Hello everyone, and welcome to another sheltering-in-place update from our nation’s capital. It’s been a tough week for me here personally, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m in a one-day-at-a-time kind of place right now. I’m grateful to have my family around me as we support each other through the highs and lows of this process.
My friend Ryan passed away over the weekend. Ryan was a part of my local hometown gang – a group of my closest friends that’s been hanging out together for more than 20 years. We’ve been through ups and downs, marriages and kids. Some of us grew up together, but we’ve all grown through adulthood together, and I’ve never doubted that I could call on any one of this group for anything in the world, even though my travel schedule makes me a recurring guest star more than a regular cast member. I have a photo of this group on the visor of my van, and when I’m feeling lonely, I flip down my visor and I’m surrounded by my closest friends. Ryan had cancer, and this wasn’t something we didn’t know was coming, but it still hurts to know he’s gone. I’m a hopeful person, and I never lost hope that he would come out the other side of it. He was my age, entirely too young to die. I’m thankful that we gathered the gang together over the holidays, some coming from as far away as California and Colorado, so that we could laugh and share and break bread and just be together. We knew what was possibly to come, and I’m glad that my friends made this gathering possible and that I was in town to be there for it. It was a wonderful weekend filled with warmth and love. Ryan’s smile, laugh and playful spirit will be missed. May he rest in peace.
Also this week, I got a text message from my ex-girlfriend telling me that she got engaged. This is, of course, happy news and I’m very happy for her and her fiancé. I am giving her the benefit of the doubt, as I have for several years now, and believe that she texted me because she wanted to share her good news with me and also wanted to be sure I heard it from her and not through the grapevine. It’s still incredibly painful news to hear though, although also not unexpected…
In 1713, two colonists were granted a tract of land extending from what is now Cleveland Park all the way to present-day Rockville. That tract long predates both the city of Washington DC and the United States as a whole, and its owners named it “Friendship”.
By the turn of the 20th Century, only two homes were located in the area, one was located a few hundred yards back from Wisconsin Avenue in a grove of silver maples, and the other lay closer to the road and was owned by the Ball family. This home had an attached blacksmith shop and also served as a changing station for stagecoaches bound between Rockville and Georgetown. In the early 1900s, trolley tracks were laid connecting Georgetown to Montgomery County, and the area became prime real estate.
Over the next decade, the land was purchased and subdivided by two men, Albert Shoemaker and Henry Offutt, and a small community began to developed. By 1914, the Village of Friendship Heights and The Hills was recognized by the state of Maryland, and the community around it was also known as Friendship Heights. This was a rural area, and an annual fall hog slaughter was a much anticipated event…
Hi Everyone! It’s really hard to believe how quickly these weeks are flying by. I can’t believe it’s been 6 weeks since I got home and started writing my weekly updates from here in D.C. I’m still keeping very busy and still have plenty of things to do, but the days really start to mush together when I’m not out there on the road or at least making plans in that direction. The weather has been decent this week, and we’ve been spending some good time outside enjoying it, which has been great.
This week has been one of celebrations, which has also been really good. On Friday we celebrated another week gone by with our weekly “Forget About It Friday” party in the basement. This week I broke out my blacklight from college and went a hundred years into the future for a “future party”. We had some glowing gin and tonics and a few laughs and played a new-to-us card game called The Game which we all enjoyed. Saturday we all threw in together in the kitchen and created a huge and wonderful New Orleans inspired Italian meal. Monday we celebrated my folks’ anniversary with another nice meal and last night we had some tacos and margaritas for Cinco de Mayo. Because television and walks only boost your spirits so much, we’ve enjoyed these celebrations as an excuse to be together and enjoy something fun and different. The themes just give it some direction.
I got some good news this week from a wooden puzzle company in England who wants to use one of my photos of Cloudland Canyon in Georgia on one of their puzzles…
Another week has come and gone for me here in our Nation’s Capital, and with it the month of April is coming swiftly to a close. I have spent the entire month under quarantine here at home, and I know many of you have been shut in longer than I have. It has definitely become a “new normal” for me, and this week I’ve started to fall into a good rhythm and routine. I’ve also come to terms with the idea of being here for a while and am trying to make the best of it.
First off, I know how incredibly lucky I am to be in the situation I’m in. My folks have been willing to take me in for an indefinite amount of time. They have retirement income and no mortgage to worry about and we all have enough space to not be under each other’s feet all the time. I myself have no debt and really no bills to speak of and because I cut my winter travel plans way short, I still have a reasonable amount of savings in the bank. All of this is good news because as long as this will last for the country, it will last significantly longer for the travel industry. I would be surprised if there’s any real work for me at all this year. I am trying to scout out a few writing gigs and maybe some virtual guiding, but as far as multi-week face to face stuff, it could be a while.
