Sabbath Afternoon Activities

September 11, 2010

Last Sabbath we decided to take advantage of the autumn like weather and go biking after church at Rock Creek Park. Richard and Ryan biked there in August, and the weekend before this we went walking with friends Scott and Kirstin Falk there also. So you might say it is one of our new favorite places for Sabbath afternoon.
The park is 1,754 acres, twice the size of New York’s Central Park. The creek itself is beautiful, snaking through the forest. It is really peaceful and the air is fresh. You can almost forget that you’re in the middle of such a large city. http://www.nps.gov/rocr/index.htm



We met up with Ryan after church at the National zoo. Since he has a Zoo membership we parked for free. The Zoo is located inside Rock Creek Park so it is a nice one-stop shop for picnicking, fun for the kids, and biking. Shelly had packed a picnic lunch which the four quickly devoured and Ryan brought, as he put it, the best falafel that he had ever eaten, to chow down on. After lunch we went into the zoo for a while to let the kids have some fun. We visited the new elephant exhibit, the lions and tigers, the prairie dogs, the tortoises, and the primate house. The three adults were kept busy keeping track of the youngsters among the weekend zoo crowd. Connor later stated that his favorite animal at the zoo was the “baby goriwah”. Kaley really enjoyed seeing the prairie dogs.


We then tucked the kids into their bike trailer and headed down the path. Richard certainly got the best workout of the 3 bikers since he was pulling about 80 lbs of trailer and kids. Initially the path was quite bumpy and curvy. Shelly biked behind Richard and watched the kids bumping along. They really enjoyed the rollercoaster ride and kept calling back “Mommy, you’ll never catch us”. About 20 minutes into the ride they both fell asleep. This was a real blessing since they usually can’t stand being in such tight quarters together for very long. We biked approximately 9.5 miles at what felt like a leisurely pace, to those not pulling the trailer. There were a number of other people out enjoying the day but the park was not packed. It was such an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon.

When we got back the kids were ready to stretch their legs while we put the bikes and trailer in the van. They raced back and forth along a stretch of sidewalk. Uncle Ryan chased after Connor as he headed for the creek and the kids threw a few rocks into the water. Thankfully Ryan made a point of getting this shot of us with our bikes, otherwise this would be a blog about biking with only pictures from the zoo.