I had a 3-day weekend over the Martin Luther King holiday - and I felt like getting out of town, so I rented a car from Enterprise. This time I rented from a location close to my house - just a little over a mile away. The bad thing is that the office didn't open til 9 a.m., but the good thing was that you could take their rental cars out of the D.C. area. The airport location (where I have rented before) states that their cars are required to stay in the DC/VA/MD area. Since I wanted to drive up to PA and NY, I didn't want to breach the contract terms, so I rented from this particular location. The agent preparing the paperwork for the car in the office saw my folding bike propped against the office window and was curious about it. I told him it was a folding bike, and I'd be folding it to put it in the trunk. He thought a folding bike was pretty ingenious. It's fun to open people's eyes about folding bikes and even living car-free. It's a concept they don't think about. Of course, he asked the normal question of how do I get groceries. :) I showed him the panniers that were on my bike, and told him that I just fill those up - you can fit a lot in them. I told him I also have a trailer I can use to put groceries in, if need be. I told him I bike to work everyday, and he was asking where I rode. Perhaps he lives in DC or MD, and didn't know about the Mt. Vernon Trail or that you can ride on a sidewalk that crosses the various bridges into DC. It's almost as if these bike routes are "invisible" to people in their cars. :)
Anyway, I enjoyed getting out of town - stopping in MD at a friend's place, and to PA to visit my sister, and then up to NY to spend the weekend with a friend. A rental car comes in handy for trips like this, when I want to make multiple stops. The cost of the rental car, though, was about the same as a flight up to NY...so I didn't save money on the trip, but it was fun to see my family and friends. I realized I hadn't rented a car since mid-October (when I drove up to Philly for the weekend).
