Silver Streak or Silver Sneakers?

To celebrate the second weekend of its service, Chris and I made the trip out to Northern Virginia and DC to give the new Silver Line a whirl. Given the sheer terror of my time as a commuter on the Red Line (especially in the months after the horrible crash where we all learned what “telescoping” meant and nine individuals perished), my hopes were not high. Yet, what I found reminded me of home, for it seemed almost as smooth as the SkyTrain that offers a similar level of not-quite-light but not-quite-heavy rail transit.

The Silver Line opened on July 26^th after several years of hot debates, delayed construction, and hot debates over delayed construction. For all the headaches involved, it’s a wonder that we can build anything on this type of scale with these types of goals when so many agencies are involved. There was hardly enough pie for everyone to get their slice. But once we got through the throngs of tourists unable to figure out how to use a Smartrip Card and the bathrooms that were locked but didn’t seem locked at the Wiehle-Reston East station, the trip on the train for the four-remaining Silver-only stations was a pleasure.

My greatest concern with the Silver Line is that it only increases the severity of the bottleneck at Rosslyn (and others agree and explain the situation very well!). Unlike other stations in the system that have three lines meeting, at Rosslyn they must do it all on the same track. Because of the spacing between trains and the demand on the peripheries of each respective line, the only word that comes to mind to describe those commuting through Rosslyn is “hell.” For the Blue Line in particular, I imagine the delays have only grown. Likely reminiscent of Red Line commuters who really, really want to get to Forest Glen, Wheaton, or Glenmont  but can’t get any further than Silver Spring if their lives depended on it, but worse.

But as these thoughts get frantic and negative, we were suddenly at one of the Farraguts trying desperately to get to the other Farragut to get onto the Red Line. The Red Line, not wishing to disappoint me, had a train break down at Gallery Place and no trains were running toward Shady Grove. After 30 minutes at the other Farragut with no trains coming, we turned around to go back to the original Farragut and get on the Silver Line back towards the safe arms of suburbia. Thankfully, due to the invisible, magic “transit tunnel” between the Farraguts, there was no financial toll for the 30 minutes in Metro Limbo, but we made the return trip much faster than expected. Returning to the original Farragut, within moments we were headed back out to Wiehle-Reston East and the day began getting substantially better from there.

On this journey, in one of the newest cars in the fleet, I saw my first glimpse of Metro’s tongue-in-cheek advertisements urging commuters to look alive because the love of their life may also be riding the Silver Line. I don’t know if it was my frustration or delirium from being outside of the mountains, but I found it absolutely hilarious.

I took this trip on a Saturday and was really impressed with the balance of traffic I saw heading both into and out of DC. Some things I was expecting. For example, I expected Tyson’s Corner to be the same kind of hit that Metrotown Station is on the Expo Line in Vancouver. You can’t go wrong with frequent rail transit to a major entertainment destination (especially if it’s the wintertime and there’s precipitation).  But I did not expect Wiehle-Reston East to be such a bustling hub of activity. Most of the construction here is not even complete (they’ve got all kinds of transit-oriented-design goodies planned here), yet it was probably the busiest station, rivaling even Tyson’s Corner. This is evidence to me that the line is desired and will see use. I hope that in five or ten years the only question remaining in the minds of those that pushed for this is, “why couldn’t we have this super nice thing sooner?”

Of course, for all of the promise of the Silver Line, it is still part of the overall Metro Rail system. I think my concerns about the bottleneck at Rosslyn are real. But Metro has an opportunity to set their best foot forward with something new and fresh that hasn’t had time to be ruined by neglect, vandalism, and bureaucracy. I hope they take it for all it’s worth and turn over a new leaf!

Pocahontas County Mad Gab Geocaching Challenge

For the past three years Pocahontas County, WV has used geocaching challenges as a tourism tool. We think this basic idea is awesome and believe it is a useful tool. After all, we came to complete the challenge. Each year the challenge has been a little bit different in an attempt to not only attract new participants but previous participants as well.

