Preakness and a Concert

This past week Jen and I went to Washington D.C. with the original intent to see a concert we've always wanted to see but we realized as the trip drew closer that the running of the Preakness Derby was the same weekend that we left and was only about an hour away in Baltimore, and yes, that's also something I've always wanted to see so we bought tickets to that as well.  I'm glad we did because it was awesome.  We loved seeing the horses up close.  They were unbelievably beautiful.  I became a fan of horse racing when I was a kid and I watched the Preakness on TV one year in what became an epic race between two of the most beautiful horses I'd seen, Sunday Silence and Easy Goer.  Since that race I've always tried to catch all of the Triple Crown races in hopes to someday see a Triple Crown winner. (It hasn't happened yet.)  With this in mind I was obviously cheering for the winner of the Kentucky Derby, Orb, to win the Preakness as well with the hopes of him going on to win the Belmont.  Sadly, it didn't happen.  That was really the only disappointment of the day.  We watched all the races leading up to the main event and we were entertained to watch the crowd slowly get more and more smashed.  I believe free beer came with a purchase of the ticket so it was incredible to watch how drunk people were getting.  I really hope some of them made it home.  Anyway, here is a clip of the horses loading into the starting gate at the top of the stretch where we
were seated....

As I mentioned, the second reason we were there was for a concert.  It was the lead singer of the band Phish, Trey Anastasio, playing with the National Symphony Orchestra.  Trey has done these types of concerts before and a recording of one that he played a few years ago has been one of our favorite albums so we said that if he ever did it again and we could get tickets, we'd go.  We got tickets.

It was a strange sight to see mostly hard core phish fans in the Kennedy Center dressed in sport jackets and trying to behave themselves while a such a fancy place.  I've been to plenty of phish concerts in the past and there is always plenty of cheering and dancing and singing along with every song.  At this concert; which granted, isn't a phish concert everyone sat quietly in there seats listening to every note.  You really could hear a pin drop.  I shot a small clip with my phone.  They were really strict about no photography so I had to shoot it from my lap and I had to turn it off when the usher came to tell me to knock it off.  We had great seats.  9th row.  The video doesn't do it justice but here it is anyway...

We also planned on some riding around the D.C. area a couple of the free mornings.  We did the Mt. Vernon trail that was beautiful but slow going due to it being a trail small, heavily used trail.  I've always disliked having to ride a road bike on biking trail.  Sure, you're away from traffic but you can never get real serious about your ride.  But it was better than nothing.  Here is the strava report from one of the days.