Maryland Daily PhotoEvery Week Day a New Picture from MD

When I was at the wildlife refuge last weekend,  I thought I should take advantage of being near Bowie and get some photos of places I’ve been meaning to visit.  One of those was Bowie State. (the other was the Bowie railroad museum, which had closed by the time I got there, so look for that one sometime in the future)

I really liked the view of the sky and the sign that this picture offered, though it says little about the college itself. 

Bowie State is actually the oldest of the historically black colleges in Maryland, though it was founded in Baltimore.  The school, like many in the mid 1800′s went through a few changes in names as well as in focus, becoming a teaching school through the mid 20th century, when it began to rapidly change curriculm and to become the larger university that it is today.

You’ve probably noticed that the site looks different today.  MDP has taken on a new look for the new year.   We’ve moved all the archives and categories to the right side, allowing larger pictures to fit in the page. 

You can see that yesterdays picture below has been re-posted in the new larger format, and today’s picture is also posted in the new format.  

We’ve also changed the color to a refreshing white. 

What might interest many of you is that there are new anti spam procedures in place so that the majority of the site’s grammar errors will be in the body of the posts as opposed to being in the comments from odd spammers. 

In the upgrade, we’ve temporarily lost the ability to show the comments and posts all on the front page.  However, you can click on the underlined “comment”  link below to read the comments and to leave one of your own.

About today’s picture:

Today’s picture is also from the National Wildlife Refuge.  This picture looks out over Cash Lake, (I don’t have to tell you that it’s not a natural lake as we know that there are none in MD)  which is one of the more scenic and more visited areas of the refuge.  During this time of year half of the trails around the lake are shut down to prevent people from interfering with the migration of birds to the lake.   I was armed with a zoom lens to help overcome this problem, but I wasn’t armed with the right clothing to be out there for too long.  In the Spring, MDP will be back to see the rest of the lake.

If you’ve ever travelled down the B-W parkway or looked at map of what’s between Baltimore and Washington, you may have noticed the National Wildlife Refuge.  The refuge is one of five within the state of Maryland.  However, it’s unique as one of the largest forested areas in the region.  It offers protection to a number of different species of wildlife that are native to the area, but it also serves as a location for the fish and wildlife service to bring threatened species from other parts of the country to see if they will thrive.  The Patuxent site is also the only wildlife refuge dedicated to wildlife research in addition to it’s natural role as conservator.

Today’s picture looks out on of the many lakes on the grounds.  On Saturday, when MDP travelled to the refuge, the weather was so inhospitable that I didn’t get to venture far enough on any trails to picture any good wildlife.   What you see here is the refuge’s “Bayscape,” a demonstration of the program encouraging residents to landscape their homes with native plants and species.

Since I’m picking someone up at the MARC station today, I thought of this picture when I got up and now its up here on the site.    Tonight I’ll be going to the First Mariner Arena again for the annual tennis challenge, where an odd and always interesting conglomeration of tennis figures show up in Baltimore.   It should be a good time.  If you are interested, I’m sure its not to late for you to get tickets too.  www.tennischallenge.org

This picture must seem a bit odd.   What you are looking at is a fountain.  This one, at the Gaylord National (I didn’t name it) Hotel in the National Harbor complex in Prince Georges County.  What’s unique are these bubbles which are timed to rise from the bottom of the fountain in a particular sequence.  Here you can see the fist bubbles on the left hand side rising to join their compatriots on the right hand side.

Zooming out, you can see the right to left progression below.

I took this shot after the train in yesterday’s picture had passed to give you a view of the Laurel station itself.  The station was designed by Francis Baldwin, who made many distinctive brick buildings for the B&O railroad.  I’ve shown a few of them before, but I thought I’d show a close up of this one to give you a feeling for the detailed woodwork and brickwork.

Here’s a freight train rushing through the Laurel Marc station just before dusk last week.  I very much like the blur in this shot as it makes the train seem like it was moving a bit faster than it actually was.

Here’s one last view of the hospital.    This is the back of one of the buildings, but I like this picture becasue at this distance you can barely tell the building is abandoned.  However, if you look just a little bit closer, the clues are there.