A weekend trip to Richmond…
22 minute read
May 4, 2022, 8:30 PM
From April 14-16, Elyse and I did a weekend trip to the Richmond area. This was a case where one adventure begets another, as Richmond really got the short end of the stick on our October trip to North Carolina and Hampton Roads. We had plans for the Richmond area on the outbound trip as well as the return trio, but they ended up being greatly abbreviated in the interest of keeping it moving. Richmond is in that little spot where it’s close enough that we can go any time that we want, but difficult enough to get to so that we typically don’t. Our last day trip to Richmond was about five years ago, and more recent visits to Richmond have occurred while we were passing through on our way to other places. I think that the biggest impediment to our visiting Richmond more often is I-95, as it’s fairly unreliable, being subject to backups on a very regular basis, making it difficult to predict when we will arrive in the Richmond area. In any event, inspired by our earlier trip, we had gathered up enough stuff that we had wanted to see to make a weekend trip to Richmond worthwhile. So we picked a month and did a weekender.
On this particular occasion, we left the house and got going, taking I-270 to the Beltway to the I-95 express lanes, which were pointed southbound at the time. We soon learned that there was a very long backup on I-95 southbound. So we bailed, taking an express lane exit to US 1 near Lorton. A major backup on I-95 had the potential to derail our entire day, so Route 1, while slower, was still a better bet than taking 95. This routing took us past a number of places, and and we made some planned stops and unplanned stops. The first stop was unplanned, at the Harley-Davidson place in the Quantico area.
Continue reading…Categories: Amtrak, Photography, Railroads, Richmond, Travel
A day out in parts of Virginia that we don’t normally visit…
15 minute read
December 14, 2021, 11:03 PM
From December 9-11, Elyse and I took a little weekend trip down to Staunton, Virginia, where we stayed at Hotel 24 South. We call the place our little home away from home, as we always stay there when we do these trips every 2-3 months. Typically, we do something simple on the first day after we get down there, have a full-day adventure on the middle day (the Staunton Mall photo set came out of one of these middle-day adventures), and then do a few things and go visit my parents on the last day before heading home. It’s a good routine, and it’s a lot of fun.
This time around, our middle-day adventure took us down to Clifton Forge, Covington, and Roanoke. I had not been to the Clifton Forge and Covington area since 2005, and Elyse had never been. Roanoke wasn’t part of our original plan for the day, but as we had not been to Roanoke since 2018, we were probably due for another visit. I had low expectations for the day, considering that the weather was expected to be cloudy (which means gray photos), but I got a few useful things out of the day.
Our first stop was the Howard Johnson’s on Route 11 north of Lexington. I had first become aware of this place after seeing it on Highway Host, and so we decided to visit it again. Elyse wanted to film the elevator, while I was more interested in the architecture. My understanding of the history of this location is that it has always been a Howard Johnson’s ever since it opened in the 1970s, though the attached Howard Johnson’s restaurant later went independent under the name Hilltop Diner, and had closed entirely by 2004.
Renting out eight rooms…
5 minute read
September 30, 2017, 12:29 AM
So apparently, I spoke too soon when it came to the closure of The Inn at Afton. You may recall that last month, I announced the closure of The Inn at Afton, based on a sign that said that the lobby and hotel were closed. Elyse and I went down that way again on Wednesday, and one of our stops was to see how The Inn at Afton looked in the daylight after finally going out of business for good. Much to our surprise, we found that the place was open again. We stopped into room 211, which was being used as the lobby, and had a chat with the lady working inside. As it turns out, the hotel is barely operational, with only eight rooms, all on the parking lot side, in service. None of the rooms on the other side, which has a tremendous view of the piedmont, are in service. I’m told that the remaining rooms have been stripped, and a walk past some of the first-floor rooms that are not in service seems to confirm this. That means that out of 118 total rooms, 110 of them are out of service, presumably for being uninhabitable. That’s an availability of 6.7%. For that few rooms, it hardly seems worthwhile to remain open, but apparently, they do, likely out of habit.
Meanwhile, the room being used as the lobby smelled strongly of mold, and had visible mold and water damage. Definitely an unhealthy environment. We might have stuck around for longer and chatted with the very nice lady working there, but the mold smell was too much. I imagine that the rooms that are still in service are just as bad, if they are willing to let the room that they’re using as a lobby become so bad. Thank heavens for Orbit “Bubblemint” gum. It got the mold taste out of my mouth.
So apparently, and much to my surprise, just when we thought that the book had closed on the operational history of the vintage businesses on Afton Mountain, there’s more to the Afton story to be told.