The area we now call Cleveland Park in Washington D.C. was once a part of a massive 1000 acre estate owned by Colonel Ninian Biell. He called his estate Pretty Prospect and built a small stone cottage on the land in 1740. In 1790, the property was acquired by General Uriah Forrest, who would later become mayor of Georgetown, and a large wood-framed house was built onto the front of the stone cottage. Forrest renamed the property Rosedale. When his son inherited this land, he built an even bigger home and called it Forrest Hill. In 1886, Forrest Hill was purchased as a country retreat by then-president Grover Cleveland who converted the house into a Victorian mansion and renamed it Oak View. It is from President Cleveland that the current neighborhood takes its name.
After Cleveland lost his reelection bid in 1889, the land was purchased and converted into housing subdivisions. The neighborhood’s early success was made possible by the Rock Creek Railway line which ran up Connecticut Avenue from downtown all the way to Chevy Chase Lake in Montgomery County, Maryland. In order to make this streetcar line happen, a massive bridge had to be built over the Klingle Valley and Rock Creek connecting the area to the rest of the city. The neighborhood developed around the natural contours of the land, with a little help from the firm of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead, and you’ll find more winding roads here than in most parts of the city. Many of the houses were built to be unique to those around them and many were designed by renowned architects of the day. The result was that Cleveland Park was once heralded as the “prettiest suburb of Washington”, and many of those beautiful houses survive in the neighborhood today.
Hello Everyone! Well, another week has blurred past. It’s gotten a bit colder this week in Washington, but we’ve had a lot of sunshine which has helped prop up my spirits most days. It’s already light when I get up in the morning and the sun is out until almost 8 p.m. which I’m really enjoying. I’m looking forward to some beautiful spring days with plenty of sitting-outside weather in the coming weeks. We can fire up the barbecue and the outdoor fire pit and at least be able to enjoy the outdoor section of our shelter. I’ve still been getting out for at least one long walk a day, and the flowers are still fantastic around our part of the city. If nothing else it’s been wonderful to focus on the changing colors of spring in our Nation’s Capital.
Emotionally, it’s been another week of ups and downs though. I had another friend in my close friends network lose a parent this week, and my heart goes out to her and her family. Hard times on top of hard times. Meanwhile another friend is slowly recovering from the virus and doing better by the day. One of my good friends and loyal readers of this blog celebrated his birthday this week, so a big shout-out to Rob on his special day. Ten of us got together on Zoom to celebrate and it was good to see that particular group all in one place, even if it was done virtually. I have one photo that’s on the back of my sun visor in Shadow Catcher which I look at when I’m feeling particularly lonely on the road. Most of the people in that picture were on this call so it made me feel good to be a part of it. On Friday, my folks and I had a Roaring Twenties Prohibition Party in the basement. We sipped fancy cocktails, threw some dice, listened to some cool jazz and big band music and focused our attention away from the quarantine and virus for a few hours. It’s been really nice to have these “parties” and escape from reality for a little while.
Chevy Chase dates back all the way to 1725, when Col. Joseph Belt was granted 1000 acres by Lord Baltimore, the first proprietor of the Colony of Maryland. Col. Belt, who had commanded the Prince George’s County Militia in the French and Indian War, named his new farm Cheivy Chase after an area in Northern England. A portion of the land was bought up for development in the late 1800s, and lots began to sell when a streetcar line connected the neighborhood to downtown Washington. Many of the houses in Chevy Chase were bought straight from a Sears and Roebuck catalog and remain standing today. Much of the architecture in the area is in the humble Bungalow, Foursquare and Dutch Colonial styles, but many of my favorites are in the less well represented Tudor revival style. Some of the key landmarks of the community are Magruder’s Market which opened in 1875, the 1923 Avalon Theater and the far newer Chevy Chase Library and Community Center. Chevy Chase is my home neighborhood, and I have wonderful memories from my childhood of movies at the Avalon, art and gymnastics classes at the community center, going to the old Riggs Bank with my grandmother and for ice cream at the long-gone Baskin Robbins. I often take my morning walk up Connecticut Avenue, the central road of the neighborhood, and reminisce about times gone by and five generations of my family who have wandered these streets. It made my heart feel good to go out and shoot these photos of my home neighborhood.
Is it Wednesday again? Hard to believe. I feel like time is speeding up a bit this week for me, and that’s something I’m not a huge fan of. It’s one of the things I’ve never liked about “routine”, it’s easy for me to fall into one and then days turn to weeks and weeks turn to months very quickly. In my normal life, generally speaking, every day is vastly different from the last, whether I’m guiding tours or off on my own adventures. I can plan each day, savor the moments as they pass, and then at the end look back at it and see what I learned and accomplished. It’s one of the reasons I’ve avoided moving into a management role in the tour business or finding a year-round job. In my younger days, I often felt like I would blink and a whole year would go by. Now I feel like last Easter was forever ago because I’ve seen and done so much since then.
