At MSC -- Greenhouse visit

Carlos and I have spent this past week out at MSC (the Museum Support Center) to get some lab work done (more on that in another post).  One day I remembered to bring my camera so I could take some pictures of everything.  To take a break from the lab and see some sunshine, Carlos and I wandered over to visit one of the research greenhouses (this one houses living plant specimens that have been collected from all over the world!).

Once inside, we were sprinkled with mist and hit by a wall of humidity -- it smelled and felt like the tropics!  We looked around on our own for a little bit, but then bumped into one of the greenhouse keepers and she showed us a few of the more spectacular plants in flower.

One of the most interesting blooms that we saw was Edithcolea grandis (from Tanzania) -- it looks like rotting meat and smells like cow manure.  We also saw some Hedychium (gingers that smell really nice and sweet), Curcuma, and Amorphophallus species.  Everything looked really lush and green that day and it was a really nice way to spend some time before eating lunch and getting back to the lab!

Cheese for dinner

Last night, on the way home from the Museum Support Center, Carlos and I stopped by Cowgirl Creamery (a really great little cheese shop) to pick up some fancy cheeses for dinner!  I've only been to this shop twice, and it is a little pricey, but the cheese is really, really tasty and organic.  We picked out a round of Mt. Tam (a triple cream brie-like cheese) and Humboldt Fog (goat cheese with a runny rind and a line of ash in the middle).  Both are delicious and we ate them for dinner along with toasted sourdough bread, apricots, Costa Rican honey, scuppernong grapes, honeycrisp apple, and crackers.  I love having tapas dinners!

Back from Durham/Duke

I returned to DC a couple of days ago from a week-long trip to Durham, NC for some work at the OTS Duke offices.  I was able to get a lot of work done for this OTS assessment project and things are really getting busy because we have a huge deadline for that project at the end of October.

Deedra drove to DC from Pennsylvania and from there we both drove down to Durham and stayed with her friends Kathleen and Bill (and their kitty Jolie) -- whom we stayed with the last time we went to Duke.  I was mostly working with old course books -- these stretch back to 1965 when they held the first OTS graduate fundamentals in ecology course (the course that I currently teach!).

It was a productive trip, but tiring.  Now I need to get back into my DC routine~

My bike key is here!

I just received the key for my Capital Bikeshare in the mail this morning and I am so excited to activate is and start using it!  I am going to bike all over the place -- woo-hoo~

Sonoma for Restaurant Week

It is Restaurant Week once again here in DC (lots of really good restaurants offer affordable prix fixe meals for lunch and dinner) and, as usual, Carlos and I ventured out to try a new restaurant.  We chose Sonoma for lunch on Monday and it was really, really nice!  For about $20 each, we were able to choose three courses for our meals.  We also had a wine flight of three white wines, which were tasty and refreshing.

For my meal I chose the cheese board, uovo pizza (with arugula, burrata, fancy bacon, and an EGG!), and goat cheesecake.  Carlos had the charcuterie board, grilled trout, and blueberry cake.  We both really liked out meals and agreed that the cheese, charcuterie, and pizza were the standouts.

We ended up eating far too much food, but it was all delicious.  Sonoma isn't too far from our house (it's pretty close to Eastern Market, up Pennsylvania Ave.) so we will definitely be back to enjoy more cheese, charcuterie, and wine!

My new bike helmet

To go along with my post about signing up for Capital Bikeshare, I just got a beautiful brand new bike helmet!  It is very comfortable -- I have a huge head so it is nice to have a size that isn't "one size fits all."  Carlos wants to use it now so I will have to get him one of his own.  I am excited to start biking all over the city this week (once I get my little bike key in the mail)!

Sushi train!

Last night Carlos and I ate at a sushi conveyor belt restaurant in Union Station (it is pretty new).  It was a lot of fun and we ate some great food! 

We started out by ordering some hot items from the menu (shrimp tempura udon soup for me and unlimited miso soup and shrimp fried rice for Carlos) and then watched the food go round-and-round on the sushi train!  At one point there was even a little Neko kitty with a wagging tail that was on the belt and it was really cute.

 

We were basically seated at a little bar with the kitchen and conveyor belt right in front of us.  We tried lots of different sushi (I especially liked the avocado roll), green tea dorayaki (little pancakes with sweet red bean paste inside), and green tea mochi ice cream.

We had a lot of fun eating here and left with very full tummies -- luckily I managed to walk over 18,000 steps yesterday to counterbalance all of that~

Capital Bikeshare

Yesterday I signed up for the bike rental program here in DC -- Capital Bikeshare.  I bought a year-long membership (since Carlos and I will be here for at least one more year), which was only $75.  It is pretty great -- I should receive my little key-card in about a week and then I just go to a station, take a bike, ride around to where I need to go, and return it to another station.  If the ride lasts for less than 30 minutes, it is free.  If it lasts for an hour, it will cost an additional $1.50.  I am really excited to try this out once I get my key (and a helmet) and all the places I would ride are under 30 minutes away (so free).  There is also a station really close to home -- about a 3-minute walk away!

More trail progress

Here is a picture showing where I am on the Oregon Trail: I just passed Shawnee Mission and I am on my way to Fort Kearny -- this is a fun way to visualize my daily walking progress!

Walking along the Oregon Trail...

I have been feeling a bit blobbish lately and decided that it was time to get back into a real exercise routine again.  The Smithsonian offers a totally free fitness assessment and access to two gyms (one in the American History Museum and the other in the Air and Space Museum) so Carlos and I decided to sign up and get totally buff! 

I have been alternating working out in the gym (elliptical, exercise bike, weight lifting) with swimming at the local aquatic center (there is one in Eastern Market and it's free for DC residents).  I am really enjoying getting back into swimming and exercising and I am already feeling more energetic.

As part of the Smithsonian fitness program, I also received a free gift -- my very own pedometer!  The goal is to walk at least 10,000 steps per day (2,000 steps = 1 mile) to stay fit.  There is even a cool little website that I can go to and log my daily steps.  They make it fun by letting you set individual challenges -- right now I am walking the Oregon Trail (I am near the Shawnee Mission) and I have walked 68,994 total steps (34 miles) since I began six days ago!