Dahlgren Heritage Rail Trail ½ Marathon

The start of the DHRT Half-Marathon has a few hundred yards of rails, a restored ancient wooden caboose, a decrepit freight car, and “The Rocket”, a working railway pumper cart. Race volunteers use it as a moving platform for photographing the runners approaching the finish. See this moving illustration. Among the Fredericksburg Area Runners Club members who finished the race this day was Vic Culp, longtime director, in black hat at back.

Went berry picking Friday


At Westmoreland Berry Farm in the Northern Neck, about an hour east of Fredericksburg. After picking our raspberries and blueberries, we enjoyed ice cream on the porch, looking west from the rocking chairs overlooking the fields. That’s white plastic for strawberries beyond the picnic tables. I think the occasional sparkle through the distant trees may be the river. Below, location A, with map showing Rappahannock River estuary and state route 3 upper right.

A bit more on the Northern Neck:

Bodies of water, from right to left and counter-clockwise, are Atlantic Ocean, Chesapeake Bay, Potomac River, and Rappahannock River. The Northern Neck is the rural and somewhat remote peninsular between the Potomac and the Rappahannock, first visited (as a prisoner of the Powhatans) by John Smith in 1607. It has 1,100 miles of coastline, no cities, many small farms, and a growing number of vineyards.