This year’s challenge combines geocaching with Mad Gab. Truthfully, I didn’t really know what Mad Gab was before this challenge and that aspect didn’t really do much for me. The first 50 Geocachers who find all four of the geocaches in the series and solve the Mad Gab phrases that correspond to each cache are eligible to receive a coin. We (eightwednesday) plus bitmapped sought the caches on Saturday, June 7^th and there were still many remaining coins.

We started after lunch with the Mad Gab cache at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. The coordinates took us to an observation deck with a stunning view of the largest and most impressive telescope at the complex. Once we arrived at ground zero, we had a difficult time locating the cache. The description for the cache indicated it was a small sized container when, in reality, it was a micro container in an area that could’ve supported a larger container. This threw us off enough we went back into the visitor’s center at the NRAO to ask about the cache. No one knew more than there was one out there.

The Robert C. Byrd Telescope, the world's largest fully steerable, as seen from near the cache site

We had to call the main CVB office in Marlinton to discover that no one working today knew anything about the cache locations. The staff member who was working had to call someone else who could give us a little nudge. To obtain the Mad Gab phrase we had to use binoculars in a way directed on a slip in the cache. It’s a nice idea, but I think it would have been just as fun to use the binoculars to copy down a regular code word.

Our next stop was the Cass Scenic Railroad. Before we even found the cache, we could clearly read the Mad Gab phrase, no need for binoculars. So even if we couldn’t find the container, we had the Mad Gab phrase. Like with the previous cache, the container size was not listed correctly.

The ruins of the lumber mill at Cass, from the general geocache location

The third stop we made was at the lake at Watoga State Forest. This cache had a very high terrain rating, 3.5, and having had surgery five days earlier I warned the guys that I would probably have to sit this one out. The cache page also indicated a hike in excess of a kilometer to get to the cache, which was not the case at all. After the 300 foot walk from the parking lot to the cache, we found it no more strenuous to find than the prior two caches in the series. Indeed, the higher terrain rating had me gently scaling a hillside when my husband shouted out that he’d found it on level ground.

The final cache we had to find was on the grounds of the Marlinton Museum. I would argue this cache had the most strenuous terrain of all four caches, yet had a substantially lower terrain rating than the cache at Watoga. To find the cache had to walk down a slight incline in a grassy field. Each of the caches used the same type of container and with how this one was hidden there were many options. However, we made quick work of it. Once we signed the log we headed into downtown Marlinton to turn in our passports and collect our coin.

The staff at the Pocahontas CVB is sweet as can be. It was great that they were open on a Saturday for us to be able to collect the coin in person. The coins were minted by an employee of the NRAO and commemorate West Virginia’s sesquicentennial. There was no mention of the geocache challenge at all. Still, it’s a neat little token.

Overall, it wasn’t a bad way to spend the afternoon. It took us less than four hours from arriving at the first geocache location to collecting the coin (including travel between all caches). But I was hoping to see some new sites as opposed to four sites that have been featured in each of the Pocahontas County geocache challenges to date. It was also frustrating for the information on the geocache pages to not accurately reflect reality, particularly for the geocache at Watoga.

I recognize they were attempting to do something different by incorporating the Mad Gab, but it felt unnecessary. Furthermore, you only really needed the suggested special equipment for one of the caches (NRAO). We felt that diversifying the cache locations may have been a better way to mix things up. Pocahontas County is one of the most stunning and scenic counties in West Virginia (neighboring Greenbrier is the only one that could even rivals it) yet some scenic areas, like the entirety of the Highland Scenic Highway, have been neglected.

Where this geocache challenge excels is that it can easily be completed in one day, the geocache containers were consistent, the names of the geocaches are consistent, the Pocahontas County CVB staff is very helpful (even if they’ve got to call around for the answers you need!), and you couldn’t ask for a more beautiful place to spend your time. We really hope that geocaching has been an effective tool for attracting additional tourism to Pocahontas County and, for better or worse, we look forward to see what type of geocache challenge they have in 2015.