OCTOBER FIELD TRIP
DC BOUNDARY STONE FIELD TRIP by Lee De Cola
On Saturday, October 19, 2001 a busload of MAD geographers circumnavigated
the boundary of the original District of Columbia, visiting a dozen of the
milestones that delineated the 18th century US national capital region, and
including the South/West/North/East cardinal stones. We were able to see,
inspect, and even touch many of these 210-year old relics of an earlier and
still-impressive geodetic enterprise so that we indeed felt in the presence
of Ellicott and Banneker, true giants of our profession. The tour took us
as well on a sociological transect of the capital region: from the spacious
plantations of Arlington County, through the busy shopping areas of Silver
Spring, to the gritty tenements of Southeast DC. Our DC-born bus driver did
a magnificent job navigating around the region; his knowledge of the
landscape was extraordinary ? and his eagle eye found the boundary stones
usually before we did even with our maps and GPS receivers! High points of
the day included a blustery start at Jones Point, a dim sum lunch on Route
7, and the witnessing of a drug deal in Seat Pleasant. Proving once again
geographers' limitless capacity for both fun and mutual enrichment, we had
an unforgettable experience.
FIELD TRIP ALBUM
