can understand a fair amount when Chad is speaking, at least enough to get the gist of the conversation and be able to follow it, but I don't speak Spanish very well yet. I still need to memorize all of the verb conjugations for the different tenses and get used to the sentence structure. Anyway, staying in Peru for two weeks was a great opportunity for me to use my Spanish skills. While in Lima, I didn't understand much of what anyone other than Chad said because they talked to fast and the accents were too think. It was a little frustrating at times to not know what was going on around me, but a great learning opportunity and Chad helped interpret. However, in Cusco I was able to understand a large amount of what people were saying. They talked slower and didn't have as much of an accent. I picked up quite a bit of Spanish in the two weeks we were there, which was fun.

The trip was so amazing that Chad really does want to go back - not just to visit, but to live. If it were up to Chad we would have just stayed there another year or so and not come home. Now he wants to find a job there. I think he was meant to serve his mission in Peru and now it is his second home. His Spanish is incredible and he loved getting to use it. While we were there almost everyone Chad talked to was amazed at his Spanish and asked him how he knew how to speak so well. This presented a couple of great missionary opportunities as well. It was so fun to listen to him talk.

To sum up, here are the things I miss about Peru the most: the food (only when it doesn't make me sick), how nice and friendly the people are, the weather, the way the people there personally greet and shake hands with everyone in the room when they arrive, the beautiful things to see and do in the city of Cusco, the simplicity of life there...Here are some things I have an increased appreciation for in the United States: traffic laws (in many places in Peru there are not stop signs or lights - you just drive aggressively while honking your horn and watching the people around you - Crazy and scary!), not having to worry about drinking the water or which food is safe to eat, cleanliness, carpet, advanced technology, heated water and air conditioning...

Visit from the Johnsons

Michelle and I had the privilege of having our great friends Logan and Caitlin coming to stay with us here in DC for a week. We finished our last day of school last Tuesday and picked them up at the airport that same day in the evening, so it was a great way to start our summer break. I think we crammed as much as humanly possible into five days with them. We did tons of touristy things all around the city but we also relaxed at the pool, cooked great meals, went bowling, and did things like that. It was so much fun having them in town that it made me realize how sad it is that we only get to see them and our other friends from out West so rarely. But asi es la vida I suppose, until we can make out West. In addition to all the monuments, we also went to the Newseum and several Smithsonians that we hadn't been to. While they were visiting the 'Big Three' Smithsonians that we had both been to several times (Air and Space, Natural History, American History), ventured into some of the lesser publicized Smithsonians that are pretty much right there on the mall as well. We went into the American Indian Museum, the Postal Museum, and the Hirshhorn Art Museum (one of the 'weird' art museums that I don't understand at all but some people live for this type of stuff so I respect it). Overall I would say the Newseum is the coolest museum I have been to so far in DC. It costs money but, there are coupons for 25% off and other deals like that floating around out there. It is definitely worth it with a discount, and probably even at full price as well. There is a whole section dedicated to Sept 11th which is very moving. I will have to write another blog post soon about the Newseum and some of the other museums we have visited lately. At any rate, these are some of the pictures of all four of us having a good time in the nation's capital.

Our Front Room is Complete

When Chad and I moved in last year we bought some brown couches, which we like, but they didn't add much color to the room. We have been feeling like our house definitely lacked some color and didn't feel very homey, so I finally bought some curtains, made some pillows, and found some decorations from Ross. With the help of Chad and some great friends here is the result:

The Most Important Law

I am currently taking a class for my masters degree on child development. For my masters class I had to choose a student in my first grade class to observe and interview and then I have had to write tons of papers on the child's physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and moral development. I am currently writing my social development paper. This is part of the interview I did for my paper with a student in my class:

me: What do you think the most important rule is?
Student: follow directions
me: What are the most important laws?
Student: don't go the wrong way on the escalator
me (trying to stifle my laughter): Are there any other important laws?
Student (after thinking for a while): Don't jump on other people's cars.
me: Anything else?
Student: no, just those two.

The way these first, almost second graders, think is pretty funny sometimes!

Michelle Wallace: Teacher Of The Year

I am writing this post to let everyone know that Michelle, in my unbiased opinion as her husband, was the Teacher Of The Year. We only have a little more than a week left in our first year of teaching and it has been an amazing experience! We have both grown so much and are really looking forward to implementing everything we have learned next year (after a relaxing and fun summer break of course, did I mention that we are going to Peru for two weeks in July?). I have broken down the reasons into several sections why I have awarded her the Teacher Of The Year award.

Results:
Michelle's class as a whole grew over 2 years worth of reading levels in the one year she has been teaching them. Although only going into second grade, some of her students are at a 4th grade reading level. In terms of math, the class as a whole mastered 81% of all first grade math standards. As a teacher, I can tell you that the feats she accomplished in reading and math are very impressive!

