Ghosts @ Maryland Side of Potomac River in Summer, 2025 and Whatnot. War Story #15. Danger, Craziness, and WTF. How I, Patrick Tyrrell Survived, and Got information on Human Bones to the U.S. Army.

'i come from a small town, how 'bout you?

I only ask because I'm ready to leave L.A.

And I want you to come too."-- Lana Del Ray

I had been walking and running all day, originating in Arlington, Va, only stopping to get a haircut once.

I walked from the well-known Ballston area of Arlington, through the Clarendon, and the Rosslyn areas, my Bose Bluetooth speaker popping out Classic Rock or Gangster Rap the whole way, I don't remember which.

For 38 years I have always been inside the forests on the Northern Virginia side of the Potomac. Marylanders were across the river on the other side; silent and fishing,; their beaming flashlights giving themselves away in the night; or occasionally, people who were cool were there in daytime.

I wasn't familiar with the Maryland side of the river though because I had been very little to it on foot, except in a few places where me and friends swam over there to the rocks on the the other side. In those days, sometimes the river was more majorly polluted than other days when it was less polluted. (Now it is always clean).

So, today, here, I am talking about War Story #15 here, which happened in July, 2025. . .

So as I was saying, I jogged through the Rosslyn, last-neighborhood-in-Arlington-VA-before D.C. neighborhood.

This time I decided to cross The Key Bridge and go over to Georgetown, instead of run down the grass-slopes to the wooded riverbanks on the Virginia side.

Not feeling like being in Georgetown, I quickly cut down to the Canal Road path along the semi-filled canal. that runs next to it there.

I got a sandwich for lunch somewhere, leaving the path temporarily, before returning to Canal Bridge which crosses Canal Road. We used to jump off the top of into the Canal bridge to below, but this time I was here to just eat my lunch.

While I was eating, a few 'nattering nabobs of negativity' i.e., snobs, circled by by below, walking by me a few times. They were wearing summer fashion clothing from summer places like Cape Cod, or Martha's (Vineyard).

They were snickering and concealing their faces behind large sunglasses--which resembled non-round dinnerplates over their unseen eyes. America's problem -- not mine.

So -- I sprinted over the bridge seen in the nearby picture, The Canal Bridge, on Canal Road. DO NOT EVER TRY THIS, OR YOU WILL DIE, BUT . . . in the 1990s, the water was about 6 feet deep, there was a picnic table just below the surface on one of the sides of the Canal Bridge which meant certain death or paralysis to those who don't know. We could jump in from the level of the bridge that you cross on foot or bicycle, or; do you see those steel pieces in the nearby picture? We could climb those steel pieces, all the way, to the second level up, and we'd jump in to the 6 or sometimes 6 and 1/2 feet deep brown water.

That is what I did often, diving is not my sport. (Another friend of mine though, whose father was a U.S. Senator though, he liked to do triple-back flips off the top there -- he was trying to impress the ladies, I'm sure. . . .

So anyway, I found a 17th century or an 18th century brick ice cellar on somebody's property, as I charged through some ivy, covered by the ivy.

Back down on the canal path, I continued on my way, and walked many miles and for many hours.

Eventually I came to an eerie entrance to a wilderness-looking section of the Maryland forest along the river, after Canal Road had ended. It seemed that a dog walker was warning me not to go in there because of poltergeist activity, or maybe she was just warning me about an oncoming thunderstorm, it was cloudy and raining and dusk was setting in.

I went in anyway.