I'm glad to see that Great Barrington didn't make the list, since I gotta drive there next weekend.

I didn't look at the article yet, but it's got to be extremely faulty, since New York is nowhere on this list, and yet I took over 3 hours to make a 66 mile ride home last evening, ALL ON HIGHWAY!

I finally read the article, and to be fair, on the slideshow, they DID include the GW Bridge, which is where I spent the better part of over 1.5 hours trying to get over, and beyond, last night...

Actually, since we are the most densely populated state in the union, I'm surprised that the entire state of new jersey didn't make the list.
As a side note, Crawford Texas leads the country in individule dense people.

Have a good trip to the church! I went with my folks to NYC in around 69 & I was glad I wasn't driving yet. The traffic was bad then & assume it is worse now. I saw some cabbies wrecked into each other & they were out cussing at each other & a bread truck turned over on the freeway & stopped traffic for hrs...

getting back on topic -- more on the Silver Spring venue:
http://www.gazette.net/stories/100307/t ... 2358.shtml

Hickok Cole to Design The Fillmore Music Hall in Silver Spring, MD
http://www.interiordesign.net/id_newsar ... 88820.html
http://www.livemusicss.com/
the green roof:
http://www.livemusicss.com/green_roof.gif
http://www.livemusicss.com/GREEN_ROOF.jpg

Birchmere To Open New Music Hall in College Park, MD
State of the Art Venue to Come to East Campus Redevelopment Project
http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/uniini/rele ... cleID=1506

Thanks for updating us. It will be interesting to see what happens...

The short of it is that in a few years we will have a couple of new venues to add to the Strathmore and others in the area - all near metro stops.
Lots of other new stuff happening too.

That is a good location for the new venue, as most of the area is old facilities of UMD that have (or will be) replaced/relocated.
Too bad my son isn't down there at UMD anymore... but then I would expect this not to be actually realized for a few years yet, the East Campus initiative is very large, and all this shit takes time ya' know!

Guess I will be spending my old age years in this area so I am enjoying seeing all this new stuff happening. My roots are in Illiniois farm country (grew up there in the 1940s and 1950s), but I have spent most of my life in other places (early college years at University of Missouri in the early 1960s, Air Force years in Texas, Alabama, and Florida in the mid-1960s, final undergraduate college years at Penn State in the late 1960s and putting hubby through to his PhD at Penn State years while in State College, PA during the early 1970s, beginning graduate school years when we moved to the University of Missouri in the mid-1970s). Eventually settled in Maryland in 1976. Have lived in Prince George's County, Georgetown in DC, and for the past 21 years in Montgomery County. Got my master's degree at Univ. of MD - College Park campus almost 30 years ago. I'll be retiring from my job in DC in a few years and am looking forward to spending my retirement years enjoying these new Silver Spring and College Park venues and other events in this area. It will be fun to return to the Univ. of Md campus. Looking forward to seeing Arlo and everyone here at the future shows. The years will fly by.
(My daughter got her bachelor's degree from Smith College in MA a few years ago and is now taking some Univ of Md distance learning courses while she and her husband are living in Heidelberg Germany. When they move back to the States in a few years they are thinking of living in this area and she will likely finish her graduate studies at Univ. of MD - College Park)

I'm kinda with you, Janet...this area has so much music and interesting stuff going on that I'd have problems leaving it. I still have a lot of relatives in my native Indiana, my husband has relatives in Wisconsin, but we feel our roots are here in No. VA. We've been here for 20 years, and it felt like home when we moved in...something I didn't feel at any time when we lived in Torrance, CA for 8 years. Jim is in a job he really likes now, both our kids live nearby, and we're enjoying life here.

Ya'll have more going on musically up there than we do. Arlo hardly ever comes to Richmond so we have to road trip to see him. I am surprised he is doing 2 days worth of shows in Richmond next yr. Apparrantly someone is finally realizing he needs to come to Richmond more often...

and other good stuff going on:
http://www.gazette.net/stories/103107/b ... 2363.shtml
http://www.gazette.net/stories/103107/s ... 2365.shtml