Categories: Afton Mountain, Elyse, Friends, Railroads, Stuarts Draft, Vintage business, Walmart, Waynesboro
I have been to Pennsylvania a lot lately…
14 minute read
August 27, 2016, 6:27 AM
In the span of two weeks, Elyse and I went to Pennsylvania three different times. We went to Hanover on the 8th, Harrisburg on the 11th, and then Harrisburg again on the 18th. Two of the trips were to scout out some potential sites for photography, as well as get something out of our system from the earlier bus trip, and then one was to bring the bus back for my friend.
The first trip was to Hanover. This was one of those “seeing America” kind of trips, about catching a shot of whatever we found interesting, as well as scouting locations for further attention with our SLR cameras when the weather was more accommodating (it was hot and humid out – yuck). Elyse met me at my house, and then we left for Hanover via Westminster. On the way up to Westminster, we both knew about a certain street off of Georgia Avenue in Carroll County near Eldersburg and Sykesville (yes, I refer to Route 97 as “Georgia Avenue” all the way up to Gettysburg), and had to get a photo of it with Elyse. Check it out:
Categories: Amtrak, Companies, Driving, Elyse, Food and drink, Friends, Hanover, Harrisburg, National politics, Pennsylvania, Railroads, School buses, West Virginia, Westminster
Testing out a new camera…
5 minute read
February 28, 2016, 2:44 PM
So I finally got a new camera, with its arriving at the beginning of this month. I got a Nikon D5300, and got a zoom lens along with it, as well as a new camera bag (i.e. I’m not going to use Big Mavica‘s old bag anymore). I didn’t test a D5300 when I tested a whole bunch of cameras with Elyse, because it wasn’t available. But I tested a number of different models around it. While this one did everything that most SLRs do, this one also had a fliparound screen like the D5500 that I tested, but being an earlier model, didn’t have the price tag of the D5500. It also had built-in GPS, which I find extremely useful, and that none of the cameras that I tested earlier had.
In case you weren’t aware, I contribute quite a bit to Panoramio. You know how you see photos in Google Earth and Google Maps? Panoramio is how a lot of those photos make their way in there. You upload photos, and then you tag the location on a map. The problem comes when I’m shooting a lot of photos in an area that I may not be very familiar with. I’m talking about things like my trip to Richmond in 2013, various trips to Chicago, High Rock, and the like. In those cases, the way I would typically shoot photos would be to take whatever photos with my real camera, and then grab my cell phone and take a quick reference shot. The reason for this was that the phone had GPS, but my real camera didn’t. That worked well enough, but it created extra work both onsite and in post-production. Onsite, I had to take an extra photo with a different camera, and ensure that GPS had gotten a lock on the position. Then in post-production, I had to coordinate the two photos, reading the tag on one photo in order to manually place the photo that’s actually getting published in the right spot. If it sounds like a pain, it’s because it is. Now that my real camera has GPS on it as well, everything has a location tag on it, which makes my life that much easier.
Also, since it’s come up before, a point of clarification: just because the camera has onboard GPS does not mean that the camera will give you directions. GPS is a network of satellites operated by the United States government that provides location and time information to users with a GPS receiver. It is not inherently a navigation system, though the way most people talk about it, you would think that it was. Just thought I’d put that out there.
Categories: Amtrak, Baltimore, Cameras, Elyse, MTA Maryland
Back to Cumberland…
10 minute read
October 11, 2014, 7:56 PM
On October 2, exactly a year and a half after my first road trip to Cumberland (where I produced a photography set), I was back out that way again. The purpose of this trip was to explore the downtown area a little bit more deeply, make some photo spheres, and check out a few things that I had missed the last time I was out there for one reason or another.
I had two planned stops on the way out. The first was at the westbound South Mountain rest area and welcome center on Interstate 70. Besides its being a logical spot to take a break, I wanted to get some photo spheres while there, plus I wanted to get updated photos of something that really bothered me on the last trip to Cumberland. In the Journal entry for the April 2013 trip, I discussed an errant apostrophe on the signage directing motorists to parking, where “RV” was pluralized using an apostrophe. The rule of thumb when it comes to pluralization in English, by the way, is that an apostrophe is never used to form a plural. Ever. I filed a request about this with SHA, which became case #SR-0198410, in early May of this year, to get it fixed, referencing the photo from 2013. I heard back from SHA a few days later, where they promised that they would have the apostrophes removed by the end of the month. When I was through that area again in mid-June, I swung by the eastbound rest area (opposite side) to check to see if they kept their promise. They did, as they scraped the apostrophe off of the sign. This left a somewhat inelegant result:
Categories: Cumberland, Photography, Railroads
It was a six-mile hike, mostly uphill, but the view was definitely worth it…
10 minute read
May 12, 2014, 12:19 PM
On May 4, I got together with Melissa, Pete, and Pete’s dog Bruno, and we went on a trip out to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia to do some hiking. The inspiration for this trip was twofold. First of all, Pete and Melissa had recently become friends on Facebook, though they had never met in person. This seemed like a good opportunity for them to actually meet. And then the venue came about after I saw someone else post pictures of the Maryland Heights overlook at Harpers Ferry onto Facebook, and I decided that I wanted to see it for myself.
