We lived in Grosvenor Park (North Bethesda, Maryland) for five years. It was a nice community, located right next to the Beltway and the Metro. Here’s what it looked like from above.
If you want to see what it looked like from ground level, you can browse photos I took there in my photo stream at Flickr or my galleries at Google Photo.
Some of the most striking fall foliage in the DC area can be found at the Audubon Naturalist Society in Bethesda, MD. It’s not majestic, like the kind you find in certain spots of Rock Creek Park, or sweeping, like the kind you see in Shenandoah National Park, but it is striking, and I’ll let the photos explain the term for me.
Do you now see what I mean? Good. Let me just add that you can have a wonderful time walking around their grounds on a Saturday afternoon, especially with your loved one by your side.
Go ahead, click on the thumbnails! You’ll get a full-screen lightbox-view of each photograph, and you can scroll in-between them. It’s pretty cool!
If you should drive into the Maryland countryside, along River Road, the Potomac River and the C&O Canal, past farms and mansions, you’ll find a lone building made of red sandstone, standing in a meadow. This sign will be next to it.
The building is the one-room Seneca Schoolhouse, the only school in the area during the later part of the 19th century, after the Civil War. The schoolhouse was established by a local farmer and miller by the name of Upton Darby, who generously provided the land, stone and wood for the building. Local families contributed money or skills for its construction.
I love the cozy little building. It’s wonderful architecture. I love the door knob especially, though I doubt it’s the original one, as it says “City of New York” on it…
There’s more information at the schoolhouse museum’s website, including visiting and contact info. When we stopped to see it, the light may have been perfect but nobody was around to show us inside, so all we could do was to walk around.
These are photos from a wonderful walk we took in Rock Creek Park (on the Maryland side) in the fall of 2006. It was a beautiful autumn day, the light was wonderful, and the fall foliage was a delightful sight.
This is the oldest tree in Maryland. It’s an oak that dates back to even before the time of the American Revolution. Even though there’s a plaque next to it explaining this, it seems to be a well-kept secret, because in all the years we lived in the DC area, we lived near this tree and we seldom saw people stopping by it.
Sandy Point State Park is on the northwestern shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. We visited it one windy autumn day and walked on its beaches, gathering seashells and admiring the view. I hear the park is packed during the warm months, so if you’re looking for a bit of peace and quiet as you stroll through there, you’ll want to brave the cold like we did.
This is one of my favorite photos of us, even though it’s terribly overexposed.
In the parking lot, we met two friendly ducks, whom we filmed.
I still remember fondly one occasion back in 2005 when, after copious snowfall, we took our MINI out for a drive with our new Michelin winter tires. We lived in the DC area at the time, and those of you who live there know we only get about one serious snowfall every year, usually toward the end of January or start of February. Well, that day, we had our annual big snowfall, and we wanted to make the best of it.
We took the car out on River Drive (it runs parallel to the Potomac River) and turned onto an access road that took us downhill, toward Lock 21 of the C&O Canal. It was quite possible that we wouldn’t be able to get back up onto the main road, but we didn’t care at the time. We were thoroughly enjoying ourselves.
Our MINI handled itself beautifully thanks to the winter tires, and we drove uphill through the thick snow without a hitch. Soon we were back home, sipping on hot tea and warming ourselves after the wonderful outing. We had so much fun!
Glen Echo Park is a neat place located on MacArthur Blvd, near Washington, DC. It used to be a full fledged amusement park in the early part of the 20th century, with its own rail line that ran to the park’s gate from downtown DC. Ligia and I visited it a few times in 2008. The following are a few photos I took during those visits.
The park’s official website is here.
