Ride your bike out to the Billy Goat Trail

LOCATION: Billy Goat Trail, Section A (Great Falls National Park) TIME: Sprrring! EQUIPMENT: Yourself, bicycle, tasty tasty lunch OPTIONAL: Adorable golden retriever to bellyflop into the river after your sticks (don't I just wish)

If you want a day of exercise and gorgeous nature near DC, there aren't many better things to do than this. The Billy Goat trail hugs the Potomac River, and although it's still very close to Bethesda, you can almost pretend that you're in the middle of the wilderness (except for the bedraggled families trudging along with their pudgy, red-faced, Nintendo-addicted ankle-biters in tow, loudly complaining that they want to GO HOME NOW!!!, who are all too common on sunny Sundays). There are plenty of rock scrambles along the trail, and even more off the trail, and the terrain is varied and beautiful. There's a place where you can sit on a mini-cliff and watch kayakers practice their moves in a protected patch of white water. What's more, when you get to the little beach, it's perfectly safe to swim in the river in the nook of the rocks, as long as you don't go out too far (don't tell the park ranger I told you this).

Carless DC folk often complain about not having access to real nature, but as long as you've got a bike, this is a totally do-able long afternoon. What I would recommend is to get on your bike and enter the C&O Canal towpath in Georgetown. Then you just ride along the canal about 12 miles, and the entrance to the trail will be on your left after the widewater (see map linked above). You lock up your bike outside the trail, walk the loop (about 2.5 hours if you don't stop, which, of course you should stop! Sit on a rock somewhere and meditate! Oh, and eat the gourmet lunch you were foresightful enough to pack).

Then bike home and take a bubble bath. (Or, my latest discovery: Oatmeal bath! Just throw a handful of rolled oats into the tub. It's totally moisturizing and you can pick up handfuls of oats & rub them on yourself to exfoliate. Plus, how fun is it to bathe in porridge?)

Hooray for spring!