 photo by d. scott gregory Cold weather gear, night click on photo to enlarge |
What a strange and wonderful day all wrapped into one soft cold flour tortilla. The morning commute was pure hell, an accident or something caused a major delay. Made for a stressful morning, being 10 minutes late. I had a VERY busy and productive day at work. It seems that my company won a schweet contract, which makes the coffers of our company in a great spirit of sorts. I wrote the proposal many months ago, and now after lengthy deliberations and finger crossing, we got the contract. Pat on the company and my back. Now I'm going to be the Project Manager for following through. I'm excited, and a little nervous. Made for a great day, and a busy one to strategize.

Enough about work, I was prepared to go on a very windy, frigid training ride out to Hamilton. The temperatures dropped - it was about 30 degrees when I left the office, with an index of 25 degrees. I suited up, and packed my camera. Seems that I have not taken any photos in a couple of days.
So off I go, into a semi-overcast sunsetty training ride past yonder and back. Decided to take a few pictures of a few things on the Washington & Old Dominion Trail. Seems that Loudoun County is the fastest growing county in the entire USA, and part of that progress has impacted and encroached the W&OD trail, well, sorta. The trail itself runs 45 miles through 3 counties, and several cities.
 photo by d. scott gregory Detour until bridge complete click on photo to enlarge |
The last 30 miles of the trail are in Loudoun County. In the past 2 years, I've seen the overdevelopment that surrounds the trail - everything from tree capping to a few busy intersections that are now becoming bridges. Pictured is the new W&OD trail overpass over the last connection of the Claiborn Parkway that runs through Ashburn.
There are tons of new huge ass McMansions that have now spawned over the once rural landscape, replacing the once cow fields to 2 million dollar McMansions that exist almost less than 30 feet from each other. Those things are monsters. and because of all the expansion and over-development, the need for new roads to accommodate all the traffic. The whole prospect is exciting, scary, dangerous, and depressing. I miss cycling out to Purcellville, being in the cannopied treelined trail - now there's houses beyond houses - and the deer have no place to go, except to graze on the 100 foot wide X 45 mile park known as the W&OD Trail.
I finished up my very frigid ride and snapped a quick photo in the parking lot - I look like a strange ghost of sorts. Put my crap away and drove home to settle in for a relaxing evening of tv and domesticity, while basking in the spot heated studio.
Tomorrow will be another busy and hopefully exciting day.
 photo by d. scott gregory W&OD Bridge over Parkway click on photo to enlarge |
|  photo by d. scott gregory W&OD Bridge over Parkway click on photo to enlarge |
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 photo by d. scott gregory End of Claiborn Parkway, before bridge click on photo to enlarge |
|  photo by d. scott gregory Huge ass houses being built click on photo to enlarge |
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