52Frames Water Photo Challenge

The photo challenge this week was “water.” So we spent a lot of time in the neighborhood parks that somehow connect to the mighty Potomac River. Our morning walks took us to Riverbend Park, Scott’s Run, and Difficult Stream. I ended up using a panoramic image from Riverbend Park. As usual my niche is composite photos with painting. So the images of a turtle that was taken in the visitor center and a fisherman that was taken on the banks of the river were added in. Then a fish was painted in and the reflections of the fisherman, pole and line were added. The image was then cropped to size to showcase the clouds dancing on the water. There were also some lovely real water photos that were taken. Of note was the interesting steppers that allow you to cross the river without getting your feet wet. What we learned from these first time visits to the nature trails was that we really prefer the flat walking surfaces of the urban jungle to the rocks, uneven and severe inclines of the parks. Seeing people is preferred to desolate places. At the end of the week we walked along constitution gardens by the Lincoln memorial. That’s more like our style. 

Riverbend Park Morning Walk

We had an opportunity to meet our next door neighbors and learned about a few more morning walk options. Usually we walk in the neighborhood park, the National mall in town, Roosevelt Island, Old Town Alexandria and around the block here. One of the places we tried earlier this week was Riverbend Park. It’s about a twenty minute drive and it takes you to another area of the Potomac River. We first stopped off in the visitor center where there were a couple of turtles and a bit of history to read about. Then we walked over to the shore where a bunch of kids were either fishing or getting into water craft. Then we started our hike along the Potomac Heritage Trail that continues near the shore. There are actually several options that also take you to a nature center and another path called Bootlegger Trail. Since I needed photos of water this week for the photo challenge, we stayed closer to the river. Both of us prefer level ground and seeing other people when we walk rather than the wilderness and having to look down all of the time so you don’t trip on or fall in to something. There weren’t any flowers or even birds. After a while it starts looking the same everywhere. It was a good experience but I’m not sure we would come back again except to maybe try out the other two trails that we didn’t take. I suppose there are paths everywhere all along the Potomac River all the way to Mount Vernon and beyond. You could say we prefer the urban jungle to the wilderness but it’s a good thing to check it out - once in a while.