An oil painting of a cottage at Camp David by President Eisenhower.
Wyn Delano
WMAL.com
THURMONT, MD — (WMAL) A travel advisory issued to local pilots by the Federal Aviation Administration in Frederick County this week sparked the notion that President Trump could make his first Presidential visit to Camp David this weekend.
That didn’t come to pass, but the town of Thurmont says it’s ready should Mr. Trump ever care to stop by.
“I’d like to welcome him to the Catocin Mountains – we have a beautiful area up here and hope he has the time to come down to Thurmont and visit with us for a while. It would be really nice for him to do that,” says the Mayor of Thurmont, John Kinnaird.
The Mayor says things don’t change much in whenever the President is at the camp nearby, but they’d still welcome his visit:
“Our gas stations and pizza parlors see an uptick in business with personnel stopping in and getting something to eat, but that’s about the extent of it,” he says.
President Trump has not yet visited Camp David, the historic hideaway of Presidents in Maryland.
Instead the 45th President has chosen to spend his time outside D.C. at Mar-A-Lago, his resort in Florida which Trump affectionately refers to as the “Winter White House.”
For comparison, during their first 100 days in office George W. Bush and Barrack Obama visited 21 and 9 times, respectively.
Kinnaird insists however that the town is not taking Trump’s absence personally:
“I would never look at this as a personal issue. Presidents for whatever reasons they have feel comfortable going wherever they want to go and Camp David is just one of many options the President of The United States has.”
However, the Mayor insists that Camp David has some unique benefits that could benefit Mr. Trump:
“[The President is] missing out on quiet solitude and seclusion. Camp David is in the center of a Federal park so when the President is at Camp David if he doesn’t want to be bothered, he doesn’t get bothered.”
The residents however, can usually tell when a president is arriving by watching for helicopters, an increased park police presence and watching for FAA flight advisories like the one that was issued for this weekend.
But regardless of whether Trump visits or not, Camp David still remains a source of intense pride for residents of Thurmont:
“A lot of local residents are very proud – and rightfully so – that the president has a spot just a stones throw from our community.”
Copyright 2017 WMAL.com All Rights Reserved. (Photo: National Park Service via NPS.gov credited as Oil, undated, by Dwight D. Eisenhower, David H. Marx, Shrewsbury, N.J.)
