Great Falls

Walt and I went for a long walk yesterday morning at Great Falls. Neither one of us has felt very good this weekend, so we thought some fresh air might help. It was cold out but it was nice to see so many people out and about, enjoying the park. It's such a great place for kids to run around the paths and scramble up and down all the rocks. There is a path along the river and then other paths that go through the woods, with lookouts along the river. We used to come here in the summer with our kids and have breakfasts here. I remember doing that with Mom and Dad, and with Patty and Mark, too. The park is great all year, of course, but I particularly like it in winter. There is something about the starkness of the rocks and the water, and the noise of the falls. Usually you see kayakers around, but we didn't see any today.

Calm waters after the falls

I am always amazed to see the high water marks. It's so hard to imagine the water being this high.

I love all the rocks,  and everywhere you see stone walls, which are the remains of the old Patowmack Canal, which was built next to the river, so that river traffic could skirt the falls. Interestingly, the Canal was the idea of George Washington (Happy President's Day, George), who believed that the passageway from the Potomac River to the Ohio River was key to the future of our country.

Here is Walt standing on one of the locks from the old canal.

And I loved the bark on this tree--I came home and looked it up online and I believe it is a native dogwood. We will have to go back in the spring and check if it is indeed a dogwood. Later in the afternoon, we went to see The Descendants, which we both liked a lot. And so much for the snow we were supposed to get and the weather people have been talking about for days. Not one snowflake!! What a winter. I'll stop complaining soon.