Just Like Nothing (else) on Earth: Edwards Landing Park

By Tim Jon 

I don’t remember making it down to the water that morning—or the way back, up onto solid ground, either; in looking at my camera shots from this adventure, I must have, somehow half-walked, half-slid from the bluffs above the River—descending all the way into the muck and mire—and, at the time of this writing, I’m seated fairly comfortably at my home computer desk, so, I guess I made a safe and sound return to civilization. If that’s how one can describe existence in 21st Century Loudoun County, Virginia. 

Anyone taking a hike to the water’s edge of the Potomac River in the general Leesburg area— after days of heavy rains—will recall the treacherously slippery effects produced upon our (very) finest quality Virginia clay—especially on a sharp, and oh, so long incline. Those were the conditions I found or, that found ME, at Edwards Landing Park in the Northeast section of Town. 

On such a trip, I always half-expect to find a human skeleton or two—somewhere down around water level—of those whose return skyward didn’t go so well. I think I’m at least half-kidding. Or maybe, not quite. 

But, as arduous as these trips are, and I’ve made several at most of the local riverside parks dotted along this well-known waterway, I always seem to forget the hair-raising and laborious nature of the experience and eventually find myself back on yet another lonely trail, on the forested high ground, wondering, “Now, just how in the heck am I going to get down there—and more importantly—how in blazes will I make a safe return to level surfaces without at least, getting embarrassingly covered in mud, or, at worst, sliding all the way out into the current, or even getting permanently stuck in the ‘material’ just under the water’s surface—or maybe worse, losing my precious camera—my companion on every successful trip in this lengthy series?” 

However, priding myself on a classic sense of native stupidity, I—at this critical moment in our trip—generally forgo all reasonable thought, and forge, if not blindly, at least ignorantly forward, and eventually downward. 

I guess my hope is: that if enough adventurous souls read and remember these stories, I can just maybe rely on a fairly timely ‘rescue’ should I ever find myself in true peril. I also hope that this last thought was just a humorous little juncture in today’s story. If not, my pen name appears on my vehicle license plate, and I never stay out ‘on safari’ past around mid-afternoon. Another pause for laughs. 

But you see, to me, it’s quite important to maintain a healthy, or is it unhealthy, sense of adventure. I believe it keeps one young, even if only in spirit and, critically, it allows me, at least, to subject my body and what little mind I still possess, to the true ardors of my workaday world—namely that of a rural mail carrier in present-day Northern Virginia—where it’s seemingly everyone’s civic duty to order all possessions from a computer. 

I’ve survived on many days where a quick, slick slip into the Potomac would seem like child’s play in comparison. I feel as if my bread-winning ability depends on my willingness to keep my feet to the fire—or, perhaps more fittingly—my boots to the mud. 

Not that these adventures are pure torture. I’ve had enjoyment in the extreme in visiting every one of the sites over these past … what … almost 15 years of little monthly ‘vacations’ in my own ‘backyard.’ 

With very few exceptions, every one of these, now approaching the two hundred story mark, has taken us to a selected pair of coordinates right here, in Loudoun County. I’ve found it to be a place of fascination, variety, surprise, congestion, solitude, comfort, hardship, and just about any other description you’d care to name, except boredom. I’ve never run out of potential sites for examination, and I’ve never left one of these places with a lack of words to share with you. We’ve made a good team. 

My hope is only that I can find another almost-two-hundred sites for adventure, with the time, energy and desire to get my feet on the ground, camera clicking, heart pumping, those two or three brain cells pin-balling around in my noggin, and someone to appreciate the effort. Got anyone in mind?