Day 2 of summer break caught me doing a couple of quick chores around the house before hopping on the bike down to Penn Station to catch the 9:05 to DC for a day at the museums. The part where you don’t have to live in DC or own a car but can, for $14 round trip, ride in and take advantage of all the cool stuff they’ve got there is one of my favorite things about living in Baltimore. I don’t take advantage of it much, but sure glad it’s there–it’s like Baltimore Bike Party in that way. Please don’t make me put on a costume and ride with a thousand other people, but please make room for everyone else to do it, I’ll just buy the t-shirt (which I wore on yesterday’s ride, ftr).  I hadn’t taken this DC trip since they put in the bike corral, though I’ve been witness to a whole lot of internet fighting over whether or not the hang-your-bike design is good or bad, how riders using it wrong ruin it for the rest of us, and how it should be replaced by something way cheaper or much more expensive. I’m a much more practical worrier, so I was mostly just concerned there wouldn’t be a hook for me when I got there.

There was–way in the back–and it was pretty intuitive. That didn’t keep me from being sure I was going to do it wrong, so I examined the other bikes before taking everything off my bike and lifting it up, aiming the front rim for the hook. It took a couple of tries because my bike is an incredibly heavy machine, what with all its hardware, but then I hooked it, locked it, and headed for the train. And then I decided to go back and triple check that I’d locked it through the rack and not just itself–I had–and got back to the train with just enough time to settle in for an easy train ride to another train to a day of walking and thinking and eating and seeing before getting back on the train to my bike to home. Easy peasy, no car necessary. Summer vacation is a breeze.