Baltimore: Woodlands and Watersheds

These photos were taken on three separate walks that we undertook on consecutive weekends in September and October.  To me, this is the very best of hiking season in Maryland. In August, the air is still hot and humid, and mosquitoes threaten you the moment you begin to set up camera gear on a riverbank, or pause for rest on a forest log. The first two weeks of September roll around, and suddenly the pre-dawn air is cool enough to hit the trailhead with confidence. No jacket is required; at a brisk pace, you'll reach the perfect temperature five minutes into the woods, and homeostasis will keep you there for the rest of the morning.

The walks depicted here are the Merryman trail along the west bank of the Loch Raven Reservoir (15 minutes north of Baltimore), the Lost Pond trail near the Sweathouse Branch of the Gunpowder River (20 minutes northeast of Baltimore), and the trail system on the Oregon Ridge in Cockeysville (20 minutes north of Baltimore) - the last of which has an excellent nature center, featuring swimming diamondback terrapins, a resident crippled red-tailed hawk, and year-round programs including maple sugar tapping in the winter.

There is something utterly life-changing about walking in the woods - an activity which was rare for me as a child of southern California.  To be among groves of giants, mighty storehouses of life, churning away at the work of converting photons of light to breathable oxygen, living through decades and centuries of human history, pushing forward millimeter by millimeter - you feel tiny, insignificant, transient, in awe of the entire situation. The leaves obscure you from the surrounding world, and the undergrowth limits your visual field to what is on the trail before you; in essence, a walk in the woods is a journey through another world, one to which you are irrevocably foreign - not the other way around. What better place for photography?

I actually only recently read Thoreau's Walden, in which he writes about his experience of and reasons for spending two years in a pond-side cabin in the woodlands of Massachusetts. As much as I found the book beautiful and deeply affecting in its own way, I couldn't help but find myself questioning Thoreau. He writes eloquently (and often, I think it fair to say, self-aggrandizingly) about self-sufficiency, simplicity,  economy of living, and fullness of life. Yet, I wondered, walking through the forests in my own life: can anyone really draw these things from the woods? How strangely petty to commune with such a magical place, and to gain mostly a philosophy for human life. However strong the philosophy, I wonder if it is quite literally missing the forest for the trees.

I also recently read Wildwood, a love letter to the woods by the late British nature writer Roger Deakin. In turns, it is about growing up, moth classifying, apple picking, wood sculpting, traveling to foreign countries, and Jaguars (as in the car). It is about every myriad way that trees and forests impacted Deakin, and how he himself is dwarfed by the entire experience. Much like when I walk in the woods around Baltimore - it is simultaneously an experience of everything and nothing at all.

Chesapeake: Annapolis and Ocean City, MD

Summer in the Mid-Atlantic is a languorous business. By early June, warmth is a constant of daily life, and even in the comfort of your climate-controlled apartment or rowhome, you roll out of bed and feel the season all around you. You step out the front door, and there it is! - the entire Chesapeake Bay is sitting over your head and waiting for you to make your next move. For many denizens of the region, the next move is to gradually translocate oneself down the sidewalk, jettisoning various atoms and other non-essential parts on the pavement as necessary. One proceeds like this the entire week, until the swelter of the sun, the sweat off your brow, and the promise of sunset after 8 PM cumulate in a picnic table, a bucket of icy beverage, and a pile of spicy seasoned crabs, ripe for the picking. The Chesapeake Bay was sitting over your head, so you invited it over for dinner.

Many denizens of the region also confront the summer head on. From all over, they converge on the Bay and then across the Bay Bridge, hearing the siren song of beach towns and Atlantic Ocean boardwalks on the other end of the Delmarva (Delaware-Maryland-Virginia) Peninsula.  So it is with me and Jane, as we scheduled ourselves a Sunday-to-Tuesday vacation down to Annapolis and across to Ocean City, MD. Our first time to the Eastern Shore, and not a moment too soon.

We arrived in Annapolis early on Sunday morning, and spent the morning walking around the Old Town, waiting for hunger to set in. We were on the lawn of St. Mary's Church when the bells began pealing in this most Catholic of Catholic American cities. Down by the water after brunch at Iron Rooster, we browsed a weekend farmer's market and watched the boats cruising past Ego Alley.  Afterward, we stopped by the beach at Sandy Point Park, which was packed to its brim with sunbathers and beach umbrellas; I took photos of the Bay Bridge while Jane soaked her feet.

We then headed across the bridge and across the peninsula, a country music countdown blaring from our car radio for most of the two-hour drive to Ocean City. Crossing the last highway bridge into town, both of us, never having before visited an Atlantic beach town, stared dumbfounded at what we saw - a glimmering Las Vegas skyline slapped onto a barrier island, surf pounding and parasails gliding against the afternoon sun.

