BGuthrie Photos: DC Heritage Trails: Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail

DC Heritage Trails: Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. TRB2C_190421_001.JPG: Battleground to Community Brightwood Heritage Trail 6 School Days The School Building Just Ahead of You Opened In 1912 as the Military Road School, the area's third public elementary for African Americans. For decades it was the only public school serving black children in Upper Northwest and nearby Maryland. The School gave students "the tools to be successful" recalled Patricia Tyson, a student in the 1950s. Teachers required good behavior, good grammar, and respect for the historic contributions of black Americans. Tyson traveled from Montgomery County, Maryland, to attend. Her father, a military Road school alumnus, paid 62 cents a day for the privilege. The Italian Renaissance style school, designed by Snowden Ashford, held four classrooms. After the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawed school segregation, the Military Road School closed, and many of the students were moved to Brightwood Elementary. In 2003 the Military Road School was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and in 2007 re-opened as the Latin American Montessori Bilingual Public Charter School. The original portion of Brightwood Elementary, across Missouri Avenue on your left, was built for white children in 1925 in a colonial revival style by noted Washington architect Waddy Wood. Its modern addition opened in 2005. Brightwood Elementary has long helped immigrants adjust to American life. When Leo Vondas arrived from Greece in 1955, the first grader spoke little English. "They took a lot of time after school with me until I got the hang of it," he recalled. Recent waves of Latino immigrants enjoy similar support. The Queen Anne style house behind you is one of Brightwood's oldest. It was moved back on its lot in 1933 when Military Road (now Missouri Avenue) was widened and straightened. Owner George Lightfoot, a professor of Latin at Howard University from 1891 until 1939, often entertained W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter Woodson, and other African American intellectuals here.
2. TRB2C_190421_010.JPG: Military Road School students and safety patrol boys, around 1954.
3. TRB2C_190421_013.JPG: Dressed for May Day at Military Road School, 1948.
4. TRB2C_190421_016.JPG: By the time immigrant Leo Vondas, second row, center, became a sixth grade safety patrol a Brightwood Elementary, he had mastered English.
5. TRB2C_190421_019.JPG: Miss Padgett's sixth grade class at Brightwood with Tom Reardon top, fifth from left, 1958.
6. TRB2C_190421_022.JPG: Nero the dog and a young friend, around 1940.
7. TRB2C_190421_025.JPG: Professor George Lightfoot at home
8. TRB2C_190421_028.JPG: Brothers George Lightfoot, Jr. top and James Lightfoot, 1943.
9. TRB2C_190421_032.JPG: Snowden Ashford's original blueprint (1911) for the Military Road School. The blocked-out windows on the front left side of the building were designed for light control.
10. TRB2C_190421_034.JPG: Battleground to Community Brightwood Heritage Trail Welcome to Brightwood, one of Washington, DC's early communities and the site of the only Civil War battle to take place within the District of Columbia. Along with nearby Battleground National Cemetery, Fort Stevens is a daily reminder that the Civil War greatly affected the citizens of Washington. This crossroads community developed from the Seventh Street Turnpike, today's Georgia Avenue, and Military Road. Its earliest days included a pre-Civil War settlement of free African Americans (one of whom, Elizabeth Proctor Thomas, appears on each Heritage Trail sign). Eventually Brightwood boasted a popular race track, country estates, and sturdy suburban housing. In 1861 the area was known as Brighton, but once it was large enough to merit a U.S. Post Office, the name was changed to Brightwood to distinguish it from Brighton, Maryland. With a stock of solid, attractive houses and apartments, the recreational attractions of nearby Rock Creek Park, and longstanding houses of worship, Brightwood has welcomed generations of families whose aspirations have shaped its life and character. Follow the 18 signs of Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail to discover the personalities and forces that created this remarkable community. Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail, a free booklet capturing the trail's highlights, is available in both English and Spanish language editions at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
11. TRB2C_190421_040.JPG: Battleground to Community Brightwood Heritage Trail 7 An African American Enclave Even before emancipation freed Washington's enslaved people in April 1862, a free African American community had developed here amid the European American farmers. The District of Columbia, unlike its neighbors, permitted the formerly enslaved to remain within its boundaries. The Shamwell family of free blacks settled in Brightwood in 1837. By 1854, four free black landowners clustered here along Rock Creek Ford Road (once Milkhouse Ford Road), with a fifth on Piney Branch Road. Four of the five were women. During the Civil War, Fort Stevens and Camp Brightwood attracted more freedmen and women seeking work and protection. For the next 90 years, black families worked the land, remaining in substantial wood-framed houses even as surrounding farms fell to subdivisions. St. Luke Baptist Church, founded near Fort Totten in 1879,occupied this corner for 29 years. It was the heart of the community. But city redevelopment forced it to move in 1960. The congregation relocated south to Colorado Avenue and later 1415 Gallatin Street, NW. Brightwood's first public school for black children, known as Military Road School, opened at the end of the Civil War in a small wood-frame building close to the school's present site. Over time, modern development consumed most of the old settlement. Some families, like the Shamwells, refused to sell (their former house remains enveloped by apartments). But by 1931 new roads and apartments had displaced most of the houses. Soon the modern Doreen and other apartments dominated Rock Creek Ford Road.
