A long commute at 'o'dark thirty'

Like her listeners, Lisa Baden has her own commute to handle. Every weekday she drives 43 miles each way from the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay to her office in Silver Spring.

And she does it in the dark. With two alarms and a light timed to shine on her bed, she wakes up at what she calls “o’dark thirty.” She hops into her Mini Cooper — without makeup but with rollers in her hair — no later than 3:50 a.m. to share the road with bread deliverymen, construction workers and the occasional late-night partier.