Welcome to Perdue stadium, home of the Delmarva Shorebirds.   Last week’s mystery baseball picture came from inside the stadium, where the Orioles Middle A affiliate shorebirds play.   The stadium is located in Salisbury so it’s no surprise the sponsor would be Perdue.

The atmosphere in the stadium is friendly and inviting.  You get the feeling that half the people in there know each other because they’ve been attending games together for a while.  MDP got front row seats behind home for the price of just $12.   Overall it’s just a good, fun, time.

How many of these does he have?   Another one?  Come on.

Well, yesterday’s photo reminded me of this cart from the Queponco rail station.  I might have one more.

I think I’ve posted a picture similar to this but, rest assured that this is a totally different view point of the sunset over the Assawoman bay.

This MLK weekend the beaches in Ocean City were clear of all but the birds.

This is the gatehouse for the river crossing just above yesterday’s picture.  I just liked the white building in a colorless day.  I also enjoy those lamp posts. (as regular readers may know)

Here’s a winter shot of the Pocomoke river on the Eastern shore.  The river begins in Delaware, just above Willards MD and runs south-west through until it hits the bay just south of Crisfield.  For a brief distance, the river even defines the border of MD and VA.

Though it starts as swampland in Delaware, it quickly gains considerable size and depth,  which  make it navigable from the bay until just a little north of Snow Hill.  It was this river passage to the bay and lands south that turned Snow Hill as well as many other communities into towns.

Dunes from Assateague Island.  With the rain we’ve been getting lately, I thought that a quiet beach scene from just before a rainstorm would be nice.

Here’s another perspective on the sunset from Monday’s post.   Have a good weekend.

This is the 9/11 firefighters memorial in Ocean City.

Last year I might have gone overboard with the pictures from Assateague.  However, it’s a fun place to visit, and being on the eastern shore recently, it seemed a good idea to return.  Unlike last year’s visit when you couldn’t sneeze without a pony looking at you, this time around they were few and far between.  I was glad not to run back into the snake from last year, but I did feel a little diappointed at the lack of ponies.  Of course in 100 degree weather, you can’t blame them for staying hidden in the shade.  Seeing them or not seeing them is a chance that a visitor takes.   Luckily, this guy decided to brave the heat and stand idly in the middle of a parking lot where he abligingly posed for this glamour shot.

For $80 you too can jump out of an ariplane over Ocean City.  These folks made the journey 12,000 feet into the air to jump out of an airplane and land safely back at the airport.   It’s not for me, but the people seemed to be pretty happy when they made it back to the ground.

It’s almost summertime, which means that very soon people will be flocking to points east and Ocean City’s population will soon exceed Baltimore’s.  Many of those people will be dumping quarters into macines along the Boardwalk, like this one, a personal favorite: skeeball. 

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, here’s a picture of the remnants, now upside down, of the carts that were used to “charge” the furnace.   Bringing ore, limestone and charcoal to the top of the furnace.  

Since there has been so much positive feed back about the historic structure posts, here is another structure of historic interest.  

This is one of the doors to the Nassawango blast furnace, which was built in 1829.  This was the work arch of the furnace, were workers would forge the iron.  On the opposite site a mechanical bellows blew air into the furnace, powered by water run from the Nassawango creek.   So, if there were guys making iron here, and the other side was occupied, where did the fuel and iron ore enter ther furnace?  

The answer is  obvious if you click this thumbnail:

From the top.  That ramp was a charging ramp, used to roll raw materials up to the furnace in carts. 

Somewhat visible at the top of the furnace from the full picture are pipes that were used to reciculate hot air from the chimney back to the air intake, making this a hot blast furnace which is much more efficient.  This was a change made to the Nasswango furnace about a decade after it was built. 

This is a part of the “Furnace Town” site now in Worcester, where it is accompanied by a number of living history exhibits, describing the life of a town built around a blast furnace.   These are opened seasonally.  However, the site contains many nature trails, maintianed by the nature conservancy, which are opened year round.   You can tell it was winter when the picture was taken by the tiniest bit of snow sticking to the arch of the furnace.  

For more info you can go to www.furnacetown.com.

Or for more info about blast furnaces: http://www.furnacetown.com/The%20Blast%20Furnace.pdf

This is a picture of the Isle of Wight Bay, in the middle of a cold winter day.  If you look at the water near these reeds you can tell that its actually frozen.   The Isle of Wight Bay is one of many connected waterways that stretch between the both Assateague and Ocean City and the main land of the eastern shore.  This interactive map will show you the different waterway names as they stretch from the VA border to the DE border. 

As a followup to Wednesday’s post, here is a picture of a plaque standing just outside the courthouse dedicated to the soldiers from Worcester County who died in the first world war.   The courthouse is also the site of a similar plauque comemorating those who gave their lives in the second world war, as well as two smaller plaques along the walkway dedicated to the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. 

Thanks to contributing photographer Shelly for this picture.  