12. TRB2C_190421_045.JPG: Three formerly enslaved young men found work with Union soldiers at Camp Brightwood.
13. TRB2C_190421_048.JPG: St. Luke Baptist Church (left) occupied this corner for 29 years. A Sunday program around 1940 featured Blanche-Coghill, Kathleen Carter, Lottie Turner, Isabelle-Chichester Wright, Nannie White, Carolyn Russell, and Alma Jean Turner.
14. TRB2C_190421_051.JPG: The 1930 Census described residents of the 1400 block of Rock Creek Ford Road.
15. TRB2C_190421_055.JPG: 1400 Block of Rock Creek Road.
16. TRB2C_190421_056.JPG: In the 1940s, apartments began to replace the enclave's houses.
17. TRB2C_190421_059.JPG: Earl Shamwell, Sr. age 10, at home at 1348 Fort Stevens Drive, 1920. Indoor plumbing came to the house about the time the apartments were built.
18. TRB2C_190421_072.JPG: A house in the African American settlement of Rock Creek Road, around 1940.
19. TRB2C_190421_075.JPG: Battleground to Community Brightwood Heritage Trail Welcome to Brightwood, one of Washington, DC's early communities and the site of the only Civil War battle to take place within the District of Columbia. Along with nearby Battleground National Cemetery, Fort Stevens is a daily reminder that the Civil War greatly affected the citizens of Washington. This crossroads community developed from the Seventh Street Turnpike, today's Georgia Avenue, and Military Road. Its earliest days included a pre-Civil War settlement of free African Americans (one of whom, Elizabeth Proctor Thomas, appears on each Heritage Trail sign). Eventually Brightwood boasted a popular race track, country estates, and sturdy suburban housing. In 1861 the area was known as Brighton, but once it was large enough to merit a U.S. Post Office, the name was changed to Brightwood to distinguish it from Brighton, Maryland. With a stock of solid, attractive houses and apartments, the recreational attractions of nearby Rock Creek Park, and longstanding houses of worship, Brightwood has welcomed generations of families whose aspirations have shaped its life and character. Follow the 18 signs of Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail to discover the personalities and forces that created this remarkable community. Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail, a free booklet capturing the trail's highlights, is available in both English and Spanish language editions at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
20. TRB2C_190421_078.JPG: Battleground to Community Brightwood Heritage Trail 8 Early Entrepreneurs Apple and Peach Trees once covered the slopes to your left, some 40 acres' worth, all planted by noted horticulturalist John Saul (1819-1897). In the 1870s Saul was one of Brghtwood's largest landowners. In addition to these orchards, he operated nurseries for ornamental trees and greenhouse plants near old Brightwood racetrack and on Seventh Street, and developed a nationally renowned seed catalogue business. Saul originally came to Washington in 1841 from County Cork, Ireland, to work for Andrew Jackson Downing, then one of the nation's most important landscape architects. Saul assisted Downing as they landscaped the city's key public spaces: the National Mall, the Ellipse, and Lafayette Square. Saul's descendants went into real estate, founding the B.F. Saul Company and also Chevy Chase Bank. To your left is the rear of the Rittenhouse, which opened in 1957 as the area's first grand large-scale apartment building. (The Mid-century Modern style of the Rittenhouse is best seen from 16th Street, one block to your left.) Constructed by Morris Pollin and Sons, it was part of the wave of post-World War II residential building that filled in most of the District's remaining rural settings. Pollin's son Abe, the developer, philanthropist, and long-time owner of the Washington Wizards, got his start building houses and apartments in the late 1940s/. Noted Washington architect Joseph Abel designed the Rittenhouse emphasizing glass and natural light, and centering the tall building in its grassy space.
