Sunny Saturday in Sabbaticalville

We’re having some pretty nice weather today. It started out cloudy, but by the time M and I finished running our errands this morning, the sky was clear and the sun was shining down upon us. It feels good to bask in the light (and the warmth!).

We did our weekly shopping this morning, running to the farmers market, then to Total Wine & More, and then to the grocery store for whatever we couldn’t get at the first two places. Shopping is such a major chore here. Everything has to be unloaded into the lobby of the building (if we’re not hauling it from the parking garage), placed in the elevator, and the hauled around the building to our apartment. I’m not whingeing about it, mind you. It’s good exercise. I’m just saying that I’m spoiled rotten in the Bogs where I can pull the car into the garage and only have to walk a few feet into the kitchen.

I keep saying I’m going to buy one of those grocery trolleys, but we’ll probably be back in the Bogs before I get around to it. I haven’t seen them sold around here anywhere. I know I can get one in Philly. The Italian Market has plenty of them, at good prices too. Perhaps it’s time for M and I to take another trip to Philly.

After we hauled our stuff up and put it away, M and I went for a walk around the town. We meandered our way to the DK Diner for lunch. M is a big fan of diners. I’m becoming rather fond of them too. Nothing says comfort food like a diner. The DK Diner is no exception. I’ve been on a burger tasting tour of diners so I order a cheeseburger. Not the healthiest food on the planet, but a cheeseburger isn’t something I eat very often. Only when we eat at diner, now that I think about it (and that’s usually few and far between). The burger was quite good. The fries and coleslaw were excellent. I’d like to try breakfast there some day. It’s only about a mile walk from the apartment.

We meandered around some more after lunch, enjoying this beautiful day. After a while we headed towards and then stopped at the local library to pick up a movie to watch tonight. We were supposed to have dinner with friends, but that’s been cancelled due to illness (theirs, not ours). We picked up a DVD of a film called Water that looks like it will be interesting. I wonder if M noticed it’s in Hindi with subtitles? I’m guessing he didn’t as I didn’t hear any complaining about having to read the movie. Wait ’til he finds out. Hehehe. I’m glad he picked it out. Can’t blame me for this one.

I promised you all some more photos from our walk along the Potomac so here goes:

The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal website describes this area as one of the best examples of a scoured bedrock terrace forest habitat.

The series of rapids, cascades, and waterfalls seen in these photos are part of the Great Falls of the Potomac. The falls plummet 40 feet from top to bottom in a series of drops. I’m told the drop is more visible when the water isn’t quite so high (due to there being more exposed rock which makes the drop more obvious). The rocks in the river are thought to be about 550 million years old, the falls carved out during the last Ice Age.

Olmsted Island is named for Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., a landscape architect and preservationist whose father designed New York’s Central Park. The bridge and boardwalk system protect the habitat which is said to support rare, threatened, and endangered plant species. Herons, lizards, ducks, and geese hang out in this area, too.

The drop is more visible in this next photo:

A small portion of the boardwalk:

To be continued…

(I need to work on how to size photos for this blog.  Very often the right side of the photo ends up cropped off.  That’s fine for some of the photos, but in the case of signage and things like that, it doesn’t work out well and I end up having to size them considerably smaller — as seen above in the sign about entering the bedrock terrace forest.  If there are any WordPress users with suggestions out there, please feel free to offer advice.)