 Also a note to Bryan about his comment on Wednesday, I do have a picture of the church, but I am not happy with it.   Monday was a tough day for photographs, and I plan to go back this summer to take a better shot. 

Here is the Queponco Railway station located smack in the middle of Worcester County, between Berlin and Snow Hill.  It was built in 1911, by the Pennsylvania railroad, used for a brief while and then sold in the 60′s.  It found itself in a state of disrepair and then a group of concerned citizens found that to be unacceptable.  Since 1990 those citizens have repaired and maintained the station.   

That show on the ground was the only remnant on Monday of Sunday’s snow flurries. 

Of course the snow that everyone made such a big deal out of on sunday morning turned out to be next to nothing at all. However, MDP was determined to make a big deal of it by heading to ….. Snow Hill.   There was little snow left on the ground there, but the overcast sky accented whatever was left.  

Show Hill was once a booming town due to its riverside location and its proximity to the Atlantic.  The Pocomoke river still continues to wind though town, though there’s little commerce left on the river.  

Snow Hill is the seat of Worcester County, and so this building serves as the county courthouse.   It was built after a fire destroyed the previous courthouse and jail, which were built after a fire destroyed the original courthouse and jail.   This brick building has withstood the ages, though the woodwork is certainly starting to show its age.   

Here’s the lookout tower at the south end of Ocean City.   I like this picture becasue of the way the sun hits those flags.  

Just some shore birds sitting on some rocks pretty close to dusk.  

The guy in the foreground is definitely looking over at Delaware, where he used to fly to play slots.  The guy in the middle is definitely eyeing him up to let him know that he doesn’t have to go there anymore. 

The guy in the background thinks they both have a problem. 

So this week’s theme has been roads named after Baltimore.  (Yes, Baltimore st. did appear in yesterday’s photo. It was the third cross st. in the picture.)   Here we have Baltimore Ave. just sort of visible as it intersects the line of the picture.  Baltimore Ave. is the N-S. road closest to the beach in on the south side of Ocean City.

This is a metal crab shilouette from a post on the south side of Ocean City.  There are actually four other Maryland related items on the post. I’ll “post “more as appropriate.

In case anyone was wondering what a white marlin, or what fish in general, looklike.  Here’s an example.  

The biggest marlin was a little smaller than yesterday’s tuna weight, but if you go to the site you should check out the blue marlin pictures, as the blue marlin nearly reached 1000 lbs. 

Also of note, it was not me in the hat yesterday.  In fact, I failed to give photo credit to guest photographer Shelly, who was on location at the tournament while I was on location at my office. 

The White Marlin Open took place last week in Ocean City.  You can read more here, www.whitemarlinopen.com.  In the mean time today’s picture comes from the weigh in for the winner of the tuna category.   This was caught last thursday.  

Here’s a shot of the Globe theatre, also from Berlin, MD. 

Berlin, MD is a great town for many reasons.  It’s hard to argue with any town whose name was derived from the mispronunciation of one of its original buildings, a tavern called The Burley Inn.  As you all know I’m quite guilty of spelling errors, and as such, I feel as though I have to forgive people for pronunciation errors, which are like the more popular cousins of spelling errors.  

Berlin today features a downtown area that has been restored lovingly by the community and today features a very pleasant and welcoming feel.   The town has an ice cream shop, a boot-maker, and antique shops as well.  It’s just 7 miles from Ocean City, and well worth the trip if you want to go somewhere to have a relaxing break or spend a night away from “all the hustle and bustle.”

Ok last horse picture.   Just thought I’d post something less somber after yesterday’s picture. 

Actually I had plans for this day’s post, but when I took a trip to go photograph a pretty cool historic site I had heard about in Rockville, I got there and realized that I had left the memory card out of my camera.  As such, we have horses again today.  I promise there will be less horse pictures in the future.   (that said, I think this is the best of the horse pictures)

That black strip in the middle of the picture is not some sort of volcanic rock, as some of us had hypothesized it to be.  It is asphault.   It turns out that, as a real suprise, some developer in the 50′s tried to develop Assateague and paved a road all the way down to the VA border.  Soon thereafter, a storm came and washed much of the road away.  It was then decided that the island might not be the best place for a development and from all of that, the national seashore was started.   

This guy doesn’t have the full fledged “jim from the office” haircut, like Tony from yesterday, that makes the Assategue horses so famous.  However, we’ll still post him becasue he was comically unafraid of anyone in the parking lot.  However, that’s not to say he shouldn’t be afraid.  Some guy nearby had tried to feed him a watermelon, and when this pony refused, the guy threw the watermelon (slice) at him.  Seems like a bit of a harsh response to an animal that decided not to take human food.  

Anyway, here’s some more trivia:  There are around 6 different types of snakes on the island.   Sometimes when you see a snake, you think its a good idea to take a picture of it.  When I saw a snake, I thought it was a good idea to run away like a 5 year old.  So you get a picture of this horse instead of a picture of a snake.  Sorry. 

