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Museum 13 of 52 ✔️ — Harpers Ferry National Historical Park | Harpers Ferry, WV

I brought people here three times in one week. And every single time, it got more beautiful. The light changed, the river changed, the stories got deeper. That’s what a place like this does when you slow down enough to let it.

But before we talk history, let’s talk about whose land we’re standing on. The confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers has been a gathering and traveling place for Indigenous peoples for thousands of years. This land is the ancestral territory of the Shawnee, Lenape, and Piscataway peoples, among others who moved through and called this river corridor home long before any European set foot here. We honor them and their continued presence.

Now. John Brown.
If you know one name from Harpers Ferry, it’s his, and you should know why. On October 16, 1859, Brown led a raid of 21 men on the federal armory here, hoping to seize weapons and ignite a large-scale uprising against slavery. It was desperate. And it shook the nation to its core. Before the raid, Brown and his men spent months hiding and planning at the Kennedy Farm, drilling, waiting, preparing for something most people thought was impossible or insane.

It didn’t go as planned. U.S. Marines under Colonel Robert E. Lee stormed the armory’s fire engine house, where Brown had barricaded himself with hostages. He was captured, tried for treason and murder, and hanged on December 2, 1859.

But here’s the thing: his ex*****on didn’t end the conversation. It ignited it. Less than two years later, the Civil War began. Union soldiers marched south singing John Brown’s Body. Frederick Douglass, who had known Brown personally, said he had lived for the slave but died for the slave too.

Don’t Miss:
🏛️ John Brown’s Fort: The actual fire engine house where he made his last stand. You can walk right up to it.
📍 The John Brown Museum: One of the best interpretive spaces in the park. Context, complexity, and courage all in one room.
🚗 Kennedy Farm (a short drive into Maryland): Where it was all planned. Small, quiet, and absolutely worth it.

And then just stand at the overlook. Look at those two rivers meeting. Look at the mountains. Think about everything that happened here and everything it set in motion.

Harpers Ferry isn’t just a historic site. It’s a reckoning. And it’s gorgeous.

Tonight will be a big one for bird migration!

Please turn off all outside lights from dark to dawn and close your curtains. Give these night-flying, insect-eating migrants a better chance to make it to their nesting territories.

If you want to see some animals up close, the Mason Neck Eagle Festival is from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm tomorrow, May 9, at Mason Neck State Park. There will be lots of activities for all ages!

Some hikes you teach. Some hikes teach you.

Last Friday night we watched the sun go down and the full moon come around from the ridge at Old Rag, and I’m still turning the whole thing over in my mind.

We took the Berry Hollow route again and it was the right call in every way. No shoulder-to-shoulder crowds on the trail. Just the slow build of elevation, the shift in light through the trees, and the moment the rock scramble opens up and the whole world gets bigger than you expected.
Old Rag sits at 3,291 feet in Shenandoah National Park and the summit earns every bit of its reputation. Some folks in our group found their edges up there. The kind of edges you don’t know you have until a granite wall is asking you to figure it out.

There was struggle for some on this trip. Real struggle. And I want to sit with that honestly, because it wasn’t just theirs. Leading a group through hard moments is its own kind of learning, and I’ve got a lot to think about. It was really hard to not solve everything for them, to be quiet so they could learn from their own errors. That’s the deal with outdoor education: the mountain doesn’t adjust. We have to.

Old Rag requires a timed entry day-use permit through Recreation.gov — plan ahead, especially for weekends. It’s worth every step of the process.

We hike on the ancestral homeland of the Manahoac people, a Siouan-speaking confederacy who knew these mountains long before they had names on a map. I carry that with me on every ascent.

Until next time, Old Rag 🫶🏻

Museum 12✔️ of 52: Museum of Illusions — Washington, DC 🌸

Some of my students have been wanting in on my museum project and then side-eyed me hard when I suggested this one. “Uh… can we go to a different one?” Reader, they had the time of their lives. They always do.

I’ve been to the Museum of Illusions before, but I’m going back because right now through May 10th the museum has been taken over by a cherry blossom installation, a collaboration with DC-based artist Hiba Alyawer () that weaves spring blooms right into the illusion rooms themselves. It’s a whole new experience inside a place that already bends your brain.
Here’s what I’ll tell you the same thing I tell every group: do ALL the exhibits. Every single one. Don’t rush. Don’t skip. The rooms build on each other and the payoff is worth every minute.

And here’s the other thing: let the staff help you. These folks are pros. They know exactly where to stand, which angle to shoot, how to set up the shot. You think you know how to photograph yourself feeding yourself a snack? You do not. Not until someone who does this every day shows you. That’s when the magic actually happens.

My museum project applies the broadest possible definition of “museum” — any place that preserves and tells a story. The Museum of Illusions tells the story of how beautifully our own perception can be fooled. That’s worth 12 out of 52.

🌸 Through May 10 | 927 H Street NW, Washington, DC

Mary’s Rock didn’t make it easy on us.

We watched the radar together. We made the call together. And we timed it perfectly, arriving at the summit just as the last storm system pushed through, the winds clearing the clouds like a curtain being pulled back. One moment we were standing in the clouds. The next, the entire Shenandoah Valley was suddenly there.

It was cold. It was windy. I may have taken the fewest photos I’ve ever taken on a student trip (my frozen fingers can explain that). But my students? They took a million. They were electric.

We walk these trails in the Blue Ridge on land that has been home to the Manahoac people for thousands of years. This is a landscape that has always demanded attention, respect, and presence. It asked that of us today, too.

The trust that was required, in the weather, in the process, in each other, that’s the stuff that doesn’t show up in a selfie. But it shows up in who you are afterwards 🫶🏻

P.S. The next Old Rag hike filled up immediately after this!

Mary’s Rock via Appalachian Trail North Approach, Shenandoah National Park
4 miles
1,257’