A warm winter’s day: Putting the top down, communing with a president
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Version 0 of 1. When in the closing days of December the weather in Washington gets so unusually warm, as it did on Saturday, many might be tempted to thumb through almanacs to see whether such a rarity has ever occurred here before. It has indeed been warmer on Dec. 28 than Saturday’s 67 degrees Fahrenheit. In 1946, it was 75, setting a record. But Washington nevertheless accepted the bounty of nature and the uncommon benevolence of a day 23 degrees above average. “Are you getting outside today???” asked D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser on Twitter. It seemed as much a command as a question. Many heeded their own inner voices. Confronted with such a late December gift as Saturday’s, Jim Hanson of Arlington recognized, he said, that the “only thing to do is take advantage of it.” It was a “wonderful day,” he said, “for a drive with the top down.” For Gabriella Hoffman, a writer about the outdoors and a California transplant, what to do may have seemed obvious. Unseasonable winter warmth, she said, offers the chance to be outdoors. On Saturday, it meant an activity that seemed doubly outdoorsy: a visit to a place she had never been, the Potomac River island named for a president who was known for outdoor exploits — Theodore Roosevelt. Local newsletters: Local headlines (8 a.m.) | Afternoon Buzz (4 p.m.) Like PostLocal on Facebook | Follow @postlocal on Twitter | Latest local news |