Off Georgetown Pike

I have been slacking lately on this old digital scrapbook/blog...  I think May is just a hard month to have any motivation after so many years of school when May just dragged along as we counted down to the end of summer.  But now that it's June I'll try to muster a little motivation to record a trip from a few weeks back.

After dropping Brian off at work, we took an interesting drive through the city along one of my more favorite streets, the George Washington Memorial Parkway.  This drive alone is nice, as the parkway runs right along the Potomac through the beautiful capital.  But then, you get to Georgetown Pike.  I have always heard McLean was nice, but I was blown away by all the beautiful estates we passed on this pike, which signs proclaimed to be Virginia's First Scenic Byway.  Anyone who appreciates architecture would love driving through these streets.

We originally stopped at Riverbend Park, a Fairfax County park, to hike a little bit on the Potomac Heritage Trail, but we didn't get too far as the trails were just too muddy for Eli (though Theo loved it in his rain boots).  We'll have to try again when their visitor center is open (not on Tuesdays!). 

Next up, we headed to the main attraction for me which was the Great Falls park.  There were three different overlooks, two stroller friendly and one not.  We took our time checking out each of them, with overlook #1 being the favorite for the boys as you must climb through the rocks to get to the overlook.   The falls were gorgeous.

 After checking out the falls, we headed to the visitor center which had a pretty nice children's room with games, coloring activities, and puzzles, as well as a please-touch table, where the boys could get their hands on the nature artifacts.  There was also a video explaining the falls' history and connection to George Washington and additional exhibits (Theo loved learning about how locks and canals work).  There was a small bookstore, and after we stamped our national parks passport we were good to go (until we got to the car and realized the cars keys had dropped off my key chain lanyard, luckily we found them in the bookstore after I about had a heart attack).

Finally, we stopped to grab a quick lunch and then went to a local playground nearby to enjoy more of the perfect spring day.  Clemyjontri, another Fairfax county parks,  is a huge playground that circles a carousel, with nice clean bathrooms and play equipment for all ages.  Of course the boys loved it, and we'll have to stop by again if we're ever that far northwest again. 

Overall, a perfect day out with the boys.