Visiting Washington, D.C.

brian — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 20:45:11 +0000

My wife and I have had a tradition of traveling for our wedding anniversary. We have had some really great trips, but fell off the wagon the past few years. Since our 15th anniversary is this October, I wanted to resume the fun.

Luckily, we have had a very flexible definition of when an anniversary trip can take place. We headed up to New York in 2007, the last time we took one of these trips, to see a couple days of U.S. Open tennis action. Maria loves tennis, and we had a great time. I thought about repeating that trip, but then we came up with another idea.

One of the tournaments preceding the Open takes place in Washington, D.C. We have never made it down for that event, the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, so we set our sights on making that our 2010 anniversary trip.

We got tickets for evening sessions on Friday and Saturday, booked a hotel room and planned for a little sightseeing. Since D.C. is just about a two-hour drive from our house, it made for a nice little getaway.

Details after the jump

Tennis

Another section will focus on our public transportation experience in D.C., but let’s just say that the Fitzgerald Tennis Center at Rock Creek park is a piece of cake travel-wise. They run a free shuttle from a Metro stop that made it really easy to get back and forth.

The “stadium” only holds 7,500 so there isn’t a bad seat.I had made sure to get east-facing seats so we weren’t broiled by the sun at the beginning of the evening sessions, which start at 7 p.m. Good idea. We were in the upper deck in Row G (first night) and Row H (second night). The tickets were $40 and $45. If we go again, I will spring for seats in the lower level.

We were 12-15 rows from the top, but that didn’t stop people from jumping seats and stuff. For God’s sake, how hard is it in a small stadium with very few bad sightlines to sit in the seat you bought? Especially for a sport like tennis where you’re not supposed to be moving around a lot. It was just annoying. The problem wasn’t as bad on Saturday as it was on Friday though.

We also had some idiots who brought a 18-month-old. The kid banged stuff on the metal bleachers, talked non-stop and was kicking/grabbing/bumping into people (i.e. my wife) in the row in front of him. Get a babysitter.

Other than that, the event was fantastic. We saw eventual champion David Nalbandian win both nights. His three-setter in the Friday quarterfinal was really fun tennis. But since that match went so long and they had to hold the second match for TV, we ended up only watching a little of that. On Saturday, we only watched a little of the doubles match following Nalbandian’s win before heading to the hotel.

That’s the big difference between the Open and these events. The Open has tons of courts with matches of all styles and levels going on so the best way to watch is to get a grounds pass and roam the tennis center to find a match you like. These smaller events do have lots of matches on extra courts (this one only had four courts) earlier in the event, but don’t have as much to watch later in the week.

I’d still come back to the Legg Mason again, but just think the Open is more fun and a better bang for your buck.

Touring

My wife is a historic house junkie so that means I am a historic house junkie when we go on trips. I have actually learned a lot and now appreciate the places we visit. In fact, I picked the first place we saw.

We went to Riversdale, a mansion in Prince George’s County on Friday because we read a book of letters from the original family which lived there. The visit was very nice with the exception of a lady who had 5-year-old twins for part of the tour. The tour was seemingly for her Mom, but she had the kids on it long enough to annoy us before she finally figured out they were more trouble than it was worth.

So this marks two items where I have complained about kids. I love kids. I was one. I have one. But I know where they should and shouldn’t be. Far too many people don’t pay attention to stuff like this. Little kids don’t belong on tours of historic houses unless they are exceptionally behaved. If that is the case and they do misbehave and you tell them they have to leave the tour, you don’t let them override you.

OK, venting over. Riversdale was a very fun place to visit and fit the model of “off the beaten track” places I wanted for this visit. We followed that up in DC with a tour of Decatur House, off of Lafayette Square by the White House. Very cool. We also wanted to see The Octagon House in D.C., but they were not open on Saturdays. On the way home, we toured Montpelier in Prince George’s County.

Total cost for two people to tour three historic mansions/houses? $22. I loved walking by the White House and all that, but poke around and you can find some pretty cool things to experience for almost nothing.

Food

Our hotel had a kitchenette (more on that later) so we really only needed to go out for lunch and dinner. Lunches were very casual – pizza on the way to Riversdale on Friday and Subway on Saturday. Dinner consisted of two pubs.

We went to Maddy’s on Connecticut Avenue on Friday and had really good sandwiches. They had a pretty good beer selection too, which greased the wheels for heading to tennis. On Saturday, we hit a place called The Front Page on Dupont Circle. Great choice. We had a very cool waiter (Hi, Eddie!), good drinks (again) and good food. I loved substituting tater tots for fries with my burger. Oh, and the best part is that it sat across the street from a Krispy Kreme so we had a nice place for dessert.

Hotel

I picked the Carlyle Suites on New Hampshire Avenue because of the price, location and the kitchenette. I figured we could save decent money by not needing to go out in the mornings. It worked. We brought bagels (and added the donuts to the mix) and could relax with our coffee on Saturday and Sunday morning.

The place also had free parking. Their lot only holds 20-some cars, but I got the last space Friday afternoon. That freed us up to just use Metro (more coming) all weekend. The Dupont Circle Station was just aboutthree blocks away.

The room was nice. We had a king bed and a couch. The view wasn’t anything good, but who cares. They had a funky art deco theme, which worked. I only had one real issue, and that was in the bathroom.

They do not have bathtubs in their rooms, showers only. That’s cool. But the shower has a half glass wall with no door to close. That means half the shower is wide open. I don’t care from a modesty point of view, but that meant water got all over the floor. It just seemed to be different for the sake of being different. Sometimes function needs to win over form, especially in the bathroom.

Transportation

I won’t belabor this because I know friends who use the metro all the time deal with it every day, but the maintenance and delays on the tracks suuuuuuuuccccccckkkkkkkkked. Getting to the tennis center was a breeze. Coming home (and getting back to our stop after walking around Saturday) took forever since that part of the line was undergoing work.

Still, it was better than paying for parking.

Serve It Up

brian — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:00:24 +0000

My wife pretty much only follows one sport – tennis. That means the current action at the Australian Open is one of the few times she gets truly engaged in the kind of idiotic emotions I feel all the time as a sports fan.

Part of this has to do with the matches that ESPN and the Tennis Channel choose to show at any given moment. In the early rounds, many courts have matches and any could turn into something a fan wants to see at any given moment.

Unfortunately, the networks will often stick with one of the Williams sisters or some other well-known player eviscerating an opponent instead of showing two no-names playing some awesome tennis. They may cut in and show a little of the good match, but nowadays they cut back to the blowout while letting you know that you can go watch the good match online.

What a pain in the butt. I knew my wife would never do that. hell, I watch TV on the computer a bunch and know how to do it, but I would probably never do it. That made me think that there has to be an easier way.

These networks need to partner with Tivo or Comcast or whoever and give you the ability to access these online feeds right through your TV. Tennis can’t command a special channel for overflow matches and going to the computer is just a pain in the butt.

Not everyone has their TV hooked up to their wireless network – I do through TiVo and I bet Comcast could easily hook that stuff up – so why not let the people who do have it set up take advantage of this extra programming without making them get off their butt?* I tried getting it through the Internet channel on our Wii, but you had to download software to play the matches, and I didn’t feel like doing that.

Come on electronic geeks, make this happen.**

* – I know I could always have a computer hooked up to my TV and use a wireless keyboard and mouse, but that just seems like too much work and clutter. I want someone to do it for me.

** – I’m sure there already is something easy, but I didn’t feel like looking. Plus, I want this free or real cheap.

Tennis – Regular Guy

Visiting Washington, D.C.

Serve It Up