21. TRB2C_190421_082.JPG: John Saul's Italianate country house at Maple Grove, which stood near today's Georgia Avenue and Emerson Street. John Saul, horticulturalist
22. TRB2C_190421_086.JPG: The cover and a page of Saul's Catalogue
23. TRB2C_190421_089.JPG: Morris Pollin and Sons advertised the new Rittenhouse, in 1956.
24. TRB2C_190421_093.JPG: Abe Pollin, seen above in the early 1970s, took over the construction business found by his father Morris (right).
25. TRB2C_190421_095.JPG: Abe Pollin's father, Morris.
26. TRB2C_190421_102.JPG: Battleground to Community Brightwood Heritage Trail Welcome to Brightwood, one of Washington, DC's early communities and the site of the only Civil War battle to take place within the District of Columbia. Along with nearby Battleground National Cemetery, Fort Stevens is a daily reminder that the Civil War greatly affected the citizens of Washington. This crossroads community developed from the Seventh Street Turnpike, today's Georgia Avenue, and Military Road. Its earliest days included a pre-Civil War settlement of free African Americans (one of whom, Elizabeth Proctor Thomas, appears on each Heritage Trail sign). Eventually Brightwood boasted a popular race track, country estates, and sturdy suburban housing. In 1861 the area was known as Brighton, but once it was large enough to merit a U.S. Post Office, the name was changed to Brightwood to distinguish it from Brighton, Maryland. With a stock of solid, attractive houses and apartments, the recreational attractions of nearby Rock Creek Park, and longstanding houses of worship, Brightwood has welcomed generations of families whose aspirations have shaped its life and character. Follow the 18 signs of Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail to discover the personalities and forces that created this remarkable community. Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail, a free booklet capturing the trail's highlights, is available in both English and Spanish language editions at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
27. TRB2C_190421_104.JPG: Gardeners pose at Maple Grove, John Saul's Brightwood estate.
28. TRB2C_190421_114.JPG: Battleground to Community Brightwood Heritage Trail 9 Never Again Such Homes At the Price! We have Harry Wardman to thank for the rich variety of Sheridan Street rowhouses. Wardman, considered Washington's most prolific developer, built hundreds of offices, apartments, hotels, and comfortable rowhouses from 1899 to 1939. When he decided to sell some land he owned here along Sheridan Street, the purchasers hired a "Who's Who" of the era's best architects, resulting in an array of building styles. Wardman kept two parcels, for which his chief architect Turkish-trained Mihran Mesrobian, employed two different styles. At numbers 1370-1378 are five Tudor style houses. Advertisements in 1934 boasted of the latest features: six rooms, two baths, sleeping porch, breakfast porch, fireplace, and built-in garage. Mesrobian gave Georgian touches to the roof lines and front porches of 1356-1368. With paneled recreation rooms and then-generous eight-cubic-foot refrigerators, they sold quickly. Wardman lost much of his fortune at the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929, but by the early 1930s was back in business. The houses on Sheridan Street were among the last he built before his death in 1938. Among Sheridan Street's styles is Colonial Revival, chosen for 1334-1346 by Clarence Harding, who was noted for designing the old Woodward and Lothrop Department Store on F Street. Arthur Brodie designed the houses at 1320-1332 in the Art Deco style. Charles Dillon used the Romantic style for numbers 1300 to 1308. And George T. Santmyers, who contributed buildings to Washington from 1914 until 1960, designed 1339-1391 Sheridan in the Popular English cottage and craftsman styles.