Going the Extra Mile:
As a teacher, Michelle consistently went the extra mile to come up with creative lessons to help her students comprehend difficult concepts. Just to name a few, she dressed up as a detective to teach her students how to 'investigate' math problems where you had to figure out the value of a variable. The kids loved the idea of being math detectives so much that Michelle made them each their own badge. This is hard stuff for first graders, but Michelle's creative idea paid off! Michelle happened to get observed the day of that lesson, and the person observing her applauded her excellent idea and told her that it was a fantastic lesson. To teach her kids about chemical reactions and baking, she brought in enough ingredients and supplies for every kid to make their own home made ice cream in class. The lesson went very well and one student even said to Michelle, "This is the best day of my life!" Also, Michelle has organized some very exciting field trips that have helped students synthesize first-hand the things they have learned in the classroom. On one occasion, to help a student who otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford to go, Michelle paid a student's fair on the field trip but only told the student's mother that she had 'arranged for the child to get in for free.' Let me tell you that these few examples are only the tip of the ice berg in regards to how Michelle has truly gone the extra mile as a teacher. What Michelle has done is above and beyond what would be required or even reasonably expected out of any teacher.

Dedication:
As her husband, I know first-hand how dedicated Michelle is to being a teacher. In addition to working full-time, she is attending grad school and earning a master's degree in teaching. She will earn her master's degree in only two years despite working full-time the entire time. She has grad school class two nights a week right now. She also puts in many hours planning, making phone calls to parents, grading quizzes and tests and homework assignments, creating worksheets and handouts, completing grad school assignments, fulfilling Teach For America responsibilities, coming up with her creative lessons, and so much more. On top of all this she still finds the time to be an amazing wife and spend time with me and her friends. I truly beleive there is nothing she can't do; in fact, I beleive she could be president someday if she wanted to! The last thing I will say about her dedication, even though I could write so much more, is that she does it all for the right reasons. There is no overtime pay for teachers. She does everything she does because her students deserve it. When I ask her why she is doing something that creates so much extra work for her, she responds that her students deserve it and that it is the right thing to do. She has often times stated how she wants to do everything possible to make her students ready for the next grade level. Michelle never cuts corners, she does what is right for her students each and every time and in every thing.

She Cares:
This last category is kind of an intangible or an 'X-Factor' type of thing. As described above, Michelle really cares about her students and does what she does because it is the right thing to do. This has paid off. Her students love her. I won't go into too many specifics on this one but I know that her students appreciate what she does and there have been many rewarding moments for Michelle as a teacher. Her students have all grown tremendously and they really love Michelle.

For these reasons, and many others that I cannot possibly list here, Michelle is awarded by me the Teacher of the Year award. Congratulations Michelle, you truly deserve it!

DC Teachers Ratify New Contract

For the past few months, Michelle and I have had been able to observe and participate in a unique aspect of local politics here in Washington, DC. As teachers in DCPS, we are automatically part of the Washington Teachers Union (WTU). For the past few months, our union has been in the final stages of ratifying a new contract. IT had been a couple years since we had got a new contract so this was good news. One of the finals steps of this incredibly long process was for the union members to vote on it and ratify it. The contract contains some significant raises and more money to buy startup materials at the beginning of the year, along with some optional revolutionary ideas like pay-for-performance that could earn effective teachers a lot of money. I could write a whole book about the politics that go on at the local level between teachers, their union, the chancellor (like a superintendent), the union president, and the mayor, but I will just say that the last few months have been a wild ride but now the contract has passed.

If you want to see some of the back and forth among teachers with opposing views, read the 70-some odd comments on this person's blog post:

http://deedoesdc.blogspot.com/2010/05/why-i-voted-yes-to-wtu-tentative.html


Here is a link to the Washington Post about the contract:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/02/AR2010060202762.html?hpid=sec-education

Elder Wallace (My Brother)

My brother, Andrew, has been on his mission for 16 months. It is hard to believe how fast the time has gone by. What is more amazing though is that he was called to serve in the same mission that Michelle and I live in. Furthermore, he is currently serving about five minutes from where we live. Since he is in our same stake and since he is the zone leader he does splits with the other missionaries in our ward occasionally. Fortunately the mission president is really cool about us seeing him from time to time and he actually suggested we go out to lunch sometime (which we did!). We also went to see one of his baptisms, and he came by our apartment while he was doing splits with the missionaries here.

Live For The Commute

I saw the slogan "Live For The Commute" written on a public bus on my way to school recently and thought that that summed up pretty accurately how my feelings have changed regarding commuting to work in DC traffic since I started biking in once or twice a week. When people find out I ride my bike from Alexandria to the top of the District where the school I teach is at they often times react in one of two ways: they either can't believe I bike that far or they are in shock because they think I weaving in and out of traffic on crazy DC roads and freeways. Fortunately the ride is almost entirely on trails and hardly any of it is on actual streets (just a little bit at the very end). The ride is about 15 miles each way, so the round trip is 30 miles. That is definitely enough to get me my exercise for the day. In addition to getting good exercise, I also save quite a bit of money riding my bike in. Although it is convenient and efficient in the DC metropolitan region, the Metro is not cheap. When I ride the Metro to and from work it costs me $7.55 (total for the round trip for one day). By biking in once or twice a week my bike could pay for itself after not too long! Also, the commute is absolutely gorgeous. I didn't know there were such beautiful trails and paths in DC. I am on Mount Vernon Trail and Rock Creek for about 12 of the 15 miles. I get to ride right past the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and alongside the Potomac River for quite a ways. I really do enjoy riding in as much as I can. It takes a little bit longer than taking the Metro or driving but the benefits are worth it. On days that I ride in I feel great and I am looking forward to riding home for the entire day. I took all of these pictures while I was on my bike riding home from work. This should give you an idea of what the ride is like.