Columbia Heights to the White House

Perhaps it two things in the post's title seem strange: 1) Columbia Heights, and 2) White House. Columbia Heights, years before, was a pretty scary neighborhood in DC, where murders and riots were routine. In the last 9 years or so, the area has gentrified quite a bit, enough so that my Cleveland friend JK felt "relatively safe" coming in at about 2am. Now it's known as the place where my friend Jason rolls his oats and makes his own bread; the only inconvenience seems to be that garbage sprouts out of gardens like flowers, and cockroaches come out to the sidewalks to play at dusk.

As for the White House, it's usually not a destination I have in mind when I go running, but regardless, I decided to go for a jog today since I hadn't done so in more than a week. From Columbia Heights to the White House was about 6 miles roundtrip, which I did in a decent 52 minutes. Running through DC was relatively easy, though as you near downtown, they seemed to space out the traffic lights so that at running speed, every time you near the next block, you hit another red light (which I did not count as part of my time). Perhaps the sequencing is great for walkers or drivers, but extremely annoying for runners.

Anyhow, all that extra time waiting around caused me to be running late for my flight out of Dulles Airport, and so I ended up having to take a taxi from West Falls Church after missing the bus there - it was $38! And when I got there, the flight was delayed (even though it was fine when I checked on it before I got in the taxi). Ridiculous.

At least I got to see a crazy red sun.