Dyke Marsh is a large wetland on the Potomac River south of Alexandria, Virginia, managed by the National Park Service. You approach off the George Washington Parkway, and can walk the 1.5 mile round trip trail to a boardwalk on the river. Some photos from yesterday.

Then a late lunch at The Haven, a pizzeria plus very near Dyke Marsh. Google gives The Haven a 4.5, and tells you the pizza is less reliable than everything else. Edie had a Greek salad and I had a smoked turkey sandwich. Both excellent. I got a side with my sandwich and our very pleasant waiter suggested, of all things, the green beans. He was right.

On the way back, we stopped at Alexandria’s small Black History Museum, one of a number of Black history cites in the city. The museum is low on “things”, but good on explanatory signage. You are reminded that there were once two slave markets on Duke Street, that by the 1840s there were more free Blacks than enslaved Blacks, and that the city library did not permit Blacks in, leading to a 1939 sit-in (one of the first in history) which in turn led to the construction of a library for Blacks. There is a cute “doll house” reconstruction of that library.

There a number of artifacts found in the homes of former slaves and free Blacks. What interested me was a damaged china cup containing sayings from Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac.

An interesting day.