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Published: July 24th 2010
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I spent last week on a business trip to the US. The kind of trip that every other night is spent “sleeping” on a plane instead of in a hotel room.
Waking up late on Saturday I had 3 hours to do something near Washington DC till I had to be in the airport for my flight home.
I looked for something to do outside even though the Mercury showed 100 degrees (Fahrenheit - not “water boiling” Celsius) and the humidity could have been taken out of a Central American rain forest.
I got into my car and pointed my GPS to some green spot on the map west of the city. For the next 65 min I drove through mind numbing Urban Sprawl. Sprawl, though not solely an American idea, is “perfected” in the US. Avery 5 minutes of drive looked exactly like that previous five. An endless repetition of the same strip malls, parking lots, similar shops, highways, 2-3 single family homes on each acre of land at the end of similarly looking cul-de-sacs. Sprawl might just be the worst example of US commercialism, consumption and bad environmental planning if ever there is one. (and the
DC area is not the worst area in the USA…)
Which made my arrival at Manassas National Battlefield Park so much enjoyable I left the crowds near the visitors center waiting a recreation of one of the battles and started walking without a map on the blue marked path directly into the forest behind the battle field.
The first part of the path was covered in sawdust - the smell of which is directly connected in my mind to childhood playgrounds. After a few minutes of walking the wide path became a small horse path, more natural and surrounded all around by the forest. I was surprised to find that it was just me walking. For the rest of my walk I did not meet a single sole. Only many crickets chirping, birds singing and even a flock of deer in an opening . Most delightful was that I could hear no noise of cars.
Then, and hour of walking into the woods...a sharp cannon fire! Very sharp and strong considering I was a few Km away from the battlefield by now.
I imagined it was part of the commemoration of
the first battle of Manassas. Just one cannon fire was enough for me to understand that 149 years ago, leaving the forest towards the battle field with tens of cannons firing simultaneously would have been scary.
After some more time walking the path diverged. To one side the path crossed a wooden bridge over a creek into a clearing. The other turned left into the forest once more. That is when I decided to pull back on the tether and looked for the way back on my BlackBerry GPS
I circumvented the battlefield joining the path that part Confederate Army took as they found themselves in front of the battle field seeing from the side the 2 rows of fire. From this location, the confederate army was able to shock and brake the Union lines.
I followed the path for 100m more to the location of the broken Union line and from there back near the visitor center where I left my car.
I got into the car, still sweating, drove to Dulles airport and boarded my flight home.
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Ranm
non-member comment
intersting as always
but this time even more so, considering I just landed in Dulles today :)