Walking to the Edge of the United States

Earlier in the week, I'd made plans to meet my friend, Alex, for brunch in Woodley Park at 11:00 this morning. And I'd decided that I wanted to try to walk between 18 and 19 miles today. But other than that, I had no specific plans in mind, so when I started walking at about 8:45 this morning, I had no idea where the walk would take me.

By the time I returned home at about 3:00 this afternoon, I had literally walked to the edge of the United States and covered 18.5 miles along the way. I'm sure you're probably wondering how on earth I ventured to the edge of American territory while still returning to Arlington by mid-afternoon. Read on, and you'll find out!

When I began my walk this morning, the air was still damp and the sky somewhat hazy from last night's torrential downpour. Some of the Roses of Sharon I passed were still a bit wet.

Soon, though, as I continued east on the Custis Trail (which I could walk with my eyes closed by now!), the sun burned through the clouds and the sky became completely blue. The temperature was still just in the 70s at this point, and there was even a slight breeze. Not bad at all for mid-August in the swamp!

And speaking of swamps, doesn't this pond on the south side of the trail look almost tropical? Look at all that greenery!

Crossing over Lee Highway, I stopped to take a picture of this flag. There are flags displayed from many of the overpasses in Arlington County, and I know the number of them will increase as the tenth anniversary of 9/11 draws nearer.

As I approached the Key Bridge, I had a great view of Healy Hall at Georgetown University. Many, many years ago, I had orchestra rehearsals in that building . . .until I got kicked out of the orchestra.

After crossing the bridge, I walked west on M Street, then took 36th Street north from there, soon passing by 1789, a deliciously decadent restaurant a block from the university. I have eaten just one meal here, more than thirteen years ago, and I still remember it; it was that good!

Walking farther north on 36th, I had a fun moment of discovery when I passed the Holy Trinity Catholic Church. As the plaque below indicates, President Kennedy attended his final mass here just four days before he was killed in Dallas. This church is the oldest church in continuous operation in the District, having been established in 1794. The original church was located just around the corner on N Street; the current building dates to 1829 and was taken over by the US government in 1862, to treat more than 200 injured soldiers after the Second Battle of Bull Run. In 1863, the government returned the building to the congregation and later remibursed church members $350 for use of the building. Here's one of the things I love about walking: If I had not taken this particular route (and done my subsequent research), I never would have learned this historical lesson (and you may not have either). Pretty cool, if you ask me!

As I turned from 36th onto P Street, I turned to take a picture of these colorful row houses, which were built in 1900. Construction is underway here and around the corner, as new brick sidewalks are being installed.

Walking eastward along P Street, I stopped to take a picture of this door; the pretty wreath caught my attention. This narrow rowhouse dates to 1872 and has just one bedroom.

Continuing my walk toward brunch, I passed by some pretty pink crepe myrtle and, at Rose Park, stopped to take a picture of this appropriately located yellow rose.

After crossing Rock Creek, I headed north on Connecticut Avenue from Dupont Circle, soon walking by the so-called Hinckley Hilton.

At this hotel on March 30, 1981, John Hinckley, Jr. attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan as he left the hotel after addressing an AFL-CIO conference. Eerily, just nine days before this incident, President Reagan had attended Ford's Theater with his wife for a fundraising event. Looking up at the Presidential box where Abraham Lincoln had been sitting the night he was shot, President Reagan commented that even with all of the Secret Service protection available to presidents in the twentieth century, it was probably still possible for someone who had enough determination to get close enough to a president to shoot him. Doesn't that give you chills?

Walking up the hill toward Calvert Street, I came across another piece of artwork from the call box restoration project at the corner of Connecticut Avenue and Wyoming Street.

This is a tribute to the stately mansion at 2221 Kalorama Road, built in Kalorama in 1910 for a mining magnate by Jules Henri de Sibour. Today, the mansion is the home of the French ambassador to the United States. I doubt that the actual mansion has a bottlecap in front of it!

