I had a 10 hour challenge: leave home, take in as much of Gettysburg as I could, and be home in time for dinner. Crazy goal but there you have it. The good news is that I succeeded and it was a great, albeit cold, day.
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Prior to today, only my wonderful mother had ever climbed Old Rag with me. Today that all changed as Kelsey hiked with me to both summits. Old Rag is such a wonderful hike that I’m happy another family member is in on it. Her choice was to climb the front to both peaks and then return down the front: six miles and climbing from 600 ft to 3,300 ft. We did it and it was great fun.
Here are a few pictures we took along the way…
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A really good museum will grab your attention. Being short on time at a museum will really sharpen your focus. I fell victim to both and consequently don’t have many photos to show for our visit. The pictures below will at least show the family in context.
For years I’ve intended to visit the Newseum and the one previous time I tried, I found it closed in Arlington and not scheduled to reopen for two years in D.C. I was out of luck … till today.
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It was a day between Christmas and New Year, the sky was free of clouds, and the temperature rose to almost 60 degrees. I got the idea to go exercise my new zoom lens and visit the National Zoo. It seems like most everyone and their relatives had the same idea. The place was packed!
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We live on Lake Audubon in Reston and the creek which feeds it has been undergoing restoration for months. As construction makes its way to the mouth of the creek, it’s fun to watch the progress. What you’ll see in these pictures are two stages of process. Once the work is done and nature grows back, it’s a wonderful outcome. Much of the damage done by development will have been repaired, the creek will become healthy, and sediment will no longer fill our lake.
The following seven picture were taken from the vantage points indicated below. In the top three you can see some completed work with a little of the vegetation coming back. The last four are work-in-progress where you can see the damaged banks of the creek and can assess how big a construction job the effort restoration is.
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My first trip to France was from London via the Chunnel.
Good stuff, though my hostel left much to be desired.
Click here for a look back on my visit.
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Today I climbed Old Rag again. It was supposed to be sunny. It was not!
Took my hiking GPS and here are a few insights:
Oh, and look at what I found in the middle of nowhere …
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I’ll be blatant: there are few places which offer better living than Reston, VA. Since its inception Reston has been well planned and well managed and, as one of the first modern planned communities, it’s an historic place. Today I took a walk down the Blue Trail, a 3.5 mile stretch walking path.
What a day!
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The acme of the day was the Manassas National Battlefield Park where the Civil War’s first land battle was fought. Before and after this I went hiking, hence “Manassas Sandwich”. From sunrise to sunset I was busy-busy but the weather will soon turn cold and I had to take advantage of this beautiful day.
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The rose window above is just one of many beautiful stained glass windows that include one with a moon rock embedded which commemorates the 1969 lunar landing. Windows were only a one feature of what makes the Cathedral a splendid place to visit.
As is always the case in a great cathedrals, the expansive interior and ornate construction take your breath away. In the past year I’ve been to many cathedrals from Notre Dame to York and Canterbury Cathedrals and the awe they can evoke stirs the heart. The Washington National Cathedral is no different. <fix>
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