We spent about a month in the Washington DC metro area. Our first two weeks were spent on the Maryland side of things. We visited DC itself a few times, as well as saw some Maryland historic sites. One of our main reasons for being in this area is that Josh had a conference in Washington DC, and we also used the visit to join up with some of the local chapters of Wild Ones, a non-profit for native plants that we’re members of. In this post, we’ll go through everything we did in our two weeks in Maryland, near DC. Unfortunately, right before finishing this post, I corrupted the flash drive that had a lot of photos from these weeks, so some of those are missing.
Where We Stayed in Maryland
We spent our two weeks staying at Louise Cosca Regional Park, which is part of the Prince George’s County Parks and Recreation Department. It’s located in Clinton and is just a few minutes from the Branch Avenue Metro station. The Branch Ave. station is on the green line and only about a 20 minute train ride from downtown DC. Since this stay covered Josh’s three day conference in DC, this made it super convenient. Maryland state parks do have camping, but they’re more expensive and it was hard to find a full two weeks of availability. Cosca wasn’t an amazing campground, it’s very small and has basic amenities only, but it was cheap and convenient. It’s definitely not a destination campground, but works well as a place to sleep when the trip is focused on other things.
Days 1 & 2: Setting up camp and a Lazy Day
In between our 10 days in southeastern Pennsylvania and this stay in Maryland, we did one night each in New Jersey and Delaware just to be able to say we stayed in them. That meant that by the time we got to Maryland, we were pretty tired out. On our first day we got settled into and set up in our campsite and then the next day Josh was off work so we just had a lazy day.
Day 3: Harmony Hall, St. John’s Episcopal Church Cemetery, and Miller Farms
We started our Maryland exploring nearby in the town of Fort Washington. First up was Harmony Hall- a National Park Service site. As far as NPS sites go, Harmony Hall is pretty undeveloped. The buildings aren’t open at all and there are basically no facilities on the grounds either. The main brick house was built either in 1721 or 1769, but it’s not known for sure. Besides the Harmony Hall house, the property also includes what’s left of another house called Want Water that was along one of the earliest canals dug in the American colonies. Both houses were sold and passed down numerous times before landing with the National Park Service in 1966. NPS is currently working on a development plan for the site and deciding how they’ll develop and use the property.
How to Visit Harmony Hall
10702 Livingston Rd., Fort Washington, MD 20744
https://www.nps.gov/haha/index.htm
Park grounds open sunrise-sunset
No parking at site- park at Harmony Hall Regional Center and walk
No facilities (bathrooms, etc). Do not go inside any of the buildings
After Harmony Hall, we headed over to Saint John’s Episcopal Church. This church holds the honor of being the oldest church site in the county. Their other claim to fame is that they’re pretty sure that George Washington sometimes attended church here. If you’re new here, we’re big cemetery fans. This one had some great history and some interesting stones to check out.
How to Visit St. John’s Episcopal Church Cemetery
9801 Livingston Rd, Fort Washington, MD 20744
Our last stop of the day, on the way home, was at Miller Farms. They do fall activities, but they were more kid-based, so we skipped those. We did still want to check out the large farm store and bakery, though. There were a lot of great looking products in both, but we ended up just getting an apple cider doughnut sundae- which was soooo good.
How to Visit Miller Farms
10140 Piscataway Rd, Clinton, MD 20735
https://www.millerfarmsclinton.com/
Market is open Monday-Saturday 8am-7pm, Sunday 9am-5pm
Bakery is open Monday-Friday 6am-7pm, Saturday 7am-7pm, Sunday 7am-5pm
Day 4: Clearwater Nature Center
Day 4 we ventured across the street to Clearwater Nature Center, which is part of the same park as our campground. We were super impressed with their reptile enclosures. Most nature centers have too small of enclosures, but these were actually all great sizes. They also had this really cool cave exhibit to go inside. Inside we also met Neo, the crow who barks like a dog. Before coming to the nature center, she had lived in a private house that had dogs. Because of her imprinting on people, she couldn’t be released back into the wild.
Outside, they also have a few birds of prey who can’t be released either. The most impressive of which, of course, is the bald eagle. My photos from the nature center were on the corrupted flash drive, but I do still have this video of Neo barking!
