Hi everyone!! Charles here. It’s been a hectic few days but Spokes is finally under way. Ramona is writing the blog post for today (Day 1), so I’ll fill in the details for how we all reconvened in DC.
Most of the team arrived in DC yesterday with the exception of Greta and Ishaq, who live in the area. Ruth and I drove the minivan rental down from Boston.
Day -1
Ruth and I picked up our car for the summer at noon. It’s a 2024 white Chrysler Pacifica we’ve named Amy. After picking up various Spokes orders and materials from stores, dorms, and storage rooms; assembling the roof storage and bike rack (went surprisingly smoothly, MechE grads 🔛🔝); and putting everything into boxes we finished loading the car. Ruth took the minivan home for the night (she lives in Boston).
Day 0
Ruth came to pick me up at the dorm at a bright and early 6 AM. After some dilly-dallying (aka I still needed to pack a few things), we headed down to Philly, hoping to catch a Spokes 2017 alum for a lunch. Our lunch plans appeared doomed given the drive time, until we realized we had avoid tolls checked on Google Maps 😅. We were both rather sleep-deprived from a long night of packing, lesson planning, and 3D printer debugging, but I won the game of no-sleep chicken and Ruth took the first driving shift. At our gas stop, I offered to drive for a bit, but Ruth insisted she was doing fine1.
We had lunch with Caity, who treated us to Philly cheesesteaks. I can now personally vouch for a correlation between Philly cheesesteak tastiness and proximity to Philly. Caity gave us great advice and encouragement and told us some fun stories, shoutout Caity!!
One ice cream treat later, I drove us the remainder of the way to DC. Spirits were high as we pulled into the AirBnB driveway singing along to songs off Doo-Wops & Hooligans.
Everyone else flew in during the afternoon and we ran some errands before a kickoff team dinner at the Lawler’s. Watermelon, chicken and vegan enchiladas, salad, chips and guac, and popsicles to top it all off — we ate like kings and queens.
After dinner, we recapped responses from a Spokes superlatives form Greta had sent out. Highlights included some people possibly taking the “most likely to get into an encounter with the police” question *too literally*, a mandatory multi-select “most likely to get together” question, and Joseph taking down the only clean sweep of the night for “biggest yapper.”
We had to get up early today for our Learning Festival, so everyone split off for a few more errands and then we wound down for the night. I dreamt of friends, bikes, and friends on bikes.
1 She later admitted to dozing off multiple times at the wheel only to be awoken by lane assist playing guardian angel 😬.
MIT Spokes 2025 