We woke up this morning and decided it was going to be a beautiful day – too beautiful to stay indoors, so let’s take a “quick” trip to Gravelly Point Park. This particular spot is just off George Washington Parkway and is adjacent to the Ronald Reagan International Airport. It is a local favorite to picnic with friends and family, interspersed with the most perfect vantage point to see large, commercial flights take off and land. In fact, there are very few viewing spots in the country that offer this type of sensory overload accompanied by the thunderous noise overhead.
The kids were excited to go explore a new spot but found out quickly, it was just an open field, really. Situated on the west side of the Potomac, the background is amazing – the US Capitol Building, the Washington Monument, and the Jefferson Memorial all within eyesight across the river.
That is, until they saw their first plane landing. It was phenomenal! The whole field was abuzz and we looked up in the sky to see a plane make a turn right over the field, and get its landing gear ready as it then swooped down really low to make its landing at Reagan Airport. You gain a healthy respect for the magnitude of these machines, the reverberating engines and the pilots that maneuver these aircraft.
We took some snacks with us, so we made it a picnic, and the kids loved it! After spending the morning there, and it started to get a bit warm, we made plans to leave and head home. So, we packed up and took a little stroll to the banks of the Potomac to watch the sailboats on the water.
We had a wonderful time and hope to return one evening when it doesn’t get too warm, and the kids can run around some more, while we watch these amazing airplanes land and take off right above our heads!
