Riverside Park on the Mount Vernon Trail

For the 4th of July, I was invited to a low-key barbecue at my friend's house in Alexandria (about an hour drive from my house in Sterling).  When I arrived, my friends weren't back from the store yet, so I took the opportunity to explore the surrounding area.  I knew that their house was near George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate, but I didn't actually know I was headed that way until I came to the roundabout, packed with tourists.  So terribly packed that I knew I didn't have time to really look around, so I kept driving out of the roundabout and down George Washington Memorial Parkway.  The Parkway is gorgeous, first framed by tall trees full of glossy green leaves, then on the right (headed toward Theodore Roosevelt Island), suddenly the Potomac River reappears.  I pulled off the road the first chance I got, hoping to get a good view of the river, and ended parking in the lot for Riverside Park (about 1.3 miles from the Estate).  

Riverside Park is just one small portion of the area that the Mount Vernon Trail runs through (a little over 18 miles of paved trail).  The park is on the small side, but it offers views of the Potomac River and would be a great place for a picnic.  In fact, it is listed as one of the Washington Posts' Best Picnic Spots by the Water (along with the trail's Belle Haven Park, several more miles down the road).  The trail itself is listed as a great place for hiking, biking, etc., but the parks along the trail play host to dragonflies and song sparrows in Summer and osprey and waterfowl in Winter.  I like that the park felt out of the way and serene, even on the 4th of July and despite being off a major road.  It was a lovely start to my day.

Luckily, my day also had a lovely finish - I got to see fireflies for the first time.  Standing with my friend in her backyard, with all the lights in the house dim and the sky dark (after all the fireworks were over, not that we could see any past her trees), the bugs came out and started their light show.  Having grown up in California, I'd only ever read about them.  Once they started, I couldn't turn away from the flashing of green and yellow in the trees above us until the humidity finally made me feel like I was going to collapse.  We spent the next hour or so lying on the floor of her house, trying to get our temperatures back down.  But it was worth it.


For my California friends who have never had the chance to see them: