Chesapeake: The Last Go-Around

What a strange time we live in. Everything about this post feels wrong. For one thing, it marks what will likely be our final overnight jaunt to the Eastern Shore, as Jane and I are leaving the Chesapeake behind in just a few short months (more to come). For another, these photos are… terrible. Our final time visiting the Eastern Neck refuge and photographing our beloved marsh islet in Tubby Cove - and it had to be in harsh midday light! And lastly, we were brash to travel, even if just for one night, as the COVID pandemic began to unfold around us in Maryland. Still, it would have felt even more wrong to not celebrate the occasion of Jane’s PhD defense (in virology, no less). Restaurants and businesses are shuttered, so a little car trip is all we have left.

Instead of staying for a third time at Osprey Point, we chose instead to stay at the Great Oak Manor, a lovely old estate a few miles north of the Chester River. After driving through the Arby’s in Chestertown, we make a short detour to the Java Rock Café in Rock Hall, and from there to Eastern Neck, where we say our farewells to Tubby Cove. We make the short trek to the river mouth at Boxes Point, where we part ways with our hiking branch from Shenandoah. Then, it’s back up the peninsula to Great Oak Landing, where we check in at the sprawling manor house. After settling into our second-story bedroom and exploring the mansion’s lush, ornate interior, we take an afternoon bike ride down to the boat landing, cruising along country lanes and past yards full of blooming magnolias and forsythias. Sunset is a wash (and frankly, I’m not in much of a mood for photography, anyhow), so we stay in and watch movies into the early evening. The next day, after a breakfast of quiche and pancakes, it’s back to Baltimore, to the real world, and to a very uncertain future.

Maryland: Season of Change

Autumn is always a bittersweet time - a season that symbolizes, above all else, transition and impermanence. It is my favorite season, and a deeply meaningful time to me, as I’ve noted several times in the Mid-Atlantic series and elsewhere. It’s when the natural world is loveliest, with its fleeting foliage, its migrant birds, and its shifting winds and weather patterns. It’s when I capture some of my favorite photographs. It means the holiday season is upon us. And it means that another year has gone, and that another is coming - that the world is ever-changing. And while each autumn may bear these similarities to the autumns before it, life must also go on.

This year’s autumn is particularly bittersweet, because at the time of this writing (November 9th, 2019), I do not know whether this will be Jane’s and my last autumn here in Maryland. My training years are coming to a close, and the wider world is beckoning for the first time in a very long time. It hasn’t felt like a very long time. I still remember the first red-eye flight to Baltimore from Los Angeles like it was yesterday. Wearing my duck-shaped airplane pillow, I leaned against the plastic window pane all night, sleeplessly. It is hard to sleep when you know that you are embarking on the journey of a lifetime. The next day, reuniting and moving in with Jane, learning how to cook. The next year, getting in shape again, and running my first half-marathon. Growing as a person, a photographer, a husband, and a physician. The cats. In just a few short months, eight years of our lives will have come and gone in a flash. Were it not for photography, I might not have noticed.

I badly wanted this autumn - what could be our last in the Chesapeake - to be a tour de force for my woodland photography. An encapsulation of everything I learned over the years and everything that I love about this region. In a few months, I wanted to be able to look back and see these photographs as a powerful re-affirmation of my place in Maryland, or as a heartfelt farewell letter, to a beautiful place that I called home. All summer, I mapped out dates and locations from September through early November. But fate had other plans. The region's foliage dulled and disappeared in the face of a fickle wind. The Indian summer never materialized. The season’s last thunderstorms fell precisely on weekends. Training runs, and the Baltimore Running Festival itself, took up many mornings. And a fortuitous October trip to the Adirondacks during their peak season wound up absorbing much of my creative time and energy.

In the end, my grand plans weren’t meant to be. Instead, we went out and explored whenever we could, wherever we wanted. The result is an autumn set much like the ones before it - simple moments in time. Little things that I found beautiful. Places that I hope to remember and cherish. If this truly is a swan song for the Mid-Atlantic series, I can think of no more fitting way to end it.

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The photos in this series were taken on three occasions:

September 14, 2019: A pleasant stroll around the periphery of Lake Roland. Just inside the county line, it is less than fifteen minutes from our home, but Jane and I have never been. I test the reach of my new camera (Sony RX-10 II), and we watch the dog-walkers go by. The local association sets up for a community gardening sale.

September 29, 2019: Sunrise at Loch Raven. This time, we park on Loch Raven Drive, at the southern reaches of the lake. Early autumn colors are beginning to appear along the shoreline, amplified by the amber sidelight of the morning sun. We see a lesser blue heron, a flock of Canada geese, and a single osprey guarding its nest atop a tall, lonely oak tree on the nearby island. Jane and I take portraits together while a local fisherman works the water. He and the heron are both successful.

November 2, 2019: Another visit to my favorite place - a tiny spit of land jutting into Liberty Reservoir, accessed by a short footpath off Deer Park Road. After a series of rainy, busy, or traveling weekends, we are too late for peak colors this year. We stand for awhile and watch the morning mist rolling off the water. I take a photo anyway - for old times’ sake.

Jug Bay: Canoeing at Sunset

Summer has come and gone. The first days of fall are here, and the days are still long and bright. Jane’s parents come to visit for a weekend, so we bring them along on a Saturday activity that we’ve long had planned - a guided sunset canoe trip along the Patuxent River. After a morning spent walking around the Johns Hopkins medical campus and Jane’s lab at Bloomberg, we eat lunch at the recently renovated Water for Chocolate and then depart for the Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary in Southern Maryland. We arrive at the Wetlands Center in the late afternoon, and after receiving our paddling gear with brief safety instructions, we take a short hike through the woods, following an old railroad bed to a dock at the center of the river.

There, we and about twenty other participants pair up and set off in tandem canoes. Jane’s parents are new to the water. They spend some time steering in circles, but quickly get the hang of their boat. Jane laughs from the pier; she will never admit it, but I know that she only agreed to bring her parents along on the off chance we might see them capsize. Fortunately, the paddling gets underway uneventfully. We convene on the riverbank and set off up the Western Branch of the Patuxent River. The weather is balmy - perfect for being on the water - and the afternoon sun shines a beautiful sidelight on the distant loblolly pines and the marsh reeds adjoining shore. I stop frequently to take photographs. Heading upriver, we see herons, a pair of osprey, a flock of swallows, and a bald eagle.

After canoeing for about an hour through the winding marsh channels, we reach our turnaround point just past Ironpot Landing, where the river enters a stand of mixed deciduous woodland. There, we link up our boats and pass around our dry-bag for a prepared picnic dinner on the water - Chinese tea eggs, chocolate biscuits, dried peaches, and canteens of Gatorade. Except for contented chewing, the whole group is quiet. We sit in appreciative silence, taking in the sound of water lapping against our boats, of birdsong, and of leaves rustling in the trees. Around us is a warm, golden room - the light of sunset reflecting off the river and the forest canopy.

Turning the boats around, we return through the marshes in fading light. By the time we reach the dock, it is nearly 8 PM, the sky is dark, and the wetland mosquitoes are out in force. Jane and I don our headlamps to help stow the boats, after which we set off walking back along the railroad bed. We return to Baltimore around 9:30, and make a homemade ramen dinner (ingredients mostly prepped during the week) for Jane’s parents before retiring for the evening.