Last Sunday afternoon (very delayed post) Josh and I continued our exploration of all the wonderful things the DC area has to offer by heading to the Brookside Gardens - only slightly north of Silver Spring in (not) lovely Wheaton. We actually thought about living in Wheaton, but quickly nixed that idea after visiting it. We thought all it had to offer was lots of Mexican food and a pub with vegan sausage. 
But it turns out they've also got a lovely (and free!) botanical garden. The photo above is an amazing gazebo on the water, with roses (still blooming now) and all sorts of other flowers. I could definitely see people getting married right there. (Though the people who were actually getting married at the gardens on Sunday were using one of those big white circus tents instead ... to each his own.)
We actually parked at Wheaton Regional Park, where we intended to go for a hike that day, but when we realized we were only a short walk from the gardens, we opted for that instead. With all sorts of discrete garden areas - azalea garden, rose garden, butterly garden, etc. - it was definitely beautiful and amazing, and the kind of place we will probably be visiting again and again.
A few more pictures from the afternoon:
After walking the gardens for a while, we stopped by Wegman's for some groceries and a late lunch at their prepared foods bar. I always seem to get way more food than I actually want when I go there. I need to be better about surveying my options and then grabbing food. Otherwise, I think the one thing I'm putting into my box at that moment will be my entire meal and I get a ton of it. This time I got falafel with vegan tzatziki, Gardein sesame chick'n, delicata squash with red onions and fennel, and shaved roasted brussel sprouts. The squash wasn't great - I just got it because I thought I should get more veggies. And I really should have gotten one falafel ... live and learn.
When we got home I forced Josh to join me in a 50-burpee timed challege. I wanted to beat my previous time of 6:32 ... and I did! That's right, 50 burpees in 5:58! (Beating my first try's time by more than 30 seconds!) Of course, last time I'd already done an entire WOD first, but that's just semantics.
For dinner we made vegan tuna sandwiches with my favorite ... Asmar's tuna. I always make mine with just tuna and pickles, but Josh likes to make a tuna melt with melted sharp cheddar too. 
With dinner I sipped on a pumpkin pie soda I'd picked up at Wegman's earlier. Hey, it's fall ... let's put pumpkin in everything! The first taste was really odd and I thought I didn't like it at all, but since I hate to see things go to waste I kept chugging along, and about 1/3 of the way into the bottle I decided I really liked it. It was really sweet (but I guess no sweeter than a Coke), and you have to get used to the flavor, but once you do it's kind of a nice treat. I definitely won't be wanting one everyday, but I might get one or two more this fall ... 
No comments:
Post a Comment