The Intentional Hour by Cairnstone Collective – DC Chapter

800 years ago, the Roman Catholic Church entrusted the guardianship of the Holy Land of the Christian religion to the Holy Land Friars of the Order of St. Francis, creating what is now known as the Custody of the Holy Land. Their mission is to support the Holy Land and its people and preserve its holy sites. This work has grown to support schools and missions and helps care for children, elderly, families, refugees and others in need throughout the region.

The Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in Washington, DC is a national shrine run by the Custody’s friars based in America and helps sustain the mission of the Custody. It receives more than 50,000 tourists and visitors annually and sits on 42 acres, with century-old gardens and full-sized replicas of shrines from the Holy Land. Additionally, our vegetable gardens produce over 16,000 pounds of produce every year for the city's poor.

Take a tour of the Monastery church, including full-size replicas of the Mount Calvary and Holy Sepulchre shrines in Jerusalem, plus reproductions of the Nazareth Annunciation and Bethlehem Nativity grottos and Roman catacombs. After the tour, take time to experience the beauty and tranquility of the Monastery gardens.

The Franciscan Monastery is a national religious shrine. Please be respectful while visiting.

Tours are just under one hour. Donations from visitors are always appreciated to help support the work of the Franciscan Friars. We have tickets for 15 people.

Rules: Eating and drinking are prohibited in church. Cell phones must be silenced, put on vibrate or turned off. Photography for personal use is allowed.

Calvert Cliffs State Park in Calvert County, Maryland, is a popular destination for fossil hunting, hiking, and enjoying the scenic Chesapeake Bay shoreline. The park features a sandy beach where fossils of prehistoric creatures like sharks, whales, and seabirds are found, and 13 miles of hiking trails through diverse ecosystems. The park is named after the dramatic cliffs that stretch along the coastline, formed over 10 to 20 million years ago during the Middle Miocene period.

The Hike: We will be doing the 1.8 mile in and back. It's a flat walk over dirt trail and a beautiful boardwalk. However, since there are 13 miles of hiking, feel free to go your own route.

Prehistoric Fossil Hunting - can be done at the open beach area at the end of the red trail, approximately 1.8 miles from the parking lot. Over 600 species of fossils from the Miocene era (10 to 20 million years ago) have been identified in the Calvert Cliffs, many of which can be found at Calvert Cliffs State Park. Chesapectens (an extinct genus of scallop), Ecphora (a group of extinct predatory marine gastropod mollusks), Miocene era oyster shells, prehistoric shark teeth, skate teeth are common finds as well as remnants of creatures which inhabited the area millions of years ago (prehistoric whales). Sieves and shovels can be used to sift the sand for fossils if you want to bring anything for that.

I need everyone to sign a waiver before you embark on this journey with us.

Let's meet at the entrance of the park at 10am. Note that there is a $7 vehicle charge per vehicle without MD plates. MD residents pay $5. Carpooling is best to get parking. I will be driving from Arlington and can take up to two other passengers.

Here's more information about the cool fossils you can find at Calvert Cliffs: https://www.fossilguy.com/sites/calvert/calv_col.htm