Hike 8: Military Sights in Upper Northwest Washington

This hike started at the Nature Center in Rock Creek Park.  I stopped in to grab a map of the park and it's a good thing, because the trails aren't particularly well marked and I sort of turned the wrong way after seeing Fort DeRussy.  Which isn't much of a fort, actually - now it's just a plaque saying that a fort used to be there.

I had intended to do a loop up Oregon Ave to the north side of the park and then come back down on the Beach Dr side, but I ended up do a little zigzag.  I was tooling along at a nice little pace with trail runners passing me in both directions when it started to thunder in the distance.  The weather forecast said the rain was supposed to start around rush hour, and it was only about 2PM, so I figured it was far enough away that I would be fine.  Or not...

Honestly, after a while, you don't even notice being wet.  Luckily I had a hat on, otherwise my glasses would have been completely covered and I would have been blind.  I walked through torrential rain for about 30 minutes before it tapered off.  It actually stopped raining for a while, but I still had a few miles to go.  I didn't really stop to sight see, but the extra water from the rain made Rock Creek quite picturesque.

About ten minutes from the parking lot, the thunder started rumbling again, and not a minute after I made it back to the car, PHOOM!, the sky opened up even more than before!  It was way darker at this point too.  It made driving out of the park pretty interesting with all the road flooding.  One of the more exciting hikes I've done, that's for sure!