Back in Chevy Chase today, admiring the colors of Fall.
Nats fever has hit DC, with the Washington Nationals baseball team currently playing in the World Series. A number of homes were showing their support by flying the team flag.
Occasionally, we pass by little brick homes that aren’t homes at all. Instead they appear to be small disguised electrical substations, based on the loud humming coming from them and the warning signs on their front doors.
We liked this little studio built in a side yard of a house we passed.
We came across this scary owl taped to a tree
But our favorites were these two enjoying the late afternoon sunshine.
On the weekends, long stretches of Beach Drive, a two lane road that stretches all the way from Georgetown to Maryland, are closed to traffic. It’s an ideal time to walk or bike through Rock Creek park.
Along the way are beautiful views of Rock Creek
The road goes underneath the majestic arches of the Taft Bridge.
In 2016, this neighborhood had its fifteen minutes of fame when Vice President, Mike Pence, temporarily moved there while his official residence was being readied for occupation. Local residents greeted their notoriously homophobic neighbor with a rainbow display. Pence has long gone but the rainbow flags remain.
We were intrigued by a pair of unicorns that guard the entrance to the Chatsworth development
As well as this basketball court nestled up against Rock Creek Park. A picturesque spot for a pick-up game.
Having completed all of the streets in Ward 3, we decided to expand our walking tour to include everything west of Rock Creek Park. This will include Barnaby Woods, Hawthorne and parts of Chevy Chase in Ward 4 and Georgetown in Ward 2. We started out by returning to Chevy Chase.
With Halloween rapidly approaching, many of the houses had already put up their decorations, including this house which included a whole graveyard in its front lawn
And this very scary guy hanging from a tree we passed.
Speaking of scary, we wondered how the residents of this house sleep at night with this tree dramatically leaning over them.
We liked this Spanish style villa, which seemed like it would have been more at home in Southern California than in Chevy Chase.
We came across two classic German cars.
And one classic American.
We also passed by a couple of schools. First up was Lafayette Elementary School, for pre-K to 5th grade students. Like the other public schools we have passed, Lafayette has been recently renovated.
Lafayette Elementary
Second up was St. John’s College High School, a private Catholic coeducational school, established in 1851. It has approximately 1,100 students and has been at its current campus since 1951.
Just down the road from St. Johns is the Episcopal Center for Children. The Center started out as an orphanage, then became a residential school for children with disabilities. Most recently, it was an integrated day treatment program for K-8 grade children facing severe emotional challenges who cannot attend public schools and need focused one-on-one help. Unfortunately, the Center announced in May of this year that it would no longer be able continue operations, after having made losses over the past several years. Currently, the Center’s Board is reviewing its mission.
Having finished walking the neighborhood streets of Ward 3, we made our first journey into Rock Creek Park. Unfortunately, the roads inside the park had no sidewalks which made the walk precarious at times, with cars closely passing by. That being the case, we have decided to start walking some of the many forest pathways that meander through the Park rather than the roads. The exception being parts of Beach Drive which are closed to traffic on weekends.
Rock Creek Park was established in 1890 and is the third oldest national park in the United States. It consists of over 1700 acres of beautiful forest along the Rock Creek Valley which bisects Northwest Washington and continues on into Maryland. It also includes a number of recreational facilities. These include a public golf course, a tennis stadium, an outdoor concert venue, a nature center and a planetarium.
It is an incredible resource for Ward 3’s residents, who within minutes of their homes can find themselves hiking along a forest trail. It is easy to imagine that you are far from the city and not just a short distance away from the surrounding suburbs.
Today was our fiftieth day walking Ward 3 and we have now completed all of the residential streets in the Ward. All we have left now are the streets that wind through Rock Creek Park and the tow path that follows the canal alongside the Potomac River. Back walking through Kent we noticed a number of houses that had a distinctly rural feel.
Even this beautiful new house appeared to follow the rural theme, with the look of a modern stone barn.
Kent has more than its share of cul-de-sacs. This one was put to great use with a basketball hoop and balls and pleasant sitting area.
We couldn’t help feeling a little creeped out by this head in a window.
We also passed by the residence of the Mexican Ambassador with its very cool bird statue in the front yard.
Today we explored the eastern part of Kent and found it just as hilly as the western part but much more interesting. We walked by large mansions and small cottages and houses built in all styles from traditional and Arts and Craft, to mid-century and modern and even some deco style houses. Parts of the neighborhood were distinctly rural, especially walking down Chain Bridge Road which is bordered on one side by Battery Kemble Park.
We also walked by Key Elementary School, named for Francis Scott Key who wrote the lyrics for “The Star-Spangled Banner”, the National Anthem of the United States. Fun fact: F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author of “The Great Gatsby” is named after Key, a distant relative on his father’s side. Like the other schools we have seen, Key was relatively recently renovated. It currently has about 300 students.
Walking The District 