Maryland Daily PhotoEvery Week Day a New Picture from MD

I thought the patterns in this pile of rocks would make a good picture.  These are actually part of a retaining wall in Centennial Park in Howard county.   Originally I wanted to do another post today about Howard County.  I wanted to have a picture related to their declaration last week in praise of Willis McGahee.   The county executive had announced that last Friday was dedicated to the Raven’s running back and that in Howard County it would be referred to as  “McGahee Dayhee.”   Of course, there was no physical evidence left of this declaration and that made it very hard to photograph.  So I just thought I’d celebrate (though a few days late) with any sort of Ho Co picture and I’ll leave it up to you if you can find a clever metaphor between this picture and football.

The other day I was looking on google maps, as I do almost every day, for a faster way to get out of my office.   I noticed on one map that there was a tiny little grey area on the side of a highway offramp called Dorsey cemetery.  The Dorsey family was one of the most prominent families in Howard and county during the colonial period.  So it didn’t suprise me that they had a family cemetery in what seemed like an awkward place. 

What suprised me was the proximity of the cemetery to what I thought was an office complex.   I knew they were building nearby and I knew that this cemetery might have been in the way of that building.   

So I checked out the scene.  It turns out that the cemetery is today surrounded on three sides by parking lots and on one side by an offramp.    As you can see above, it is fairly well isolated from most lines of sight to the new construction around it.    However, as you can see below, it’s very close to a brand new building   

By yesterday morning, the snow had been done falling for about 24 hours.  Of course, I had to go to work, but I didn’t have any issues with it since the streets outside my house were fine.  The streets on major and minor roads in most places were fine.  That is, until I arrived in Howard County.   Many of my coworkers coming frome Anne Arundel and from Baltimore Counties also commented that the roads are just terrible in Howard.  

I’m not talking about side streets either. How could busy roads not have a final run with the plow after an entire day? 

Many appologists claim that the use of the roads compacts the snow and prevents its removal.  Which is not an argument, but rather an excuse.  More timely removal of snow and proper use of salt would have prevented this compacting.   How do these people think it’s done in neighboring counties?  It is not magic.

It would also appear as though sand was being used as a substitute for salt. Sand works great for traction on ice, but it won’t melt anything.  As a result, many of the busiest roads were just lined with compacted brown snow.   

I’ve lived in three counties in this state and worked in another two and this is the worst job of snow removal I’ve encountered anywhere.   It’s just poor.

Part of my job involves looking over the checks that my employer writes.  A short while ago I came across a mysterious vendor.  When I researched what this vendor did, I was shocked and amused. 

It turns out that there is a company out there that will chase geese off of your property.   When I found out about it, I thought it was very odd.  However, the very next day, I was driving to work and was stopped at an off-ramp by a family of geese crossing in front of my car.  Since then, my eyes have been opened. 

There are more geese than you would ever believe hanging out all over central Maryland.   These geese represent a threat to many of the finely manicured entrances to the generically designed office parks of the area.  As many of them are chased off of private property, they find homes in public spaces.  Centennial park is definitely home to many of Maryland’s displaced geese.   Here we see them enjoying a fall day with one of the human visitors to their home. 

As I promised back in July, when I first went there, I have returned to Centennial park to witness the leaves change color.  Sadly I didn’t get to take too many pictures of the fall leaves this year.  I took a trip in the middle of the fall, and I returned to four days of steady rain.   This past weekend I had earmarked time on both Saturday and Sunday for trips along the Potomac to take pictures of the leaves, but the cloudy skies and the rain stopped me.   So today’s picture is MDP’s official fall souvenir. 

Near yesterday’s gas station is Merriweather Post Pavillion.  It is an open air music venue with seating close to the stage under cover and open field areas behind.   For people from central and western and possibly all of Maryland, this venue is the closest one for them to see many big name acts.  However, it’s just a little bit tinier than its counterpart in Virginia, and as thus Marylanders are too often forced to see musical acts on the other side of the Potomac.   

I think it’s one of the nicer places to see a show, especially becasue the seating area is fairly large.  However, there’s another catch.  It’s in Columbia, so there are restrictions on the time of night that you can still play loud music.  In fact I once went to see a band, which was the last of three playing that day.  After sitting through two long sets of other bands, the main act only had 50 minutes on the stage before the show had to end. 

We are looking at the pavilion from the very back of the venue.   I’ve never been too sure where these sculptures came from. 

A little history for readers from out of state:   The town of Columbia is a planned community, which takes up a good chunk of Howard County, MD, located in the central area of the state.   It was planned to keep residences and buisinesses in clusters, or villages. 

Much of the planning was geared towards the point of view of the residents, in that they shouldn’t have to deal with the commercial parts of town in their drives through the neighborhood.  When they are home, they should feel like they are in a town-like setting.  The asthetic of Columbia calls for most of its retail areas to be grouped together and to be effectively not seen from the road and certainly not seen from residential areas.  (Though not relevant to my story, you should know that much of the planning included adding pleasing asthetic features to the landscape.  There were lakes that were built and many new varieties off trees were introduced to a landscape that was formerly agricultural.) 

What has always frustrated visitors from out of town is the difficulty in finding a gas station.  Gas stations,  retail enterprises with the odor of industry, were the ultimate things to hide in Columbia.  Nobody wants to see them, right?  

For residents it’s generally not too much of a problem becasue they know where the gas stations are, but for outsiders it is an annoyance and it is one of the first things that many outsiders will talk about if asked about Columbia. 

As an example, I have always mentioned the one pictured today.  It’s located in a very busy part of town, next to the mall and right on the main road.  However, it’s about 10 feet below grade, it’s not accessible without turning onto a side street, and it has an odd skylight covering so that if you could see the area from the road you are still prevented from seeing the pumps and thus figuring out that it’s a gas station.    

Desipite all of those things, and its higher than average prices, this station hung on for decades.   It couldn’t have done that anywhere else.

Just before I had snapped yesterday’s picture, I was at Centennial Park, where this picture was taken and where I had previously captured these geese.  This time I went back at just the perfect time before sunset.   I am looking forward to going during the daytime either this week or next week to catch the leaves as they turn.  

Earlier in the week, I showed a picture of a railroad bridge and this is another.  This is from a Pratt Truss Bridge spanning the Little Patuxent River in an area formerly known as the town of Guilford.   The bridge’s primary purpose was to carry the railroad to the granite quarry just north of the river.    When the quarry shut down, so did the town and then the railroad had no use for the bridge, so it fell into disarry.  However, within the last 10 years the bridge has been restored and made into part of a nature trail. 

I’ve included a full picture of the bridge from the trail below.

 I wasn’t there in the best weather for pictures, so I saved the quarry for another time.