Reston Lake Swim

Judy and I volunteered at the annual lake swim sponsored by the Reston Masters Swim Team. The weather was fantastic.

On Saturday, a clinic was held to help swimmers not familiar with open water swimming. On Sunday there were both 1 mile and 2 mile swims. Robin and Matt swam both events.

Used manual focus and 6 frames/sec to capture the best shots

As usual the many participants, spectators and workers helped make this a successful event. 

Taking a well deserved break between events

Lots of spectators...

Lots of swimmers…

Old Town Alexandria

Memorial Day weekend brings in bikers from around the country to honor the military with the Rolling Thunder parade on Sunday.  We often visit Old Town Alexandria on Saturday evening to both enjoy its atmosphere and  restaurants as well as seeing some of the bikers.

The weather was perfect for walking around the area and snapping some pictures. It seemed like everyone else had the same idea, since the area near the waterfront was quite crowded.

There were lots of interesting bikes and bikers.

As evening fell, both the sky and the town had a little glow…

The Wild Potomac

The recent rains have changed the Potomac into a wild river.  It even overflowed its banks into the C&O canal for a short time. Below the river  swells its banks and  covers much of normally quiet Olmstead Island.

The path to the falls overlook on the Maryland side has been closed, since the water level is quite close to the pedestrian bridge. Photographers unable to see the falls, climb perilously close to the edge of the rapidy flowing river to get that great shot! 

Usually small peaceful creeks become raging rivers.

The restored canal boat is tied down tightly onto its dry dock to withstand potential flooding of the C&O canal.

Washington DC

Judy had a lunch date in DC, so I went along.  Too bad the the Metro is not finished to Reston yet, so we had to drive and park at the Vienna station.

It was a great day, so I spent the time walking around Capitol Hill.

I wondered into the Supreme Court building to view the spiral staircase. Took a photo, but still have not created the right image!

Next door to the Supreme Court is the Library of Congress, one of my favorite indoor shooting sites in DC.

Walking back towards Federal Triangle to meet up with Judy, I briefly stopped off at the Botanic Garden.

Then a very brief walk through the Air and Space museum, one of my favorite Smithsonian museums.

An then finally along the mall.

Exploring the Geology of Great Falls

Went on a Geology walk with an OLLI group led by Dr Barbara Frank. We started in Riverbend Park, but most of the interesting rocks were in the Great Falls park.

Dr Barbara Frank - our guide

Lots of 'potholes' can be found in the rocks. These were formed by swirling water and sand that over a very long period of time created a 'pot-shaped' hole in the rocks.  Thus,  in the far past the level of the water was hundreds of feet higher than the Potomac River is now and covered all this region to a significant depth.

A large 'pothole'

It was a great shirtsleeve weather day with low humidity and not many flying insects, making for a wonderful walk.

Sunday on the Road

Today we drove along Rt 50 to Middleburg, VA.  On the way we stopped for what could possibly be the 'world's best barbecue'  at the intersection of Rt 50 and Rt 15.

We did wait until we parked in Middleburg before downing the wonderful food. Not much going on in Middleburg. We just walked around and visited a few neat shops.

On the way home we stopped at the  restored Aldie Mill and took at tour. We were able to seem many of its moving parts in operation.

Fall Quickly Transitions into Winter

We had a brief pre-Halloween snow storm that turned the flowers into displays of crystal. Here are some photos from this past week; first of fall arriving at Great Falls and then of winter arriving today in our front yard.