A Walker in the Suburbs

Yesterday Copper and I stepped out before a storm. He’s become an anxious little guy these days, clamoring for company when he senses bad weather. But I thought we could make it out and back before the rain fell.

Once on the leash he pranced and pulled. As usual I made sure he had no contact with passersby. And as usual he seemed oblivious to my presence.

But once we reached Fox Mill Road and turned back for the walk home, the air had taken on that super-charged feel it has when lightning is present. The sky was dark and clouds piled up in the west. I began to wonder if we could make it home in time.

We picked up our pace, I encouraged Copper with lots of “good boys” and “let’s get home” — and eventually (in what seemed like an eternity) we made it home.

I’d like to say we dashed in just before the big drops hit the pavement. But that wasn’t the way it worked. The storm blew over. Our mad dash was for naught.

The Washington and Old Dominion Trail (W&OD) is a walker’s delight, a long skinny ribbon of asphalt through the D.C. ‘burbs. Its dimensions tell the tale: 45 miles long and 100 feet across!

“Share the trail” is the motto and the practice, and of course it is a good one. But the best way I’ve found to share the trail is to get off of it. My surface of choice is not the paved path but the horse trail that runs along beside it.

With a surface of cinders or dirt it’s easier on the joints. And it puts you even closer to the vegetation, to the sights and smells that are so vivid in high summer.

Most importantly it’s away from zooming cyclists, whose “passing on the left” grow a little old after the forty-fifth iteration.

Sometimes the horse trail runs right alongside the paved path and other times it meanders higher or lower. When there’s a bridge over a highway it doesn’t always take it.

The horse trail, in other words, has a mind of its own. It’s a placid alternative, a park within a park.

I went back to the Sugarland Run Trail this morning and found a different place altogether. The trees were still labeled and the path still shady, but the storms that moved through last night had swollen the creek and matted the undergrowth.

If you peered closely you could see which direction the flood waters had been flowing; the tall grass was bent that way.

And about halfway along I ran into a front end loader pushing the remains of a downed tree to one side of the path. It was revving and scraping and doing its backup beep — and was not at all what I expected to find in this sylvan setting.

But it cleared the path, and the driver waved me through, and soon I was on the way again, as if the rain and the downing had never happened.

I had time for only a short stroll yesterday at lunch, so I walked north along Crystal Drive, thinking that I’d go up and back a few blocks, enjoy the spectacular weather and be back at my desk in 20 minutes.

And then I found Long Bridge Park. It was like one of those dreams I would have when living in a studio apartment where I’d suddenly discover a roomy annex, a secret second bedroom accessed through the closet.

Discovering this highly walkable park on the same side of the road as my building, a place I didn’t even know existed and don’t even need to cross a street to reach — well, it was pretty exciting for a walker in the suburbs.

Arlington is technically a suburb, of course, but I work in its urban southern corner, tucked up against highways and parkways, train tracks and runways. To learn that I can walk out my door, turn right and hike a half mile or so to be in a public space, to have a dead-center view of the Washington Monument (set off yesterday against cloudless blue sky), to see planes tilting at takeoff and trains rumbling along train tracks and all of this from a paved and cindered path — well, it was almost too much for my walking soul.

Needless to say, my lunch break was a little longer than intended. I walked to the end of the path and back. There are trails yet to explore in the park and signs yet to read … but I’ve found another walking route in Crystal City.

Inside it was about 65; outside a good 20 degrees warmer. The air was filled with a collective exhale as office-workers enjoyed their lunch hours on the first warm day of the season. People wore shorts and running shoes. They were biking and strolling and just hanging around.

The outdoor seats at Cosi — the cafe where I sat and had a raspberry iced tea before my first interview here — were filled with al fresco patrons.

I walked past them though. No more sitting for me. I was in search of a block to walk around, but there aren’t too many of those here.

The one I found consists mostly of a service road behind my multi-block office complex. It’s not the grit and glamor of my old walks on Capitol Hill, but it was quiet and warm. I could stretch my legs and let my mind wander.

It was interesting, too, exploring the unseen underbelly of this glitzy space. The bleeping of backing trucks. The aroma of smokers on the periphery. It was around the block, Crystal City style.

For a walk break yesterday I turned left, strolled south down Crystal Drive. The lunchtime bustle buoyed me; I was ready to explore.

It’s a neighborhood of hotels, restaurants and fancy office buildings connected by glossy indoor passageways — not my style, but handy in the rain.

Beyond all of this, I’m convinced, lie real streets with real people picking up dry cleaning, dragging reluctant toddlers, walking the dog. But to find them I first need to discover the connector routes, the roads that will take me under the busy highways that honeycomb the area.

There aren’t many of them. Crystal City is almost an island. But all I need is one escape route. The maps are open. The shoes are new.