Tysons Galleria, Rain, and Morning Walk

It’s been about fourteen months since we stepped foot inside of a mall. When we moved to northern Virginia over two years ago we would oftentimes drive over to either Tysons Galleria or Tysons Corner Center for a morning walk - usually when it was raining or extremely hot or cold. Over the last many months we walked in the condo underground garage under those circumstances. Yes, it was a place to go, but not very energizing. Since we are both vaccinated now we decided it was time to try out the mall again because it was raining - and see what has changed. We were surprised that so many stores had remained open at Tysons Galleria. The parking garage was rather full, but once inside we didn’t see a lot of people, but it was before official opening time. There were mostly people like us getting in a walk and the usual Starbucks crowd. It looked like about 50/50 wearing masks. We decided to keep ours on just because we were inside. It was good to see the outside world again, but something terribly artificial about it - including the orchids that are all over the place. It looked sort of the same, but felt different. I think it’s going to talk a while to feel normal again. But it’s one more activity towards doing what we used to do. I’m looking forward to attending programs at the Library of Congress which was such a routine for us before. But I don’t see that happening for a long time.