This Guy!  Yup.  This is one of the wild ponies of Assateague Island.   This guy and his family are decendents of formerly domesticated horses who were raised on the island to avoid the need for pens and to avoid all sorts of other containment issues.   These days, there’s noone domesticating them, but they are not very bothered by humans.   They’ll graze right next to you and even come up to your car.   You’re not allowed to feed them and you can’t touch them, but they are pretty cool to see.   I was told at work today that they also bite, so if you’ve been bitten by a horse please share your story.   

The problem is that assateague is a big place, so if they are all together, you might have to go looking for them.  This guy (named Tony) was grazing by himself in the parking lot, so there wasn’t much looking around.   

One more thing to note about the horses:  there are two herds, one in Maryland and one in the commonwealth to the south.  They are separated by a fence, which is clearly unnecessary since an MD Pony need not leave the land of pleasant living and becasue, even if those VA horses tried to come up to MD, the northbound VA horses would be undoubtedly turned around and led back to the place they came from by a slew of terrible signage. 

Any guesses?    This was a picture from Saturday.  Kind of a hazy day after a rainy Fourth of July.  

I do love a good anchor.   This always fools me because I believe that the building with “Ocean City History” written on its side, should actually contain a museum on Ocean City history.  In a way there is a museum on the boardwalk, which is made up of a few artifacts, like this anchor.   You can learn about the largest shark ever caught off the shores of Ocean City.  That shark does not count in the fishing records as it was actually killed with a gun.   I don’t want to ruin the visit for you by telling you everything there is to learn on the south side of the boardwalk.  So, go see for yourself.  

Well its summer and people will be going to the beach in droves again.  Who wants to name this commony found sea bird, which was captured in Havre De Grace?  I meant the type of bird, as I’ve already named him, “The one who watches but who does not belong.”

You’ve probably all heard about the fire on the OC boardwalk this past month.  I wasn’t there, so I can’t show you a picture.  However, here is a shot of some guy in a red jacket.  On the left side, a block behind him, is the block where the fire happened.   You can see the Dough Roller Sign and the Rides sign for play land.

The lamppost from Friday did in fact come from Hagerstown.I might have to put a one guess per person rule in place since all that you needed to do was name every town in western MD. Either way, congratulations on guessing properly.    Just to keep with the theme here’s another cool lamppost, this time taken on a very cloudy winter day in Ocean City, not too far away from the Dough Roller and Play Land, which recently caught fire. .

Well if there are two things I can’t get enough of, they are Esskay hot dogs and the ability to tell time.   I am unable to tell you if that is an official Esskay Oriole frank or not, but either way here it is

What we see here is one of the remaining markers from the survey of the trans-peninsular line that cuts across the Delmarva peninsula and defines the southern border of Delaware.   I will take the time now to once again butcher and abridge some history for you.  

The charter given to the Penns for the three counties of Delaware effectively carved them out of what was then considered to be Maryland.   This caused some confusion as to where the boundaries should be and it then began a longstanding legal battle after it was drawn over where the line should have been drawn. 

(Some of the highlights of the arguments between the Calvert’s and Penns included not only Delaware’s boundaries, but also the location of the southern border of Pennsylvania.  George Calvert’s original charter for Maryland included land up to the 40th parallel, which would encompass what is today Philadelphia.)   

On the Delmarva peninsula, it was decided that the Eastern-Western boundary between Delaware and Maryland would be that which split the peninsula in half, but the Northern-Southern boundary caused significantly more confusion.  

The Calvert’s suggested drawing the line beginning at a place that is phonetically called Cape Henlopen. 

The problem is that there are two capes on the map of Delaware at the time, which both could sound similar.   There are different spellings on some maps.  Other maps exclude some of the capes altogether.   You have to keep in mind that the Lords Baltimore never had the use of google maps or mapquest, or of the wonderful ADC maps we all keep in the car.    

  To give an example of the problem: on some maps, one of the capes was spelled Cape Inlopen.  However, when you say this phonetically as if you were a Dutch settler at the time, then you might be pronouncing what we today would call an H sound. 

Where are these two Cape Henlopens?   Well one is where modern day Fenwick Island is.   (at the modern border)  The other, which has retained the name Cape Henlopen, is at the northernmost piece of oceanfront land in Delaware, literally at the opening of the Delaware bay.   So by now, you can tell which cape was used to draw the line and you can also tell which cape the Calverts had intended to use.   

Now there’s another wrinkle.  The map that was used to draw the line, was a map offered by the Maryland side.   This map apparently had Cape Henlopen in the position of modern Fenwick Island.  This made it very difficult for the Calverts to later battle with the Penns in court in hopes of having the line redrawn. 

So here is one of the markers, which were placed every 5 miles along the border.  They were apparently cast in England.   

Tomorrow’s post might not have any writing to go with it.   Just a warning.