With Beth's family living not too far away from Washington, D.C., so it's natural we visit it whenever we visit them. A year ago, we spent a full day touring the various Smithsonian Museums and the many landmarks up and down the main promenades near the capitol buildings. However, that day was brutally humid and uncomfortable, so we dismissed any thoughts of seeking out the D.C. highpoint. Here we were a year later, and the weather wasn't much nicer, but we had it in our plans to knock out the highpoint of this "district". On the way here we visited Bull Run Mountain, the highpoint of Prince Edward County in Virginia, then drove into Washington via the Georgetown area, taking time to walk the area and explore some of Beth's old high school haunts. Then, the highpoint.

With Beth navigating the map and me the roads, we battled traffic to get ourselves onto Nebraska Avenue, a major thoroughfare on the city's west side (NW, say the locals). Nebraska Avenue runs east of Fort Reno Park, and we ended up parking at the far end of a junior high school, just below a large tower. Fort Reno is a reservoir and surrounded by fencing. Nevertheless we walked the perimeter and the elevated berms and in some cases could clearly see that we were level with the lands inside the fencing. In my opinion the north edge of the fencing near 39th Avenue and Fessenden seemed to be the best candidate. The map shows natural 420-foot contours, some outside the fencing. It's probable that the land inside the fencing has been heavily altered, built up or flattened, leaving the natural highpoint to history. A jogger's path helps navigate the perimeter. It's actually a pretty nice area of town. After maybe 20 minutes we got moving and worked our way back to Georgetwon and a nice lunch at an old-time tavern famous for its clientele (and whose name I forget).

We ended the day with a highly emotional visit to Beth's father's gravesite at Arlington. Her pop, a Brigadier General in the Army, passed away in 1988 and was interred at Arlington soon afterwards.