29. TRB2C_190421_120.JPG: English Cottage (Santmyers)
30. TRB2C_190421_123.JPG: Tudor (Mesrobian)
31. TRB2C_190421_126.JPG: Romantic (Dillon)
32. TRB2C_190421_129.JPG: Colonial Revival (Harding)
33. TRB2C_190421_134.JPG: Colonial Revival (Mesrobian)
34. TRB2C_190421_138.JPG: Art Deco (Brodie)
35. TRB2C_190421_140.JPG: Sportscaster Warner Wolf lived at 1328 Sheridan during his Coolidge High School years in the 1960s.
36. TRB2C_190421_143.JPG: Architect Mihran Mesrobian, left, Wardman, center, and an unidentified gentleman, right, pose at Wardman's Woodley Park home.
37. TRB2C_190421_146.JPG: Mesrobian's blueprint for his rowhouses at 1356-68 Sheridan St., 1932.
38. TRB2C_190421_148.JPG: Sheridan Street's architectural styles include English Cottage by Santmyers on this side of the street, to your left. Across the street are Mesrobian's Tudor style houses followed by his Colonial Revival houses; Brodies eclectic houses with Art Deco details; ending with Dillon's Romantic style houses.
39. TRB2C_190421_158.JPG: Baby Patricia Simms of 1330 Sheridan St. and governess, 1937.
40. TRB2C_190421_162.JPG: Battleground to Community Brightwood Heritage Trail 10 What a Beautiful Location, Brightwood In the 1930s as now, this area was a family friendly, "move-up" destination for hard-working government clerks and professionals. Like many DC neighborhoods, Brightwood had covenants prohibiting sales to certain white ethnics and African Americans. Over time, though, the covenants against white ethnics were broken, and by the late 1940s Brightwood became known for its Greek, Jewish, and Italian families. Yet in these blocks were few African Americans. In 1948 the Supreme Court ruled that race-restrictive housing covenants could not be enforced. In 1954 the Court overturned school segregation. Some white families, fearing racial change, moved on. Others were lured by newer suburban housing. Still others defied block busting efforts and stayed. The African American families who joined them came for the reasons many stayed: attractive houses with friendly neighbors that were convenient to stores, schools, and transportation. Ann Gardener, whose family arrived in 1958, remembers telling her husband, "What a beautiful location, Brightwood." The St. John United Baptist Church is the second house of worship to occupy this corner. The building opened in 1958 as Agudath Achim synagogue. Agudath Achim, organized in 1939 in a house on Quackenbos Street, peaked in the late 1950s with more than 400 families. As its members moved to the suburbs, the congregation declined. Finally in 1977 it merged with Har Tzeon in Wheaton, Maryland, and sold the building to St. John United Missionary Baptist Church. St. John was organized in 1976 and, led by Rev. Dr. John M. Alexander, Jr., first met at Meridian Hill Baptist Church, its primary mission is winning souls for Christ, while serving as a community resource, providing clothing, food, fellowship, and meeting space for various community groups.
41. TRB2C_190421_171.JPG: Rose Price helps daughter Carole Sue cool off on Roxboro Place, 1940.
42. TRB2C_190421_173.JPG: St. John Baptist members Annie Butler and Deacon Melvin Kennedy present a gift to Pastor John Alexander.
43. TRB2C_190421_176.JPG: Rev. Dr. Henry Miles, resident of Tewkesbury Place and founder of the Brightwood Civic Association, takes on a mid-1970s blizzard.
44. TRB2C_190421_179.JPG: Founding Rabbi Herman and Mrs. Evelyn Waldman celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary at Agudath Achim, 1959.
45. TRB2C_190421_185.JPG: Portions of this early home of Agudath Achim, including the chimney, were incorporated into the new building.
46. TRB2C_190421_187.JPG: Teenager Logan Deoudes of Somerset Place poses on his motorcycle at Fort Stevens around 1960.
47. TRB2C_190421_190.JPG: Battleground to Community Brightwood Heritage Trail Welcome to Brightwood, one of Washington, DC's early communities and the site of the only Civil War battle to take place within the District of Columbia. Along with nearby Battleground National Cemetery, Fort Stevens is a daily reminder that the Civil War greatly affected the citizens of Washington. This crossroads community developed from the Seventh Street Turnpike, today's Georgia Avenue, and Military Road. Its earliest days included a pre-Civil War settlement of free African Americans (one of whom, Elizabeth Proctor Thomas, appears on each Heritage Trail sign). Eventually Brightwood boasted a popular race track, country estates, and sturdy suburban housing. In 1861 the area was known as Brighton, but once it was large enough to merit a U.S. Post Office, the name was changed to Brightwood to distinguish it from Brighton, Maryland. With a stock of solid, attractive houses and apartments, the recreational attractions of nearby Rock Creek Park, and longstanding houses of worship, Brightwood has welcomed generations of families whose aspirations have shaped its life and character. Follow the 18 signs of Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail to discover the personalities and forces that created this remarkable community. Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail, a free booklet capturing the trail's highlights, is available in both English and Spanish language editions at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
48. TRB2C_190421_192.JPG: Maxwell Honemond, Lena Kennedy, Rev. Henry Miles of the Third Baptist Church, and Lee Honemond enjoy dinner at the Miles home on Tewkesbury Place after Morehouse Recognition Sunday, 1975.
49. TRB2C_190421_197.JPG: One used to be here.
50. TRB2C_190421_200.JPG: Battleground to Community Brightwood Heritage Trail 18 A Streetcar Named Brightwood The Large Structure across Georgia Avenue opened in 1909 as a "car barn" for the Brightwood Railway. The facility could service more than 40 streetcars at once, and often did so late at night. As a young boy in the 1950s, Thomas Reardon remembered the busy barn as "a scary place" where streetcars' lights gleamed in the darkness "like the eyes of monsters." Powered at first by horses, the streetcars by 1893 ran on electricity provided by overhead lines. Congress prohibited overhead lines south of Florida Avenue, so southbound streetcars stopped there to switch to an underground conduit. With two quick rings on the bell, the conductor alerted passengers that he was about to move. At night, residents recalled, the hum of the streetcar could be heard for blocks. Buses replaced streetcars here in 1960 (citywide in 1962). Subsequently the car barn housed a series of auto dealerships. Next to the old car barn at 5921 Georgia Avenue, Sidney Hechinger opened his third building-supply store in 1927. Three years he built a substantial Art Deco Style store on the site. The longstanding and prosperous Hechinger family business had begun in 1911 with a wrecking and salvage company located at 6th and C streets, Southwest. Three generations of Hechingers directed the company with a strong sense of civic responsibility. John Hechinger, Sr., served as chairman of the first city council of the 20th century. The family sold the business in 1997, and the buyers closed its doors forever two years later.
51. TRB2C_190421_204.JPG: The Hechinger Company came to Brightwood around 1927.
52. TRB2C_190421_206.JPG: The Brightwood Car Barn, 1947.
53. TRB2C_190421_208.JPG: Hechinger's lively display window around 1930.
54. TRB2C_190421_210.JPG: Hechinger's Art Deco building also housed the Brightwood Post Office.
55. TRB2C_190421_213.JPG: Hechinger's lumber yard, around 1940.
56. TRB2C_190421_215.JPG: Selling used cars at Curtis Chevrolet, around 1970. The family business operated across Georgia Avenue from 1966 to 2008.
57. TRB2C_190421_219.JPG: Battleground to Community Brightwood Heritage Trail Welcome to Brightwood, one of Washington, DC's early communities and the site of the only Civil War battle to take place within the District of Columbia. Along with nearby Battleground National Cemetery, Fort Stevens is a daily reminder that the Civil War greatly affected the citizens of Washington. This crossroads community developed from the Seventh Street Turnpike, today's Georgia Avenue, and Military Road. Its earliest days included a pre-Civil War settlement of free African Americans (one of whom, Elizabeth Proctor Thomas, appears on each Heritage Trail sign). Eventually Brightwood boasted a popular race track, country estates, and sturdy suburban housing. In 1861 the area was known as Brighton, but once it was large enough to merit a U.S. Post Office, the name was changed to Brightwood to distinguish it from Brighton, Maryland. With a stock of solid, attractive houses and apartments, the recreational attractions of nearby Rock Creek Park, and longstanding houses of worship, Brightwood has welcomed generations of families whose aspirations have shaped its life and character. Follow the 18 signs of Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail to discover the personalities and forces that created this remarkable community. Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail, a free booklet capturing the trail's highlights, is available in both English and Spanish language editions at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
58. TRB2C_190421_220.JPG: A chartered streetcar cruises past Emory Methodist Church on Georgia Avenue,around 1960.
59. TRB2C_190527_01.JPG: Battleground to Community Brightwood Heritage Trail 13 Battleground National Cemetery After the rebels were turned back as the Battle of Fort Stevens ended in 1864, scores of Union Soldiers lay cold and silent. Forty-one of them are buried here in this tiny plot dedicated to their sacrifice. President Abraham Lincoln, who observed the battle, spoke at the dedication. At barely one acre, Battleground National Cemetery is one of the nation's smallest. Memorial Day once drew hundreds to this hallowed place. The holiday was established by veterans in 1868 to honor the Civil War dead. John I. Whites grandfather, Lewis Cass White, was a veteran of the battle of Fort Stevens. John later recalled Memorial Day ceremonies here during the early 1900s that attracted veterans from both sides. A military band would play, and crowds listened to patriotic speeches and poems. Students from the Brightwood School placed flowers and American flags on the graves, and artillery men would fire a salute. "Following the ceremonies," White wrote, "the surviving comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic, who traded shots with the Confederates before Fort Stevens, converged ... for a light lunch" on his grandfather's porch "and fought the battle all over again." Memorials to units that fought in the battle are located at the cemetery's entrance, where two six-pound, smoothbore guns stand guard. The small, rough-hewn sandstone house was built for the cemetery's superintendent and family. General Montgomery Meigs, engineer architect of the Pension Building (now the National Building Museum), and veteran of the Battle of Fort Stevens, created its design.
60. TRB2C_190527_05.JPG: An Army bugler plays taps at the 1936 funeral of E.R. Campbell, the last veteran of the battle.
61. TRB2C_190527_09.JPG: Brightwood citizens once regularly marked Memorial Day here. Above are the honor roll from the 1943 ceremony and a 1926 invitation.
62. TRB2C_190527_13.JPG: General Montgomery Meigs, architect of the cemetery lodge photographed by Mathew Brady studio.
63. TRB2C_190527_15.JPG: Just North of here is the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. This 1940s photo shows the main building. A stone (right) marks the spot on Walter Reed's campus where Confederates climbed a tree to signal sharpshooters during the attack on Fort Stevens.
64. TRB2C_190527_30.JPG: Funeral for E.R. Campbell, the last veteran of the Battle of Fort Stevens to be buried here, 1936.
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Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (DC Heritage Trails: Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail) directly related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]:
- 2016_DC_Trails_Brightwood: DC Heritage Trails: Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail (14 photos from 2016)
- 2014_DC_Trails_Brightwood: DC Heritage Trails: Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail (9 photos from 2014)
- 2013_DC_Trails_Brightwood: DC Heritage Trails: Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail (7 photos from 2013)
- 2011_DC_Trails_Brightwood: DC Heritage Trails: Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail (1 photo from 2011)
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2019 photos: Overnight trips this year: (May, August, October, December) Four trips to New York City (including the United Nations, Flushing, and the New York Comic-Con), (July) My 14th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con (including sites in Utah). (August) Massachusetts (Boston, Stockbridge, and Springfield) to experie/nce rain in another state, and (August) Asheville, NC to visit Dad and his wife Dixie. Equipment this year: I continued to use my Fuji XS-1 cameras but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. Number of photos taken this year: about 582,000.
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