Great Falls

My family used to live close to Great Falls and frequently spent the day there. It’s a great park with lots of walking and biking trails. The scenery is relaxing and beautiful.

The Great Falls of the Potomac are located west of Washington, DC in Great Falls Park. This series of cascading falls has developed on the Potomac River in the Wissahickon Formation. The Wissahickon consists of resistant metamorphic rocks including schists, gneisses, metagraywackes and metaconglomerates. These rocks date from the late Precambrian and are about 750 million years old. The Falls formed when sea level dropped during the last Ice Age, causing the Potomac to downcut its valley.

It’s a weird, but very pretty town. Driving around, when not swerving to avoid deer, is lovely, as all the streets are tree-lined. It’s an odd place to live as a teenager, as I did. My house was in the woods. I didn’t see my next door neighbor aside from one time when I forced to have dinner with them. I spent most of my time in the neighboring town of McLean, as Great Falls is kind of boring, socially. (Hi, they decided not to build a McDonald’s in our town, and instead built an Arby’s, as the former would have brought the “ruffians” in.)

Like I mentioned, though, it’s beautiful, especially in the fall and winter time. There are horse farms all over the place, and it has some lovely little restaurants. I wouldn’t call it a destination place, but it’s a nice place to live.