We settled into our home for the next two nights, a balcony room at the adequately named Sun 'n Fun Motel, one block away from the beach and one block away from the Jolly Roger amusement park. The entire place was reminiscent of Santa Monica, with its vaunted ferris wheel and endless boardwalk. After a nap, we walked across the street, past the towering beachfront resorts and over the sand dunes. We laid a towel out as the sun set behind us; I took photos of the sea while Jane built a little sand-castle in the waning light.

The next day was spent entirely at the Jolly Roger - the water park in the morning, and the amusement park at night. Rocketing out of a water slide aboard her raft, Jane nicked her heel against the opposite bank of the lazy river. I took her, trailing tiny bloody heel-prints, to the first aid station to get a bandage which promptly fell off halfway down the next slide. Suffice it to say that conventional adhesives and a venue predicated on rapidly flowing water are not a good fit for one another.

That night, after a rather blasé dinner (food was an issue throughout the trip; the prototypical Atlantic beach town seems to be built on deep fryers and microwavable pasta. We survived by dint of a midnight convenience store run to buy fruit, tea, and yogurt), we returned to the Jolly Roger and shared a bumper car, sunset on the ferris wheel (Jane: "Would you look at us? Having a damn date night!"), and several thrill rides culminating in a night-ending spin on the Spider, a hex-axial, high-velocity, free-spinning contraption (pictured above) which filled us with pure, atavistic terror. I have a grainy video of this ride.  It mostly consists of a still image of our four feet, coupled with two minutes of bone-chilling screaming (me) and "no no no no no no" (Jane).

The next day, before heading home, we drove across the bridge to Assateague Island, a barrier island covered with tidal marsh, campgrounds, and a glittering seashore. Even in the early morning light, the breeze off the ocean was hot as we walked down the beach in search of the island's famous herd of wild horses - Jane carrying a box of breakfast donuts in one hand, her sandals in the other.  Half a mile away, we came upon a family of horses; they stumbled out of a campsite as if they had just awoken and crawled out of one of the RVs or tents stationed there. We watched as they hobbled halfway to the water and drunkenly collapsed in the sand - whether they were basking in or cursing at the warm June sun was not immediately apparent. Feeling much the same, we retreated to our car, bought drinks at the visitor center, and drove back to Baltimore by noon.  That evening, an absolutely torrential downpour blanketed the city - the entire Chesapeake finally crashing down, washing away the summer heat. We were more than grateful.

Lancaster: Summertime in Amish Country

At the end of May,  with summer rotations and residency applications looming large in my future, Jane and I took a weekend trip to Pennsylvania. We have been biking on the North Central Railroad trail between Hunt Valley and Monkton (Jane enjoys it so much she is considering investing in her own ride), and one of us (I cannot recall who) decides that it would be swell to rent bikes and explore Amish country. One of us (this is definitely me) also discovers a bike route in Lancaster County that conveniently and considerately passes under the auspices of the Oregon Dairy Supermarket, a beloved local ice cream shop with famously fresh and creamy treats.

On the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend, we drove an hour north of Baltimore, checked out a pair of hybrids from the bike store in Ephrata, PA, and embarked on a 24-mile ride through the countryside. Truly, no great photography came of this experience, as I was much too busy struggling my way up tiny country hillsides, dodging farm tractors and wayward horse-drawn buggies. Much of the day was spent determining which distant speck on the road represented Jane, admiring the quaint covered bridges that dotted our route, and admonishing myself for a fingerweb-shaped sunburn that was gradually developing on my shoulder -  a sort of painful, ultraviolet study in negative space, created by the act of literally slapping sunscreen on oneself without any subsequent attempt at competent application. The ice cream - that heavenly, blessed ice cream in the heart of Amish farmland - was the day's saving grace.

That evening, we stayed in a Lancaster motel and replenished our caloric deficit at an Asian buffet that made me quickly regret most of the positive consequential decisions I had ever made in my life. As the sun was setting (it was past 8 PM), we played our first round of mini-golf in over 7 years of dating (Jane lost substantially).  From the lot behind the mini-golf course, I took the photo above - a horse and buggy standing front of barns and grain silos.

The next morning, we made our way back down to Baltimore by way of Harford County, first stopping at the Susquehannock Park Lookout before crossing the Susquehanna River into Maryland. We parked at two trailheads in Rocks State Park, from which we hiked to Kilgore Falls and the King and Queen's Seat, pictured below. By mid-morning, the sun was glaring overhead, and the air was dense and hot. We stopped at a gas station convenience store simply to re-hydrate, and wound up sitting outside on the pavement, basking in the shade of the building while eating hot dogs, sipping sweet tea, and watching light glint off of windshields in the used car dealership across the street. Springtime was over; summer had officially begun.