Day 10 – Staunton, VA to Washington, DC - 123 miles

This is our final day to walk in the United States. We have a plane to catch this evening for an overnight flight to Lisbon, Portugal, so we won’t have much time to visit our nation’s capital. At the end of today we will have walked more than 1000 miles to get here. “After the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War in 1783, the new federal government of the United States met in New York City and Philadelphia. Rivalry among the states to be home to the new capital led the 1787 Constitutional Convention to empower Congress in Article I, Section 8 of the new constitution ‘to exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, District (not exceeding ten Miles square)become the Seat of the Government of the United States...’ that is, to establish a new federal district governed by Congress which was not part of any state.”