Greater DC National Parks-Part 1

SO MANY TO SEE!!!

The first 3 days post-convention, we spent a majority of our time visiting National Park Sites, new & repeats, “counted” & only affiliated. Then we took a day off.

DC Mall Visits to 4 (5) new National Park Sites and 8 (9) repeats:

Monday, we drove into DC, parked behind the Jefferson Memorial, and spent the entire day wandering the mall and vicinity. We ended the DC visit meeting up with friends Duncan & Patty. It was a 12 hour day (including driving), by the time we got back to camp. The following is not a complete list of the NPS Sites we got to, but close:

• National Mall & Memorial Parks (#43-Revisit), where, in addition to capturing pictures of the recently RE-drained Reflecting Pool…we visited/revisited:
• George Mason Memorial (a revisit)
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial (#45-Revisit)
• Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial (#46-Revisit)
• Korean War Veterans Memorial (#80-Revisit)
• Lincoln Memorial (#78-Revisit), where we visited the new Lincoln Undercroft Museum, beneath the monument. Pretty Cool.
• John Ericsson National Memorial (new)
• Vietnam Veterans Memorial (#79-Revisit), where Mark found 2 people from Donora, whose family he knew.
• Constitution Gardens (#340), where we may have wandered before, unawares. This time we went there puposefully and walked to the small island in the lake, where there is a Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence.
• Washington Monument (#76-Revisit), where we finally got tickets to go up into it. Very Cool.
• Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial (#341), which was actually a bit away from the Mall…got a good walk in.
• Word War I Memorial (#342), right near the White House.
• Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site (#75-Revisit)…sort of…we walked on it a bit and visited a famous address there.
• The White House and Presidents Park (#343), where we spent and hour or so in the Visitor Center. No. No actual visit to the White House.

Capital Park East Visits to 1 (3) new National Park Sites:

Tuesday was a slower day, as we didn’t leave until mid morning! We had a noon tour reserved at the Frederick Douglass House in eastern DC. Then, based on a tip from an NPTC conventioneer, we stopped to visit the Water Lily and Lotus gardens. It was near the only DC Costco, so stopped there, too.

• National Capital Parks-East (#338-“Revisit”)…we visited 2 more parks in the larger unit:
• Frederick Douglass National Historic Site (#344), where Frederick Douglass where he lived, at Cedar Hill, his last 17 years. He spent his life fighting for justice and equality. Born into slavery in 1818, he escaped as a young man and became a leading voice in the abolitionist movement. His legacy is preserved here with a little museum and a tour of the house as a backdrop for telling his story. We had a excellent tour guide. One of our best historical tours.
• Keniworth Park & Aquatic Garden, an oasis, hidden behind trees and cattails, a place where beavers build their homes and turtles sleep on logs. Lotus blooms rise from the muck and lilies sit on the water. We showed up just in time for the last Ranger Tour of the day, around the aquatic gardens. Then we walked out the boardwalks to the adjacent marshes. We were there only 1 week past Prime Lotus Blooming, which is only 2 months long.
• Baltimore-Washington Parkway, the 29-mile highway connects Baltimore, MD and Washington, D.C, which we’ve probably driven before. This time we did it conscious of the fact that it is managed by the National Park Service! And we drove it several more times in the subsequent days.

Virginia Visits to 3 new National Park Sites and 1 repeat:

Wednesday we visited sites in west of the Potomac in Virginia (although the GW Parkway and TR Memorial are officially part of the DC NPS).

• Prince William Forest Park (#345), Virginia, Northern Virginia’s best kept secret (and another CCC Site) is about 30 minutes south of Mount Vernon. In 1936, Chopawamsic Recreation Area opened its gates to house children’s ‘relief’ camps during the Great Depression. Renamed Prince William Forest Park in 1948, these fragrant woods and trickling streams have welcomed generations of campers, hikers, bikers and nature lovers. We spent a couple of hours hiking the Laurel Trail Loop, near the Visitor Center, and driving the Scenic Loop Road
• George Washington Memorial Parkway (#346), designed for recreational driving, it does bog down in places where it is used as a primary access road. It links sites that commemorate important episodes in American history and preserves habitat for local wildlife. The parkway and its associated trails provide a scenic place to play and rest in the busy Washington, DC metropolitan area. We drove from the south point at Mount Vernon all 25 miles to the north end, making a few stops…to picnic and explore.
• Theodore Roosevelt Island (#347), established in the 1930s, landscape architects transformed Mason’s Island from neglected, overgrown farmland into Theodore Roosevelt Island, a “Living Memorial” to America’s 26th president. They conceived a “real forest” designed to mimic the natural forest that once covered the island. Today miles of trails through wooded uplands and swampy bottomlands honor the legacy of a great outdoorsman and conservationist. This was our longest stop on the GW Parkway.
• Cheasapeake and Ohio Canal NHP (#87-Revisit), short stop when saw we were about to pass Lock 10, just after we got off the north end of the GW Parkway to grap some dinner in Cabin John, MD.

A Day Off

Thursday we spent Gail’s Birthday doing as close to nothing as possible, even sleeping in past 8:00! It was a lazy day of relaxing and puttering…a little laundry, replacing the broken freezer door hinge (replacement arrived that day), partial catch-up on pictures & posts & spreadsheets, and Mark did go out to get Gail’s Birthday Starbucks S’Mores Cold Brew and groceries for a nice dinner in camp. It was the first day the temp only hit 80 vs ~95, so we actually turned off the A/C, opened the windows, and sat in our chairs outside!

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