7-16-11 Frederick and Monocacy

We took one of our last road trips today. The weather has been nice and it seemed like a good time to see someplace we had not been yet, so we headed to Frederick Maryland. We first went to the Monocacy Battlefield where an outmanned Federal force delayed Jubal Early on his drive to threaten the North side of Washington DC in the summer of 1864. The Feds pinned him down for a day, enough time for Grant to send reinforcements to Ft. Stevens by Rock Creek Park in DC and convince Early that it would be suicide to attack. The battle in Frederick took place on the fields of two farms - almost 2000 casualties. It is so peaceful today.

We then walked around the town of Frederick. Sue found a street she particularly resonated with. Very nice and reminded us of Alexandria - nice downtown, lots of eateries, shops, and a green belt that runs through the downtown with a canal or stream flowing in it.

We then headed south to the Potomac and found the C&O canal trail. Some folks helped us locate the Monocacy Aqueduct, a feature of the C&O built in 1833 that carried the canal across the Monocacy River where it entered the Potomac. This structure was built to last - the Confederates tried to destroy it twice but couldn't budge it.

7-9-2011 Happy Birthday Alexandria

Every year Alexandria celebrates its Birthday on the weekend after the fourth. Since we had been in Albuquerque over the Fourth and missed the DC version, we though this would be good to see. It is Alexandria's 262nd BD. We walked down to the waterfront park - it was actually not too hot - and found a spot right behind the 4 howitzers that the Marine Cadets from Quantico had brought. We had to wait about 90 minutes for it to get dark enough. The Alexandria Symphony played the 1812 Overture and the fireworks went off at the end - a nice show - probably nothing to compare with DC's but then there were 20x fewer people probably - and we could just walk home.