How to Visit Clearwater Nature Center
11401 Thrift Rd, Clinton, MD 20735
https://www.pgparks.com/facilities/clearwater-nature-center
Open Tuesday-Saturday 10am-5pm, Sunday 10am-4pm
Free admission
Day 5: USGS Bee Lab and DC Green Drinks
On Day 5 we had two activities after work- a work day at the USGS bee lab and Green Drinks in the city.
First up, we met up with the Chesapeake Bay chapter of Wild Ones at the USGS bee lab. The bee lab lets local groups like Wild Ones use their space for growing plants, so they showed us their set up there. Then we got to work! It was also a work day for the lab and we helped with planting a new research plot. Josh and I were on digging duty and other volunteers planted shrubs. Once the plants are established, the plot will be watched to see what native bees visit these species of shrubs.
We had to leave the bee lab early and head straight to the Metro station to get to our next activity- DC Green Drinks. Green Drinks is an international program that has local meetups of environmentally-minded people. It’s a mix of industry people, volunteers, and just people who are generally into the environment. Our local Green Drinks back home is small and usually the same people every time, but there had to be well over 100 people at the DC ones. We had a great time and met so many interesting people. I don’t think we’ll ever forget Moose, who works at NOAA fisheries and likes to knit while hiking.
Day 6: Mary Surratt House
Day 6 we visited another local site, the Surratt House Museum. This museum is owned by the Prince George’s County Parks and Recreation, which our campground is also part of. We had an AMAZING tour with their manager of learning. If you’re ever in the area, we definitely recommend visiting.
The house is most well-known as being the home of Mary Surratt- the first woman executed by the US government. Mary and her son were both charged as co-conspirators for helping John Wilkes Booth in his assassination of President Lincoln. We ended up later visiting Surratt’s other house in DC and the house of another conspirator, so I think this will need its own post eventually.
How to Visit the Surratt House Museum
9118 Brandywine Rd, Clinton, MD 20735
https://www.pgparks.com/facilities/surratt-house-museum
Thursday-Sunday 11am-4pm
Tours depart on the half hour, last tour at 4
$5
Made in Maryland Gift Ideas
Did you forget to grab souvenirs during your Maryland trip? Or maybe you’re looking for a unique way to share your visit with friends and family—or just experience a little slice of Maryland from home. No worries! I’ve rounded up 15 awesome Made in Maryland gift ideas that capture the charm, flavors, and creativity of the state!
- Old Bay Seasoning, created in Baltimore in 1939
- Baltimore Blues by Maryland native Laura Lippman
- The Blair Witch Project, filmed in Maryland
- Cutest Crabcake onesie, from Maryland brand Route One Apparel
- Under Armour Women’s Rival Fleece Joggers (who knew Under Armor was made in Maryland?)
- Route One Apparel Old Bay Beach Towel
- The Inn Boonsboro Trilogy, set in Maryland and written by Maryland-born Nora Roberts
- McCutcheon’s Cherry Butter (they have tons of other great flavors too!)
- Goetz’s Candy Company Caramel Creams, created in Maryland in 1918
- Route One Apparel Maryland Flag Beanie (Marylanders LOVE their flag)
- Michele’s Granola, made by hand from scratch in Maryland
- Old Bay Hot Sauce
- City Bonfires Mini Portable Tabletop Fire Pit, started in 2020 in Maryland
- Goetz’s Candy Company Cow Tales
- Fisher’s Popcorn, created in Ocean City, MD in 1937
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying sales
Day 7: Wild Ones Plant Swap, Brookside Gardens, and NSA’s National Cryptologic Museum
Day 7 (Saturday) started off with another Wild Ones event- this time with the Nation’s Capital Region chapter. We joined them for their annual plant swap. Even though we had no need for taking plants, it was fun to meet another chapter and just hang out. Everywhere we go, Wild Ones has the nicest people! After the event, we went to Brookside Gardens, which is connected to the park the event was in. We did a quick visit to see some of the highlights, but since we were past bloom season, we didn’t bother trying to see everything. My photos from Brookside are on the corrupted flash drive, but here’s a Creative Commons photo of the teahouse to get an idea:
How to Visit Brookside Gardens
1800 Glenallan Ave, Wheaton, MD 20902
https://montgomeryparks.org/parks-and-trails/brookside-gardens/
Outdoor gardens open sunrise-sunset
Visitor center open daily 9am-4pm
Conservatory building open daily 10am-4pm
Free admission
We stayed later than we thought we would at the Wild Ones event since we got caught up talking to people, so we had time afterwards for one activity. I had Josh choose between NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, USFWS’s Patuxent Research Refuge, and NSA’s National Cryptologic Museum. He ended up choosing the Cryptologic Museum- so off to the NSA we went!
