Photo of the Day: The Potomac River, As Viewed From Mount Vernon

I took this picture in November 2010, while visiting Mount Vernon, George Washington’s estate in Alexandria, VA.

Ignore the apocryphal tale about Washington tossing a silver dollar across this waterway (more likely, it was the narrower Rappahannock River). It is an undeniable truth that in every other way that counted, the Potomac River remained central to his life. 

He located his business—his plantation—here. Believing the Potomac to be “the Nation’s River,” he helped formation a company that sought to link it to the Ohio River, binding the different sections of the young republic in a web of commerce.

And I have to believe, looking out from the back of his home, that Washington appreciated the sheer beauty of this landscape, and sought, every time he had the chance to grab greater power, to forsake it all for the chance to return here.

Photo of the Day: DC and VA, From the Kennedy Center Terrace

On the first full day of my vacation in Washington DC last week, I made sure to visit the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. I had toured the building at least 20 years ago, but I was surprised to find so much more there when I went again this time.

This time, one of the things that made an enormous impression on me—completely unrelated to the performances taking place there—was the spectacular vista provided from the terrace of the building. 

What I tried to capture in this moody, late-afternoon shot was how the Potomac River bisected the capital from the suburbs of northern Virginia. To the left, on the other, Virginia side of the river, can be seen the beginning of the large office buildings that fill Rosslyn; to the right, more like specks in comparison, can be glimpsed the spires of Georgetown.