Commuting on the Anacostia?

My wife showed me an article about a guy in Cheverly who rows his way to work on the Anacostia. http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/07/30/rowing.commuter.ap/

Its a great idea to forget about the traffic that bothers us all, and use a more natural route that is surely better for your health and your mind. Living near the Northeast Branch trail, I see a lot of bikers in the morning who I assume are commuters. However, I've never heard of anybody else using the river as a way to get into the city.

This idea seems very appealing to me, because I love the outdoors and work fairly close to the river down in DC. It would be great if the Northeast Branch near my house was deep enough for rowing. Its disappointing that the river is too shallow at this point for any recreation. However, the Bladensburg Waterfront Park is a fairly easy bike or walk from Riverdale. The difficutly though would be the amount of time it would take to commit to this. An hour and a half like this guy describes certainly is a lot to commit, when my commute into DC can be done in 20 to 25 minutes on most days. Who knows...maybe one day I'll find a canoe or kayak and try it out. For now though the traditional commute will have to do.

Northeast Branch Pictures

One of the reasons I enjoy living in Riverdale is having the Northeast Branch of the Anacostia River running right through the town. It certainly isn't the most impressive body of water, but it does offer a small break from the roads, homes, and general confusion of our society. With the trail system that runs along the river, it provides a quick dose of outdoor recreation that would otherwise be hard to fit in with my life. Sunday I was able to put together an hour long walk down the trail through Edmonston and into Bladensburg.
The picture above was taken in Bladensburg where the Northeast Branch Trail ends, and the Anacostia River trail begins. It looked like a pair of ducks in the distance and a heron of some sort in the foreground.

To the left is a lone duck that was ducking its head under water. This shot was also taken in Bladensburg.

The picture below is a bird I spotted along a drainage ditch next to the Northeast Branch Trail in Riverdale. I believe the bird in the photo is a Black Crowned Night Heron. I'm an amateur at bird spotting, so I could be off. But it looks similar to a description I saw of a juvenile of that species.



While looking for information about the Anacostia River, I came across a website for Friends of Sligo Creek. On one of their pages they also mentioned a website for Neighbors of the Northwest Branch. I couldn't find anything online about any groups dedicated to the Northeast Branch of the Anacostia. I would love to hear from anybody who knows anything about any such group.
http://www.fosc.org/fosc.htm
http://www.neighborsnwb.org/