The museum is at NSA headquarters, but right before the actual security gates. We had such a great time here, it’s a really cool museum. Besides interesting artifacts, the signage is amazing and someone definitely has a sense of humor.
One of the big highlights was that they have a pair of actual Enigma machines set up for visitors to use to encode/decode a message. It was so cool to get to interact with history in such a tangible way.
I also got really excited seeing artifacts from Riverbank Laboratories, which was in Geneva, IL near where our home base is. It was largely funded by Colonel Fabyan, who’s estate across the street from the lab is now a forest preserve. We’ve toured the house there and they have a small display of items from Riverbank too.
I have a full album of photos from the Cryptologic Museum on facebook if you want to see more here.
How to Visit the National Cryptologic Museum
8290 Colony Seven Rd, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701
https://www.nsa.gov/museum/
Monday-Saturday 10am-4pm
Free
Museum is just outside of security gate at NSA headquarters
Day 8: Washington DC Memorials and Museums
Sunday (Day 8) was our first day actually getting into DC. Our campground was just 10 minutes from a Metro station and then it was only about a 20 minute train ride into downtown. Neither of us had ever been to DC before, so we started with some of the big touristy things. We did a bunch of the memorials/monuments on and near the mall (but still didn’t get to them all!), the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Unfortunately, most of my photos from this day were also on the corrupted flash drive, so I just have a few from the Museum of American History to share.
One of my favorite exhibits was the First Ladies' dresses
The memorials/monuments we made it to were: Washington Monument, WW2 Memorial, DC War Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, John Ericsson Memorial, MLK Jr. Memorial, FDR Memorial, George Mason Memorial, and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. I got a LOT of national park passport stamps!
How to Visit the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
10th St. & Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20560
https://naturalhistory.si.edu
Open daily 10am-5:30pm
Free
Visitors must go through security screening
How to Visit the Smithsonian National Museum of American History
1300 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20560
https://americanhistory.si.edu/
Open daily 10am-5:30pm
Free
Visitors must go through security screening
Day 9: Lunch in Annapolis
Day 9 was another Wild Ones day (do you see a theme yet?). This time we meant for lunch in Annapolis with chapter leaders from the Baltimore, Chesapeake Bay, Nation’s Capital Region, and Delmarva chapters. We had lunch on the harbor at Bread and Butter Kitchen. It’s a small restaurant with counter service that focuses on local ingredients and makes most of their items from scratch. I had the bagel and lox and it was so good!
Day 10: Washington DC Plants, Art, Department of the Interior, and the EPA
Today was the first day of Josh’s conference in DC, but it was a short one so I went with into the city too. While Josh went on a guided tour of some of the Smithonsonian museums, I had a solo adventure at the National Gallery of Art. I had just enough time to go through all of the regular galleries in the main building and it was so relaxing and enjoyable going alone. The second building, that I ran out of time for, houses the modern art- so that was a bummer, but I still saw works from so many famous names: Vermeer, Van Gogh, Monet, Raphael… and so many more.
The absolute highlight of the visit was Da Vinci’s only painting in North America- Ginevra de’ Benci. Not only was it special on its own, I was there early enough that I was the only person in the room with her. I would take being alone with a less famous Da Vinci painting over being in a crowd of 100 people at the Mona Lisa anyday! If I had known ahead, I would have actually started with the current special exhibit, Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment. By the time I got to it the line was really long and they were only letting a certain number of people in at a time and I needed to go meet Josh soon.
I have lots more photos from the National Gallery posted here.
How to Visit the National Gallery of Art
Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20565
https://www.nga.gov/
Open daily 10am-5pm
Free
After Josh’s tour and my art exploration, we met back up at the National Museum of the American Indian to have lunch at Mitsitam Cafe. We ended up eating here a few times during our trip. They serve Native-inspired foods from various regions and everything was really good!
