News and notes from Reston (tm).

Monday, September 17, 2012

Flashback Monday: Reston: The Walking Tour Part II Electric Boogaloo

Walking Tour.jpg
When we last left our walking tour of early Reston, we were admiring Lake Anne and trying to count its "30,000 bass and bluegill." But it's time to get off our duffs and press onward!

Waterview.jpg
First, we glimpse across the lake at Waterview Cluster, which earlier marketing brochures likened to a "quaint French fishing village." Hold that Gallic thought for a moment, as we approach...

Van Gogh.jpg
Let's compare the bridge to the Van Gogh painting in question:

Arles.jpeg
Poor Van Gogh. His artistic legacy might have been completely different if he'd taken the time to paint some blocky modernist townhouses in the background. But onward, to...

North Shore pool.jpg
tennis.jpg
You can't really see the pool from the path, but maybe if you climb up on the "pulpit," you'll be able to furtively check out 1960s Betty Draper sunning herself poolside. But there's no time for those kinds of shenanigans, because we're about to come face to face with a true jet-age marvel!

RELAC.jpg
Chilled lake water used to air condition houses? Ha ha, that's the kind of crazy thinking that didn't make it out of the 1960s alive.

Oh, wait.

underpass.jpg
Not sure concrete bench-thingies really count as "furniture," but we'd imagine the whimsical sculptures probably did confound 1960s city-dwellers conditioned to consider underpasses dark, dangerous places. But once you emerge unscathed on the other side, DO NOT ENTER HICKORY CLUSTER. Here there be dragons actual Restonians, who are apparently not to be trifled with. Consider yourself warned, and turn yourself around.

Return.jpg
The long walk back to our Dodge Swinger in the parking lot gives us plenty of time to "examine the totality of the Reston concept." But, we are cautioned by our guidebook Virgil, "to appreciate the real meaning of Reston you must live here."

Ain't that the truth.

2 comments:

  1. Van Gogh cut his ear off and committed suicide.

    Which is ironic because several 'chilled water' air conditioned souls at Lake Anne in recent years have been known to cut an ear off, wander aimlessly across the Van Gogh bridge to the only cool spot at Lake Anne during a summer heat wave - the North Shore Drive Underpass - where they've jumped over the railing only to splatter upon the bone dry concrete drain that once upon a time was filled with a cool spring fed stream.

    Rather than going straight to heaven, these heat exhausted souls entered Hickory Cluster and Beyond...

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  2. That walking tour paints a wonderful picture...cue dream sequence.....picturing the Reston swingers riding around in their Swingers. Which now that I think about it, is counter-intuitive to a walking tour. My brain hurts.

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