Around the Beltway

For our penultimate day in the DMV, we planned to visit four parks in both Maryland and DC proper. Two of them are official units in the National Park System, and two are managed as part of the National Capital Parks unit. Because our first stop was in Maryland on the opposite side of DC, we decided to drive a clockwise loop around the Beltway (I-495), getting a little later start than usual to avoid morning commuter traffic.

80 miles, 2 hours

Greenbelt, MD was the nation's first planned community. Built in the 1930s, it was designed to be a "garden city" with businesses, recreation facilities, and schools. As part of the Resettlement Administration under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, the aim was to build low- to moderate-income family homes to increase employment for skilled and unskilled laborers, as well as relieve the housing shortage. Just 10 miles from the nation's capital and adjacent to this planned community, Greenbelt Park was established as an area for recreation in 1950.

We arrived about 9:15AM and headed straight for the ranger station. Luckily we caught the ranger before he went out to do his rounds of the campgrounds, so I was able to get the passport stamps from inside the office. 

 

This was actually Unit #200 for R (#206 for me)

We left the car parked by the ranger station and walked over to the trailhead for the Blueberry Nature Trail. This was an easy 1.1-mile loop hike through the forest, but not much fall color to see yet.

About a half hour later, we were on our way south on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. Managed by National Capital Parks-East, the park features tidal wetlands along the Anacostia River, as well as water lilies and lotus in the gardens established by Civil War veteran Walter B. Shaw in the 1880s.

The lotus and lilies bloom in summer (late June - early August), so we were too late to see them in their full glory. But the other reason to stop here was for the *9* stamps in the visitor center, of course! 😁

We did, however, see several waterfowl as we walked around the ponds...

Duck, duck, duck, duck

Goose, goose, goose

It was after 11:00AM when we finished up here, and then we continued south into DC and the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site in the Anacostia neighborhood. I had reserved tickets for the 12:15PM ranger-led tour of the house, so we had 45 minutes to go through the exhibits, watch the film, and collect passport stamps in the visitor center.

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born in Maryland in 1818 to an enslaved woman and perhaps fathered by her owner. As a child, he was sent to Baltimore as a house servant, where he taught himself to read and write. Labeled unmanageable as a teenager, he was hired out to a slave-breaker who tried to starve and beat him into submission, but this only served to fuel his desire for freedom. Eventually he learned a trade as a ship caulker in Baltimore where he was able to escape to New York City disguised as a sailor with the help of Anna Murray, a free African American. At the age of 20, he wed Anna, and they moved to New Bedford, MA, adopting the surname of Douglass. Their family eventually grew to include five children.

Over the next several decades, Douglass would become the most important leader of the movement for African American civil rights in the 19th century.  As the national leader of the anti-slavery movement in Massachusetts and New York, he gained renown for his speaking and writing, both here in the United States and in Europe. Not only was he a champion for the abolition of slavery, he was also an staunch advocate for women's suffrage.

In 1877, the Douglasses purchased Cedar Hill, which is the house that we toured today. After 44 years of marriage, Anna passed away from a stroke in 1882. Eighteen months later, there was some controversy when Douglass married Helen Pitts, an activist herself as well as his assistant. It was an interracial marriage, and she was twenty years his junior. On February 20, 1895, he died from a heart attack at his home at the age of 77. After his death, Helen worked to preserve Cedar Hill as a memorial to his life and legacy until her death in 1903.

Just past noon, we climbed up the hill to the house and waited for the tour to start. What a great view Frederick Douglass must have had from his front porch!

Cedar Hill

U.S. Capitol

Washington Monument

Once inside, we were taken through several rooms on the first and second floors over the next hour...

Library - the collection of canes against the wall belonged to Douglass

 West Parlor

Dining room

It was unusual for the time to have an indoor kitchen, so Douglass had a cast iron coal stove installed instead of using a wood fire.

Upstairs bedroom

Anna Douglass' bedroom - the room was not used after her death

Helen Pitt Douglass' bedroom

Unfortunately, this is the best picture I have of Frederick Douglass' bedroom

After finishing up the tour, we walked around the outside of the house to the stone cabin in the back. Called the "Growlery" after a term coined by Charles Dickens, this was essentially a sparcely furnished man-cave where Douglass could think, read, and write in seclusion.

This 1981 reconstruction was built on the same site using materials salvaged from the original Growlery

By now it was 1:30PM and we were starving, so we headed south to Oxon Hill, MD and a Latin American/Salvadoran place called Magdalena's Restaurant that looked interesting when I searched online for nearby places to eat. The pupusas were delicious!

Pupusas and curtido (cabbage slaw)

After lunch, we drove about a mile over to Oxon Cove Park & Oxon Hill Farm, another subunit of National Capital Parks-East, arriving about 2:45PM. From the parking lot, it was a 0.25-mile walk to the visitor barn. We chatted with the ranger, and after getting my passport stamps, we went back out to explore the farm.

Built in 1980

White Farm House is the oldest structure in the park. Built in 1805, it was the home of the Debutts family who called it Mount Welby. They owned the property from 1805-1843. The other brick structures here at the farm were built during this period.

In 1891, the land was acquired by the U.S. government for Saint Elizabeths Hospital, the only national public health service hospital for the care and recovery of patients with mental illness. Known as Godding Croft, the patients who lived and worked at this therapeutic farm grew produce for the main institution while receiving treatment in an agricultural setting. Farming for the hospital continued here until the late 1950s. It opened to the public as a National Park Service site in 1967.

Silo (1940) and dairy barn (1980)

Chickens are fun!

The black one was taking a dust bath

I really love this pic!

What usually happens at the end of our trips is that we find ourselves running out of steam and pooping out earlier in the day, so we didn't take the time to hike the Oxon Cove Trail (1.5 mile) down to the Potomac River or the Woodlot Trail (0.5 mile) through the wooded area north of the farmyard. But as it was, we enjoyed the hour we spent here.  It took us 30 minutes more to drive back to the hotel.

Our running stamp total after today:

    

    Units: 76

    Stamps: 231

    Regions: 6

For dinner, we followed the suggestion of R's friend H and went to Meokja Meokja (Korean for "let's eat") in Fairfax. Coincidentally, it was right next door to the place we ate at on our first night here. Unlike the all-you-can-eat KBBQ places that we frequent at home, here our attentive server cooked what we ordered on the grill at the table. The meats were high quality, and everything was soooo good! 

Galbi, brisket
Corn cheese, bulgogi, angry egg, kimchi soup

We're going home tomorrow, but our flight is in the evening, so we will still have time to squeeze in a few more things! We'll just have to push through for one more day and then sleep like the dead on the plane...