Soon, I arrived at the Taft Bridge, which was built between 1897 and 1907. Guarded on either end by two lions, the bridge is the largest unreinforced concrete structure in the world. I'm glad I didn't realize that until after my walk today, or I might have taken a different route!

I arrived at Open City right at 11:00, just in time to meet Alex, and we had a great brunch and chat. I was still a bit sweaty-faced when she took this picture of me!

Alex and I parted ways shortly after noon, and I walked south on Connecticut Avenue, determined to investigate something I'd noticed on my way up the street earlier in the day. Namely, a sign pointing toward the Woodrow Wilson House.

Given that the sign seemed to indicate the Wilson home was on Bancroft Place, I walked up one side of the street (which is just one block long), examining each house for a sign that it had once been occupied by the former president after he left the White House. No luck! Unwilling to give up, I walked back down the other side of Bancroft Place, sure that each house I passed would be the one I sought. Nope! There was no sign of Wilson's home anywhere. After I got home and did some research, I discovered that the former President's house is actually located on S Street, more than three blocks from where I was looking for it. Hmmmmph!

In spite of my failed attempts on that front, I did come across the bust of General Manuel Belgrano outside the military attache of the Argentine Embassy (not that I was looking for the bust or had any idea who Belgrano was). It turns out that Belgrano created the flag of Argentina and also took part in the Argentine Wars of Independence. He died in Buenos Aires in 1820.

From here, I headed south back toward Dupont Circle, where I spent a few minutes at Steve and Phil's Garden, which I had first discovered back when Lynn and I had brunch at the end of June. The garden was just as lovely as I remembered.

Leaving the flowers behind, I walked part of the way back around the circle to Massachusetts Avenue and began the trek uphill toward the National Cathedral, located about two miles to the northwest. By this point, the temperature was up to 95 degrees, and I was definitely feeling it!

Fortunately, there were many interesting sites along the way to distract me from the heat. Shortly after I turned onto Massachusetts Avenue, I walked by this statue of Mahatma Gandhi, located just across Q Street from the Embassy of India.

Gandhi, whose full name was Mohandas Karmchand Gandhi, was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement, leading the country to freedom from British rule in 1947. Gandhi is often referred to as the father of the Indian nation, and the title "Mahatma" is an honorific, meaning "Great Soul." This statue is a gift from the people of India and the Indian-American community and was dedicated in September 2000.

Just across the street from the statue, I came across this gigantic bunch of flowers, located outside the Phillips Collection. The steel and fiberglass structure, known as "58th Street," was just installed here a few weeks ago. No wonder I'd never noticed it before!

Just of a couple of blocks farther up Massachusetts Avenue, this statue caught my eye.

Crossing over to the opposite side of the street to investigate further, I discovered that this is a statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, who founded Czechoslovakia and served as its first president from 1918 through 1935. I assume that the Embassy of the Czech Republic or the Embassy of the Slovak Republic (or both?) must be close to Masaryk's statue, but I couldn't find either building, so I kept walking.

On the the other side of the road, I passed by yet another call box, this one displaying a painting of George Washington on horseback. In the late 1700s, he frequently rode his horse along the Post Road, which connected (and still connects) the major cities of the East Coast.

Outside the Embassy of Greece, which is located on Sheridan Circle, I found a statue of Eleftherios Venizelos, who served two terms as prime minister of Greece. The international airport in Athens bears his name, and he is credited with being "the maker of modern Greece" because he had such an influence on the internal and external affairs of the country. Ultimately, however, he was exiled from Greece and died in Paris in 1936.

Continuing on my international tour, I passed by the Embassies of Egypt and Haiti, and then stopped to take this picture outside the Embassy of Croatia.

Saint Jerome was a Catholic priest who became a Doctor of the Church. He lived from about 347 until 420 and is best known for translating the Bible into Latin, as commissioned by Pope Damascus I. While I was familiar with Saint Jerome, I couldn't figure out why his statue was placed in front of this particular embassy, until I did some research and discovered that he was born in Stridon, located in modern-day Dalmatia, which is a region of Croatia.

Just up the road from Saint Jerome, I came upon a statue of Robert Emmet in a little grove right across from the Embassy of Chad. (Why there is a statue of an Irishman in this location is beyond me!) Emmet led a rebellion against British rule in 1803 and was captured, tried, and executed for high treason. This statue was presented a gift to the American people in 1917, in the presence of Woodrow Wilson. There is a very similar statue of Emmet in Saint Stephen's Green in Dublin, although I missed seeing it during our trip there in July 2009.

Leaving behind the pleasant shade of this bunch of trees, I went on my way, walking past the Embassies of Zambia, the Marshall Islands, Lesotho, Turkey, and Belize. Immediately to the northwest of the Embassy of Belize is the Islamic Center of Washington, pictured below.

The Islamic Center is a mosque and cultural center, and when it opened in 1957, it was the largest mosque in the Western Hemisphere. Crossing Rock Creek once again, I followed the road past the Vice President's House and soon passed the Embassy of Norway.

The statue above is a representation of Princess Märtha of Sweden and was unveiled in September 2005 by her son, Norway's King Harald V. Märtha, who was the crown princess of Norway, was born in in Stockholm in 1901 and died in Oslo of cancer in 1954. There is a replica of this statue in the courtyard of the Royal Palace in Oslo.

As I neared Wisconsin Avenue, I walked by the St. Albans School, which is located on the grounds of the National Cathedral, also pictured below. The school is just over a century old, having opened in 1909.

From the Cathedral, I headed downhill on Wisconsin Avenue back toward Georgetown. Turning onto 35th Street, I stopped to take a picture of the giant green Adirondack chair outside the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. The school's newspaper is called "The Green Chair." Hmmmmm . . .I wonder where they got that idea?!?

Although I was tempted to climb up into the chair and ask a passerby to take a picture, I decided to keep walking and was making great progress until I came upon this in my path.

Undeterred, I skirted around the roadblock and made my way over to 36th Street, following the increasingly steep hill down toward the Potomac. The street terminates at a long set of stairs.

Movie fans may recognize these steps; they appeared in the 1973 horror film "The Exorcist." The stairs are equivalent to a five story building in height, and I definitely got a work-out when I walked up them earlier in the day! When the movie was filmed, each stair was padded with one-half inch of rubber, so that the stunt man who fell down them wasn't hurt. William Peter Blatty, the author of the book upon which the film was based, attended Georgetown University in the 1940s.

Crossing the Key Bridge and heading back into Virginia, I walked through Rosslyn toward Wilson Boulevard and noticed an interesting historical marker I'd never seen before. I've walked by this spot many times over the past three years, and I was really surprised that I'd never noticed this sign before, given that the marker indicates it was placed in 2008. How could I have missed it? Am I that unobservant?

It turns out I'm not! Several media reports reveal that the marker was erected just last week. As the marker indicates, the parking garage to the right side of the picture above was where Mark Felt (AKA Deep Throat) met with Washington Post correspondent Bob Woodward to provide Woodward information about the Nixon Administration's involvement in what came to be known as the Watergate scandal.

Leaving history behind, for the moment, I realized I was quite hungry, and I decided to stop by Pinkberry to get a big bowl of the salted caramel yogurt I'd enjoyed a sample of earlier this week.

Unfortunately, there was no salted caramel yogurt on the menu today, so I ordered watermelon instead. But this yogurt didn't taste anything like watermelon. I think it was some kind of berry, but not very flavorful. Oh well! It was still cold and refreshing, and I enjoyed it as I finished the last two miles of my walk.

Oh, one last thing: If you haven't yet figured out what I meant earlier in this post when I said I walked to the edge of the country today, I was referring to the fact that embassies are considered foreign soil. So, I as I walked my way up Embassy Row, I almost visited several foreign countries! Pretty cool for an otherwise American August Saturday!