2011-03-26 Cherry Blossoms & Jefferson Memorial

Washington Monument through the Cherry Blossoms

Since the weather guy is forecasting snow for Sunday morning Tricia and I decided to go check out the cherry blossoms today. It was a bit chilly but bright and sunny. I am ashamed to admit that I've never seen the cherry blossoms from the DC side of the Potomac River.

Me!

Tricia

Today was the first day of the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival and despite the fact the blooms were not yet at their peak it was pretty busy down on the National Mall.  However, the parking gods smiled on us and we found a spot right near the Jefferson Memorial.

As you may know the annual festival commemorates the 1912 gift of 3,000 cherry trees to the City of Washington, DC from the Mayor of Tokyo as a sign of the enduring friendship between Japan and the United States.  Which has a slightly different meaning this year given the devastation Japan is currently suffering.

 This was also my first time to visit the Jefferson Memorial.  It has one of the best views of the cherry trees along the tidal basin.  There were too many people to get a good look at the new visitor center exhibits.  Guess I'll just have to go back later at check them out.

Below is a slide show of the best of the pictures I took today.  Enjoy!  Chincoteague Island is up next weekend.

2011-03-19 Budding Trees in Del Ray & Trying out a new photo gallery widget

Rather than have several photos in the body of the text of the post I'm trying a stacking photo gallery option, which will allow me to include more photos without creating massively long posts.  Let us see if this will work properly.

These are pictures I took today.  Tricia and I had our planning meeting at a lovely laid back cafe named St. Elmo's in Del Ray, VA this morning.  We decided where we are going to explore and take pictures for the next two months.  You'll see several of the upcoming events in the top right side of this blog.  Don't mind the movie premiere dates - we just wanted to plan around the summer movie blockbusters.  ;)

These trees where next to the parking lot and a clear indication that springs is coming to DC.  I'm not sure what type of trees these were, not crab apple maybe cherry.  The wind was blowing pretty good so it was difficult to zoom in and focus on the buds but some managed to stay in focus.

Let me know what you think of the gallery format.  Do you like seeing the photos on a slide show or in amongst the words?

2011-03-05 Rock Creek Cemetery

Lion Head Door Handle

As per usual, I was searching for something to do with Dad on his most recent visit and Bam! a Living Social deal for the Lincoln Cottage at Solider Home hit my email. Very cool museum which I'll talk about in a later post. But the museum wasn't going to take more than a couple of hours so what else was there to do in the general vicinity? To the internet!

With some judicious searching (gotta love googlemaps.com) I found St. Paul's Episcopal Church and the Rock Creek Cemetery in Rock Creek parish right next door to Solider Home.  Now there wasn't much on the St. Paul's website about the cemetary but wikipedia has some interesting info on the statuary so I was sold!

 Rock Creek Cemetery is the only surviving colonial cemetery in what is now Washington, DC.  In 1719, Colonel John Bradford of Maryland, donated the 100 acres or a glebe of land in support of a church and burial ground.  In 1840, an Act of Congress, made the cemetery a public burial place.  Sections have been reserved for local Russian Orthodox and Latvian churches.  In 1977, the cemetery was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

 Of the statuary in the cemetery, the Saint-Guaden's statue, The Mystery of the Hereafter and The Peace of God that Passeth Underneath or Grief as it is more commonly known is probably the most famous.  Even though Dad and I drove/walked most of the grounds we could not find it.  In fact, we apparently missed most of the famous statues.  Go figure.  Perhaps next time.  I could tell Dad was a little worried about how much fun I was having taking pictures in a cemetery so we called it a day.

Pine Grove Furnance State Park 2011-02-19

Tricia and I stopped at Pine Grove Furnace State Park on our way to the Christian Kane concert in Mechanicsburg, PA.  The wind was wicked cold but the sun was shining.

The first iron furnace was built at Pine Grove in 1764.  Timber from the nearby Michaux Forest was burned to create charcoal which was then used at Pine Grove to melt the iron ore to make cast iron stoves, fire backs and kettles.  The cast iron was also reheated and forged into wrought iron.  But since one furnace could use up to one acre of forest a day the furnace were eventually adapted to use coal.

The furnace was built into the corner of a hill.  The ruins show that the top of the hill was about level with the top of the furnace.  There were also holes and pieces of metal sticking out of the furnace where other buildings where once attached.  This was so the heavy iron ore could be fed into the furnace from the top.  Gutterman also worked from the top skimming the slag that floated on the molten iron.

The iron would then be melted to 3,000 degrees and the impurities would separate and rise to the top and the iron would settle to the bottom.  The molten iron would flow into the troughs and formed into "pigs."
       
Not sure if this was a plant, lichen or flower but it was growing out of the side of the furnace.

    

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Ok, here goes nuthin...

Greetings all!  I have read many a blog but this is my first attempt to write one.  So please bear with me.

If you happen to be someone who knows me then you are aware that I like to take pictures.  What I'd like to do with this blog is to chronicle my adventures with my trusty Nikon.  For the last year or so I've been posting photos on Facebook but not everyone is on Facebook or wants to be on Facebook so this is my solution.

My goal for the upcoming spring and summer is to spend three Sundays a month out taking pictures somewhere in the greater National Capital Region.  For those of you elsewhere, I mean Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC.  Or if I get adventurous West Virgina, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

If I can figure out how, I'm going to add a calendar to this blog so that I can publish the schedule of where I'm planning to go next.  If you are local and want to join, shoot me an email.  The more the merrier!

OK, here goes nuthin...jlh