It’s the end of September and the very first week of fall on the east coast. A mere five minute walk from where I’m staying just outside of DC is the Rachel Carson Greenway which traverses the Northwest Branch Trail of the Anacostia River. I went on a two hour walk (about six miles round trip) and saw blue jays, herons, squirrels, schools of fish, an ant hill, and a couple really adorable dogs. I almost captured a shot of a woodpecker checking the old growth trees for tasty beetles, but the braying chipmunks scared him away.
Rachel Carson lived right above where these photos were taken, and in the 1950s she would walk to the watershed and write down her observations. What she captured in her notes became the foundation of her many writings including Silent Spring which spurred the environmental movement in the United States and inspired President Kennedy’s creation of the EPA.
This trail is a relatively unknown treasure in this part of the country, and I only encountered half a dozen of so other people on my trek.
