Sunday, March 12, 2006

Day at Fort Washington

We took a quick trip to Fort Washington in Maryland today. It's really only about 10 miles away, over the Wilson Bridge and down Indian Head highway a bit. It sits on the Potomac, across from Fort Hunt which is on the Virginia side. I've seen it from the Mt Vernon Parkway for years as we trained for marathons up and down that road but never ventured across the river to look around. It's a cool park with a bunch of history.

Originally built in the early 1800's to protect DC from ships coming up the river, it also was reinforced in around WWI with six or seven big gun bunkers behind it to stop more advanced invading armies. In WWII it served as a training base and was turned into a park in the 60's after it was a bunch of different military offices in the 50's. The interesting thing is that the army now has a small portable radar station near the river at the base of the fort. It is part of the air defense network set up after 9/11 that rings the city with military radar and anti-aircraft defense batteries. After 200 years, the fort still has military significance in a different world.

I posted a bunch of pictures, including one of the new radar station in my flickr account. Here's the link http://www.flickr.com/photos/homerclees/sets/72057594080708999/

The picture above is the boys sitting on a couple of old canons in the main forts courtyard. Dylan left, Sam right. They had a great time running around and getting really dirty. This area has a ton of history to visit that is only a short drive away. We need to make sure we are visiting as much as we can while we live here. Who knows when we will move.

It was in the 70's here again today. Too damn hot for March.

No comments: