Potomac River

Hi kids!

We are steadily sailing south. Today we went from Kent Island,
Maryland, to Reedville, Virginia. In the process we crossed the mouth
of the Potomac River. This is the river that the nations capital,
Washington, DC, sits on. Washington is about 90 miles up the river.
Up there the river is narrower. Down here it is six and a half miles
wide. That's farther than from your school to Mark Dietz's butcher
shop in Wyalusing! When we were in the middle of it we couldn't see
land on either side. Woof!

There is an apocrophal story about George Washington that says he
tossed a dollar coin across the Potomac. 'Apocrophal' stories are old
stories which probay aren't true but they are good stories, people
like them and keep telling them anyway. Like the story about the
dollar. It's meant to be about how strong he was and how far he could
throw things. Well, I hope he tried to throw that dollar up in
Washington because he sure couldn't throw it far enough to reach the
other side down here!

It was so wide I couldn't take a picture of it. So I'm including a
picture from Maine taken by my friend, Melvin. Mel is a great hunter.
He shoots birds, deer, moose, whatever flies, crawls or runs, basicly.
When he goes hunting he takes a camera, too, and takes pictures. This
is a picture of a lake in Maine. See how the trees and mountain are
reflected in the still water? This is possible, of course, because
the wavelength of the light is greater than the surface roughness of
the liquid, as the astute young physicists among you have already
concluded. For the rest of you, see if you can get teacher to dig up
some material on reflectivity, surface irregularities, wavelengths and
incidence. She's a pretty hot physicist when she gets going.

Well, kids, I'm off. Tomorrow we go to Yorktown, Virginia to see where
George Washington accepted the surrender of Lord Cornwallis to end the
Revolutionary War. 'Here ya go, Lordy Boy. Just sign right here.'. Ha!