When I was driving home from Texas, I was thinking of all the time that this quarantine would give me, and how much I would be able to get done. Despite it being a downer to give up on my short-term goals, I saw it as an opportunity to catch up on a lot of things and even get ahead on a few projects. I always have a million things banging around in my head, and never enough time to accomplish them all. And I still see that, but I’m not ticking off boxes as much as I would like to. I’m getting up early and getting dressed in my regular clothes (no all-day PJs for me!), but the days just seem to be accelerating and I’m looking back and wondering where each one went. I keep thinking I need a schedule, but haven’t gotten around to making one. Maybe that will be my goal for tomorrow.
South Texas was the end of the road for me on this leg of my journey. I set out to make it across the country to the Pacific Ocean and back over the next 16 months or so, but the coronavirus put an end to all of that. When things started going from bad to worse further north, I made my way all the way south to South Padre Island and Port Isabel, stopping off at Palo Alto National Historical Park along the way. The battlefield was awesome to see and I had it almost entirely to myself. I learned a lot about the first battle of the Mexican-American War, and the two future presidents (Ulysses S. Grant and Zachary Taylor) who fought in it. The prickly pears were just starting to bloom, and the day was just on the verge of being too hot to be out in the sun. It was a beautiful and fascinating place. From there I headed to the coast and hunkered down for almost a week. While everything was pretty much shut down, I enjoyed the beach, sand art, peace and quiet and beautiful sunsets on the bay. When Shelter-In-Place orders came down for the beach communities, I knew it was time for me to head home, making this the end of the road for now. I was glad I saw it and had the chance to spend some time in this tiny, far out corner of America.
Corpus Christi’s Marina Arts District is a wonderful story of urban renewal and public art. When Terry Sweeny moved to Corpus Christi in 2014, he found a city, like so many others, which had sold its soul to suburban sprawl. He also saw an area with tons of potential and set about trying to revitalize downtown. He joined forces with Brad Lomax, who had been working on revitalizing downtown Corpus Christi for years, and a dedicated group of like-minded citizens. The result is staggering. The colorful murals and public art projects make downtown look clean, sharp and vibrant. If you look closely enough, you’ll see that there are still plenty of empty storefronts looking for an opportunity to be resurrected, but they are hard to spot as your eyes are constantly drawn elsewhere. My favorite part is the wonderful seawall walk overlooking the marina on one side, and the Arts District on the other.
I enjoyed my time in the Marina Arts District even though I was there right as everything was closing up shop for a while due to the coronavirus. As I wandered around taking these photos, I heard wonderful music echoing up and down the empty streets. When I finally found where it was coming from, I sat for a few minutes to listen to the performance of a wonderful street musician in front of the shuttered Executive Surf Club. I needed a few songs in my day to blow thoughts of the virus away, and he gave me hope with his music. And hope is a wonderful thing. It is, in fact, the only thing more powerful than fear. I know I’ll be back in Corpus Christi at some point when all of this has blown over. I’m looking forward to it already.
Hello everyone, I hope this update finds you all well. Although I had been socially isolated for almost two weeks before traveling home to DC, this was my first full week sheltered in place. To be honest, it was a pretty good week, the terrible news on TV notwithstanding.
It’s springtime here in DC, and the days have been really nice and the nights cool but pleasant. The spring flowers are in bloom and are exploding with color all over our neighborhood. While DC is known for the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin downtown, there are actually plenty of them throughout the city. The tulips are fantastic and my mother’s azaleas are in full bloom. Because the traffic is so minimal right now, the air is cleaner and you can actually smell the flowers when you’re outside. It’s a wonderful sensory experience. The flowers are definitely brightening my days and helping keep my spirits up.
The city is very quiet right now, which I’m also really enjoying. Most people who live in touristy areas will tell you their favorite time of year is the off-season, when things quiet down and they get their town back for a while. In DC, we like the holiday weekends because the transient population goes home, and the traffic dies down and the city rests for a few days. It’s been like Memorial Day Weekend since I’ve gotten back, and I’m loving it.
Port Lavaca is a lovely and quiet port town on Matagorda Bay and serves as the county seat of Calhoun County. Originally named simply La Vaca (“the cow”), the town was laid out in 1840 after Comanche raids forced people to abandon their homes in nearby Linnville. In addition to the port, the newly laid out town became the coastal terminus of a stagecoach route from Victoria, and eventually connected to the San Antonio and Mexican Gulf Railroad. In the early days, they did a fair trade in not just cattle, but also cotton, wool, pecans and precious metals. La Vaca lost its role as County Seat to nearby Indianola in 1852 but after a terrible hurricane hit the coast in 1886, it was moved back to La Vaca and remains there today. The port still plays a major role in the town’s economy, as do fishing and shrimping, but manufacturing employs many of the town’s residents today. I enjoyed my short stay in Port Lavaca with its charming downtown, beautiful marina and friendly people. I can see why locals refer to their hometown as “Paradise on the Bay”.
