A Day at the Beach: In FEBRUARY!!

Today, the weather hit somewhere past 60, and it was February 8. Only a few days ago the high was in the 20s, so this was an opportunity.

Since I started my work blog about 12 days ago, family blogging has suffered. I don't think that's permanent, but more like birth pangs of something new.

Today we spent time at Leesylvania State Park, a Virginia State Park, down the Potomac between Woodbridge and Dumries, Virginia, which has a little river beach along the estuary Potomac.

Yesterday, we went up to Leesburg, Virginia, ate at the Downtown Saloon (ex-Payne's Biker Bar: yes, I take my daughter to biker bars), visited the Loudon Museum, and then a place we'd never been before (it only opened to the public in 2005), George C. Marshall's home at
Dodona Manor in Leesburg. I happen to be a big George Marshall fan: the only American general to win the Nobel Peace Prize, the guy whom nobody remembers but whom Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower all credited as the greatest leader of World War II (not a bad audience, that!) and Churchill (I think) called "the noblest Roman of them all." Marshall these days doesn't have a lot of groupies but I'm one of them. When we're in Lexington, VA we visit his library at VMI where I've been many times and even attended conferences, but I hadn't seen his hom ein Leesburg. Marshall ranks, I think, above Eisenhower or MacArthur in WWII for his remarkable skill as Chief of Staff, his willingness to forego commanding Overlord because Roosevelt decided he couldn't do without him in Washington (so Ike got to be President and he didn't), and most of all, his skill at running the war. Forrest Pogue's four-volume authorized biography (GCM was the only biggie of WWII who survived the war but didn't right memoirs, except Stalin) called its third volume "Organizer of Victory." I've said it before and I'll say it again: as the Army says, "Amateurs talk about strategy; professionals talk about logistics." GCM was actually a fine strategist, and managed to hold his own against Churchill, who was no mean strategist himself but had an obsessive fixation on the Mediterranean.

Oh, hell, you're not reading this for a eucomium to George C. Marshall.

We went to the beach, at Leesylvania as I noted earlier. It was great. Tam found several whorl shells. our videos are going up on YouTube as I speak. It was relaxing, a tremendous break from February, a foreshadowing of spring. We're all ready. Bring it on.

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