Capital AudioFest 2013

Pre-road downs

Art Dudley  |  Jul 26, 2013

John Atkinson is a road warrior: When he attended the DC area’s Capital Audiofest in July of last year, he drove there in his vintage Mercedes-Benz coupe, all the way from his home in Brooklyn. He did the same in 2011, too.

Because I regard night driving with the same revulsion that Dothraki horsemen reserve for travel by sea, and because any round trip between upstate New York and our nation’s capital is bound to include at least some driving after dark, I took the train. It was easy and fun—and if your area is served by an Amtrak line that can get you to Washington DC’s Union Station, you can do it, too. It took me just 15 minutes to get from there to the Metro station in Silver Spring, MD, and only 4 more minutes to get from the Metro stop to the Sheraton Silver Spring, which is the new site for Capital Audiofest. See? Easy and fun.

The show begins at 10:00am on Friday, July 26, and runs through 5:00pm on Sunday afternoon. Between now and then I’ll squeeze in all the details that seem to fit, in every sense of the word.

COMMENTS
paxjen's picture
Submitted by paxjen on July 26, 2013 - 11:59am

Glad you enjoyed the train down.  Would it be rude to ask how much the ticket was?

jimtavegia's picture
Submitted by jimtavegia on July 28, 2013 - 11:08am

I love riding the train and did so in my youth from Aurora, IL to Downers Grove daily for work. Even road the train from Aurora to Ottawa, KS in my first trips to college in the 60's. That ride was a paltry $11, but then discovered I could fly stand-by for $14.25 on TWA KC to Chicago....Hmmmmm.....12 hours vs. 1 hour.  Easy choice to fly after that. 

corrective_unconscious's picture
Submitted by corrective_unco... on July 28, 2013 - 8:11pm

I looked a little more than half heartedly at mass transit options to go from Philadephia to Washington for a day of the show. Amtrak's website is vaguely unpleasant, but functions, and round trip at the low end would have been 102.00 or 125.00 or in that neighborhood.

I could rent a zipcar with gas included for 24 hours for less than that.

The so called "Chinatown" buses in my city do not have usable websites, even for basic information. It also appears they run three hours per way, as opposed to Amtrak's non Acela options at two hours per way. Greyhound does not usually figure into my world of possibilities.

This is all morally wrong - especially any impetus to ride a Greyhound bus, imo.

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