How to Visit Mitsitam Cafe
Inside the National Museum of the American Indian
4th St SW, Washington, DC 20560
https://americanindian.si.edu/
Open daily 11am-4pm
After lunch we had a tour scheduled at the Department of the Interior. We love going behind the scenes anywhere, and as parks people going inside the Department of the Interior was super exciting! The tour was through their museum and focused on the murals throughout the building. If you didn’t know, their famous for their WPA murals- but they also have more modern ones too. We weren’t allowed to take photos during most of the tour since it is a working government building, but it is definitely worth adding to your DC to do list!
How to Visit the Department of the Interior Museum
Stewart Lee Udall Department of the Interior Building
1849 C Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20240
https://www.doi.gov/interiormuseum
Museum is open Monday-Friday 9am-5pm
Mural tours are at 2pm Tuesdays and Thursdays, you must call ahead to schedule (we called the day before and still got on the tour)
Museum entrance & tours are free
Visitors enter through C Street lobby
Visitors will go through security screening: anyone 18+ needs a government photo ID, bags are subject to search, no food or liquid is allowed, plan for at least 10 minutes of security before your tour
On our way back to the train station we made a last minute stop at the EPA building. They also have a small museum that’s open to the public. It was mostly panels and not a lot of artifacts, but it was fun for us just to say we had visited the EPA. At Josh’s old job he worked alongside the state EPA on an incident, so it was fun to see the national building.
How to Visit the National Environmental Museum and Education Center
William Jefferson Clinton Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004
https://www.epa.gov/museum
Open Tuesday-Friday 10am-4pm
Free admission
Visitors must go through security screening, including bag check
Days 11 & 12: Josh’s Conference
Josh’s next two conference days were long days, so I stayed back at the campground. He really enjoyed the conference, though, and it sounds like he met some great connections.
Day 14: National Arboretum, Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, and Dr. Mudd House
For Day 14, I wanted to make sure we got in any last Maryland stuff we really wanted to do, since we could still go into DC itself from our next campground. We started off with the US National Arboretum. We were out of season for a lot of things, but just the bonsai museum would have been worth a drive on its own. The National Bonsai and Penjing Museum has so many bonsai- way more than we’ve ever seen at once before. Some of them have been being groomed since the 1600s! It was also really cool seeing not only a variety of techniques, but also a variety of trees.
Another highlight at the National Arboretum is the Capitol Columns. These columns were originally part of the east portico of the Capitol Building in 1828, before the iconic dome was completed. When the dome was finished in 1864, it was bigger than originally envisioned and it made the columns look like they weren’t adequately supporting it. Eventually an addition was built to fix this and then eventually after that in the 1980s the columns were moved to the Arboretum.
How to Visit the United States National Arboretum
3501 New York Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002
https://www.usna.usda.gov/
Grounds open daily 8am-5pm
National Bonsai & Penjing Museum open daily 10am-4pm
Free
After the arboretum, we headed over to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. This is another site that would be way better to visit in spring, but since it was so close it was worth a visit to check out.
How to Visit Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens
1550 Anacostia Ave NE, Washington, DC 20019
https://www.nps.gov/keaq/
Open daily 8am-4pm
Visitor center open 9am-3pm
Free
Our final Maryland activity that evening was Victorian Halloween at the Dr. Samuel Mudd House. Like Mary Surratt, who’s home we visited earlier in the trip, Dr. Mudd was a conspirator in the Booth assassination. Mudd was the doctor who treated Booth’s leg and we even went in the bedroom where Booth stayed. At one point when we were heading down the stairs, our guide told us to make sure we use the railing so that we could touch the same banister that John Wilkes Booth used to climb those stairs. It was such a great reminder of how important tangible history is!
The even we attended only briefly touched on the Booth case, though, and was mostly focused on Halloween. In each of three rooms, dressed up guides told us about different Victorian traditions relating to mourning, Halloween, and spiritualism. Each one also had a ghost story or two about the house itself.
How to Visit the Dr. Mudd House Museum
3725 Dr Samuel Mudd Rd, Waldorf, MD 20601
https://drmudd.org/
Open seasonally (spring-fall), Wednesday-Saturday 11am-3:30pm, Sundays 12pm-3:30pm
Tours included in admission and run 30-45 minutes. Last tour at 3:30
Kids 5 + under Free, Kids 6-12 $3, Ages 13+ $10
I also put together a video of this day, if you’re more of a visual/audio person:
