In a bid to avoid traffic jams, a librarian from Bladensburg, Maryland, has come up with a really unique way of commuting to work – he’s been rowing his way to work in downtown Washington for the past 15 years.
71-year-old Gabriel Horchler says he looks forward to rowing his 21-foot Vespoli fiberglass racing shell to work in the morning just as much as he did when he first started in the year 1997. He got the idea when he was stuck on his motorcycle in the middle of heavy traffic, and he turned his eyes to the Anacostia River that runs parallel to the freeway. That’s when it hit him – why not use the river instead?
So he did just that, and now, 15 years later, his routine is pretty much set in stone. The river doesn’t exactly flow right outside his home, so he has to first take a 15-minute bike ride to reach his rowing shell at the Bladensburg Waterfront Park. He then rows about five miles downriver. In the last leg of the journey, he gets off the boat and onto another bike before arriving at the Library of Congress in Washington. The entire trip takes him 90 minutes from start to finish. He takes the metro back home from work, and the next day, the routine is reversed – he takes the metro to work and rows back home.
