I had quite the nice paddle on the Potomac River on Sunday, 8 August. We have had a dry summer and the rivers are down but, after a mass of rainstorms came through last week, the Potomac near Point of Rocks, MD, still had a pretty good current flowing. The water was crystal clear. At one point up about 1/2 mile from my entry point at Nolan’s Ferry Road, I saw a school of about 300 good sized fish, presumably Largemouth Bass.
The paddle up from Nolan’s Ferry Road to the Rt. 15 bridge across the Potomac was right about four miles and quite a good workout. There were some stretches of low water where the going was slowly but there were more stretches of deeper water, up to about four feet, where the going was much easier. I saw a few Great Blue Herons and Osprey but no eagles on this trip.
Trips to “Urgent Care” not withstanding (everyone is okay), we are having a great time at the Outer Banks (Salvo, NC). Thanks especially to Julie for getting the house. We have nice a house with pool and hot tub and are about a five minute walk from the, very uncrowded, beach. Of course we are BBQ’ing like crazy!
Traffic was hell getting down here. It took Kim, Don, and I 5 hours to drive the 125 miles down here. Julie, Ed, and Ryan had about a 9 and 1/2 hour journey from Centreville. Dave came down Sunday. He had the longest drive but made it in less than seven hours. Locals say the traffic was nearly as bad as they could recall it being.
Julie and Ed took a short trek down to the beach Saturday night but the rest of us didn’t make it out until Sunday. Unfortunately it was in the mid-90’s with a wicked wind blowing from the south. The wind was blowing major sand so we didn’t last too long on the beach.
Sunday night we had heavy thunderstorms, the wind switched to the north and abated considerably, and the temps dropped down to the mid-80’s. That made for much more enjoyable trips to the beach! This morning has been much of the same. I headed down to the beach with my coffee, watched the sun rise, and took some pictures.
I had a great paddle on the Potomac River today. I put in at Algonkian Regional Park and just happened to look up and catch this Bald Eagle in the tree. It seemed totally unconcerned that I was hanging out below it taking pictures. Joy!
What madness! I took the Metro into town on Thursday, April 1, to see the cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin. Last year I rode the scooter down to check them out but the area was so packed with people I just cruised through for a quick look and headed home. This year, I wanted to walk around and get some pictures so the Metro was the way to go. I got on at the Vienna, VA, station and off at the Smithsonian station. From there it was a reasonably short walk to the Tidal Basin where all the action is. I ended up walking all the way around the Basin at a leisurely pace snapping pictures of the trees and the Jefferson and Washington Memorials.
There were people all over the place. The advent of digital photography has not boded well for tourist destinations since now everyone thinks they are a photographer. Walkways were blocked by phototogs trying to get snaps of their friends, family, and the monuments. I believe that I can assuredly say that if all those people had to pay for film and developing, most of them wouldn’t be taking pictures. I certainly take many more pictures using my digital camera than I would using my analog cameras. At least I have a history going back 26 years of taking analog photos and have four analog cameras to my two digital cameras.
That being said, I think I got a few decent photos. I went into town late with the intention of staying through sundown. I did do that but ended up shooting sunset photos on the mall of the Capitol and the Washington Monument rather than of the cherry blossoms. This was mainly due to the fact that I had to pee and was thirsty as hell. I walked down the south side of the mall near the Capitol looking for an Irish bar that I had been to years before but haven’t been able to find for the past few years. I am not even sure it is there any more.
What is really odd is that it is so hard to find someplace to just stop and get a brew or quick bite to eat around the mall. There are huge government office buildings everywhere and people have to drink and eat. D.C. is very much a commuter city so perhaps the government workers are just in and out for work and there isn’t a good restaurant business environment. I ended up going to Capitol City Brewing Company on Massachusetts Avenue just of Capitol Hill. It is adjacent to Union Station which is a good venue for getting chow and such, not sure about brews, and also catching the Metro.
After making my bladder gladder, I managed to find a seat at the bar in the very packed restaurant. I was so thirsty from walking around for four hours in the sun that I pounded down a pint of Kolsch and a pint of water in no time. Since the sun was setting, I had to get back out on the mall, about 5 blocks away, snap some pictures and get back to the Smithsonian Metro station. Even though it was about 8:15 PM, I just barely managed to get a seat and was hemmed in by people as the car reached standing room only a few stops later. That lasted until about four stops before the end of the line where I disembarked and headed home.
When I got home, I realized that I hadn’t eaten the sandwich I brought with me so I showered the city off of me, scarfed a quick brew, ate my sandwich, and chased it all down with more water. Meanwhile, I was downloading 203 pictures from my camera to my computer.
Here are a few of those pictures. More will be posted in my photo album in the not too distant future. Once that is done, I’ll make a note and put a link to them here in my blog.
