This Spring in Crystal City! :D

So, today, i went down to see the nephews -- aged 12 and 5, for the purpose of exploring in the woods between the neighborhood i grew up in and the local HS which my friends and sister attended, but i did not. Back in 1987 or 88, they built a fence around the school, which is located two blocks from Potomac Mills, but left a few pedestrian pass-throughs on the neighborhood side of the school, located a short distance away through some woods and to cross whichever branch of Neabsco Creek that runs from main run from between Birchdale and Ashdale, Birchdale and the HS, and somewhere upstream from there. Anyway...

We got to the school, i parked in the back of the lot, and found that the pedestrian pass-through, which in my day were used by large numbers of students (there are ~800-1000 students per class there) from Birchdale and part of Forestdale to walk to school instead of riding the bus. Of the four pedestrian cut-throughs in the fence, two had bars welded across them, one had a locked gate, and we found an open gate by wandering the grounds a bit. So, we were into the woods, if on the other side of the school from where we wanted to be.

Dry, slippery leaves, and we wended our un-pathed way toward the locked gate, from there further down the hill toward the run, across the run, and downstream a bit until i saw the familiar path from the back of Birchdale down to the creek. We went a bit more downstream from me to show elder nephew that the old wall he was seeing was a shed in someone's yard.

We went back upstream on the Birchdale side to the bath, then up the hill. We found a fence that trees had fallen on, went through, decided to go back out of that fence for fear of going forward and finding it converged with the other fence, and went up the hill, to discover
this along the disused path, as i had told him it existed. A bit worse for a quarter century of wear, but still solid. He now knows what a combine harvester is, and for what it is used, as well as how it attaches to a tractor.

Setting out, the younger one did not want to go with us, but we insisted and prevailed, despite reasonable-for-his-age delaying tactics. :) We had a nice two hours romping in the woods on a gloriously warm January day. Much fun was had. It was interesting to me to see the school from the tennis courts, which i knew existed, but had never seen. Entrances on the schools and libraries here are numbered from 1 to n, where 1 marks the main entrance, then the rest are numbered clockwise around the building. Gar-Field HS has at least 32, and i'm guessing 33, entrances, as i theorize the smoking bus tunnel entrance is number 33, but i did not walk through the tunnel to see.

I cook. I share recipes. Often i share them over in the community Eating_Without_, as i did with today's recipe for stewed brussels sprouts à la hongroise.

Details here, in the LJ Support community.

Mostly at TJHSST Alumni Day. Got to meet sovietkitsch in person, which was lovely. Also got to hang some with happypete and owenthomas, and a whole bunch of others of my fellow geeks. :) Much enjoyment was had.

I had forgotten how beautiful guttering and/or dying candles can be.

This true tale of flying while brown should never have happened. How can we have fallen so far in a decade.