(No, this isn’t the damn North Cardinal Stone. I was starting to get irritated about the whole thing- that and the NW5 Stone being stuck hundreds of feet behind the stupid fence at the Reservoir. You can forgive me for thinking it was, though, right?) OK: so here is where things get interesting. It’s about […]

(Back yard of the lovely home at 5600 Western Avenue in placid Chevy Chase, MD. The real estate brochure does not mention the presence of a national monument in the front yard). For me, Western Avenue was better known that bright September day as Easy Street. It was a marvelous day to venture up to […]

OK- I was a little rattled. I gave up on the quest for the day after that encounter with bounding Bambi nearly made me jump out of my skin. It was a September weekend, and the pool at my building was still open, four weekend days after Labor Day, so I thought I would motor […]

(Boundary Stone NW5 is in there somewhere. It is down this little hill, behind a fence, next to the reservoir that provides the water to the District. Good Luck.) Having crossed the River, I was on my own. The light was bright but filtered by high cirrus clouds. The temperature was reasonable, and I wore […]

(The NW4 Stone, viewed from the bike trail to the southwest). So, traveling across the Chain Bridge, you enter the modern District of Columbia. I thought it would be more of the same sort of viewing as was true of the Stones in Virginia. Safe, hospitable, plainly marked and accessible. Was I wrong. From the […]

(A view of the Civil War-era Chain Bridge across the Potomac at Georgetown). Gentle Readers, We have arrived at the mighty brown waters of the Potomac River. There is a lot to talk about as we drive over the Chain Bridge and head for the Delcarlia Reservoir, and the Northwest Stones that still form the […]

(Civil War-era scene of one of the old intra-city trains that ran along what is now the Washington & Old Dominion Boulevard and Bike Trail. The terrain is similar to that near the NW2 District Boundary Stone). This is all way too easy, I thought to myself, and one of the reasons I got started […]

If there is one of the cardinal Stones to see, this is the easiest and safest in the City. There is nothing particularly dangerous about Jones Point, and thee South Site, but it is hard to imagine 100 square miles of the original District of Columbia pressing down at you with a point that would […]

(What remains of SW9 is a one-foot square sandstone block, extending about 18 inches above ground and probably about 2 feet underground. Image Loop202). So, leaving the history of the American Nazis behind (don’t worry, we will meet some of them again in our quest to follow the path of Major Andrew Ellicott) we head […]

The march northwest must have been something for those surveyors working for Andrew Ellicott. If you have ever worked the rich red clay soil of Virginia, you will understand something of the clinging, clawing nature of the vegetation, and the spiny tendrils of the tough vines that snake around everything and can make the rush […]