I took these pictures of this cardinal in Waller Mill Park in Williamsburg, VA. I stopped there to walk on the way home from my trip to Suffolk. It was a great walk, the scenery was refreshing, but I could have done without the school bus full of kids who were out in paddle boats and/or walking around making too much noise.
Nonetheless, getting these pictures of the cardinal in a park located just across the highway from “The Farm” was ironic. Read some Tom Clancy if you do not understand the reference. And put a parka on because we are going to get all “Cold War” now.
The week before Christmas I drove myself and my parents down to see my sister in Suffolk, VA. My sister and her husband were unfortunately not going to be able to join us for Christmas at my other sister’s house in Centreville. Since my folks were in town from overseas, it was deemed opportune to get them down to Suffolk that week.
While we were there, my sister, my mom and dad, and I went to Williamsburg to check out the holiday festivities. It was a cold, breezy day but we managed to stay comfortable by hitting the shops, having a nice lunch, and walking the main promenade. Walking the promenade included viewing the Christmas decorations, many of which were elaborate Christmas wreaths, displayed on the homes and shops.
And since I was taking pictures like crazy, and my mom and sister prompted me to take more, we have located here the WWW, otherwise known as the “Williamsburg Wreath Walk.” Below are a couple of my favorites.
We are having our first snow of the year. It looks great but who knows how much we’ll get and/or how long it will last. I slept on my sister’s screened in porch last night and woke up to rain at some point in the wee hours. Since I really never pay attention to the weather forecasts, I forgot that it was supposed to snow.
I was reminded once yesterday when I made the mistake of going to the grocery store at five pm. That is bad enough on a Friday but a Friday before the potential for a snow storm? Forget about it. I got my beer and headed for the hills!
Anyhow, I was back home this morning reading and listening to the rain when I realized it had stopped. I looked out and saw that the rain had changed to snow. Since it is only about 40 degrees out I was a bit surprised. It’s fine with me though. I just started some turkey soup and we’ve got West Virginia football on the tube at noon.
Maybe I’ll be able to break out my cross country skis tomorrow morning. I think we’ve only had enough snow here to cross country ski once in the five years since I bought them.
On the way from Northern Virginia to my sister Kim’s house in Suffolk yesterday, I stopped at the James River near Surrey to throw my kayak in the water for a couple of hours. Oh it was sweet…it had been a couple of weeks since I’d been on the water and I expect that yesterday’s and tomorrow’s paddles will be the last of the season. It is getting a bit chilly and I really need to get the rack off the roof of my car so that I can give the car a serious washing!
Yesterday was very windy and cool, about 50 degrees or so. While had mostly sunny skies on the drive down, once I got in the water and looked around, I saw pockets of dark clouds and rain all around me. Fortunately I only got rained on for about ten minutes. I stayed mostly dry since I had a rain jacket on and was using my splash skirt, due to the choppy water.
I put it at the Carlisle Tract, part of the Hog Island WMA, boat landing on Lawnes Creek and paddled out onto the James River. Upriver a bit is the Surrey Power station which I had not desire to get too close to since who knows what it was putting in the water and what kind of security they had in place. I did head up that way just to see what I could of the shoreline. Then I headed back downriver to do the same. Downriver is a boat graveyard across from Fort Eustice. I had no desire to get too close to that for the same reasons I avoided the power plant.
Having perused a bit of the James, I headed back to Lawnes Creek where I went upstream and took all the offshoots I could find that wound their way through the three to eight foot high reeds. It was nice to get out of the wind and waves. As I prepared to wind up up my paddle, I became increasingly concerned about developing storms. It still looked nice to the southwest but it was very dark and obviously pouring in the northeast on the other side of the James in Newport News.
I paddled furiously back to the boat launch area and got my boat up on the rack. It started to sprinkle as I was changing into warm, dry clothes but I managed to finish up and get into my car just before it started pouring. Timing is everything!
I didn’t see much in the way of wildlife but did see the usual Great Blue herons, Double-breasted cormorants, an Osprey, and, for the first time in the wild this year for me, a pair of Bald eagles. One was flying overhead of me for a while and the light was just right so the contrast of white head and tail against the dark body was very vivid. That sighting made the paddle particularly rewarding!
In early August I went up to Vermont to attend the Vergennes Union High School 30-year class reunion. I actually left there after my 10th grade year but have had the privilege of attending the 20 and 30-year reunions as a guest. Other than the reunion, the trip was for kayaking, birding, picture taking, hiking, camping and visiting with friends. It was well worth it!
You can read more about the trip by clicking here or browsing under my “Currant News” section. You can view photos by clicking here or following the “My Photo Album” link on my home page.
The links in the PDF format “trip read” don’t open in new windows as I had hoped they would. If you follow a link in the PDF document, it will take you forever to reload the PDF file. Ergo…
All the imbedded links are replicated below. Please use them rather than the links in the PDF document if you wish to find out more. I will have to come up with another presentation format but bear with me in the meantime.
