The C & O Canal on a Warm Winter Day

The 184-mile long Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, Maryland, carrying coal, lumber, and some agricultural products, from the Allegheny Mountains to the nation's capitol.

Today, the tow path is a much-loved bicycle path carrying folks through the Pacific palisades, which have some of the best urban white water  rapids in the world.

The canal and the river were just below the fields we were scouting today, and at the end of the day, I slid down a side road to visit two locks I frequented in my youth.