Heading in, I first picked Melissa up at her house in Hyattsville, along with, to my surprise, Jason. He was going to check out the Smithsonian, and so we brought him down to a Metro station. After dropping Jason off at Eastern Market station, Melissa and I met up with Pete for breakfast at Sizzling Express. After breakfast, we headed back over to Pete’s house to get Bruno, and then we all walked down to the car, which was parked on 6th Street SE. I ended up taking Bruno’s leash, which was an experience all of its own. Realize that when I was growing up, my family had a dachshund, which is a small dog. Bruno is a basset hound, which is a much bigger breed. Walking a basset hound is a different experience entirely from walking a dachshund, in that I was mostly walking Bruno, but there were definitely times when Bruno was walking me. Bruno is pretty strong, and was able to pull me around at times as he checked out various items along our path. Greta could never have pulled me around like that on account of her being too small. But it was fun, so all was well, and Pete was there to remind Bruno to be on his best behavior if necessary.
When we got to the car, Bruno got in his carrier, and we were off. To get there, we took the Southwest Freeway to GW Parkway to the Beltway to I-270 to US 340. And for the record, 340’s east-west signing in Maryland always throws me off, because I am very much accustomed to 340’s being signed as a north-south route, as it is in Virginia and West Virginia, though that’s by far not the only US highway that changes directional designations like that.
Categories: Amtrak, Friends, Melissa, Recreation/Exercise, West Virginia
Chicago 2013…
10 minute read
August 9, 2013, 8:10 PM
At the end of July, Mom and I took a trip to Chicago. We took the Capitol Limited, like we usually do, leaving DC on July 25 and returning July 30. Not a bad trip, but I believe that there was something pivotal about this particular trip: Chicago was becoming a regular thing. This isn’t a bad thing by any means. It doesn’t mean that I enjoyed the trip any less, though, it’s just that it’s become something that we do every year, and that’s fine. With the trip’s becoming something of a regular thing, this is the only thing you’re goign to get that’s specifically about the trip. There’s not going to be a Journal entry for each day like I did in 2011. No special photo set about the trip like I did in 2010 and 2012. And that’s fine. That’s not to say that there’s not going to be a photo set from the trip, though. But it’s going to be a regular photo set, in Photography, about the Chicago Botanic Garden. That photo set’s going to be what I describe as “flower porn”. Seriously, I got very close to a lot of flowering plants, and got detailed photos of them. When I used the term “flower porn”, Sis commented that it was also accurate, as I was photographing the reproductive parts of flowers. So there you go.
On the outbound trip, Mom and I were in a roomette. Second car back, room 14. That’s a lower level roomette. Mom and I were surprised to find that we felt like we didn’t have quite enough space on this trip. That came about mostly in regards to legroom, as neither one of us really could extend our legs very far without getting in the other person’s way, and sitting diagonally was a little uncomfortable for both of us. Having only one electrical outlet was also a problem, as we had several devices that we needed to charge: my laptop, my phone (which we were also tethering for Internet access when we had service), Mom’s phone, and Mom’s iPod Touch. And one electrical outlet. It was a shame that, when the Superliner I roomette panels were updated around 2011 or so, they didn’t add at least one additional power outlet. What we ended up doing was plugging in the laptop and charging everything off of that. It didn’t work as well in this capacity as I would have liked, however, we were asking the computer to do something that it probably was not designed to do, i.e. be a mobile charging station for three devices (vs. just one).
Meanwhile, the ride out was at times like visiting familiar places. This was not just because this was our fifth round trip on the Capitol Limited. Realize that as of this trip, I had visited all of the towns where we made a station stop between DC and Cumberland. DC, Rockville, Harpers Ferry, Martinsburg, and Cumberland. Now mind you, it’s been eight years since I last visited Martinsburg, and even longer since I was in the part of Martinsburg where the train goes, but it still counts. Then I added Harpers Ferry earlier in the same month, and Cumberland in April.
Seeing Cumberland from the ground…
11 minute read
April 7, 2013, 12:28 AM
You may be familiar with Cumberland, Maryland. Whenever Mom and I go to Chicago, we take the Capitol Limited, and that train travels a route that goes through Martinsburg, Cumberland, Pittsburgh, Toledo, and South Bend, among other locations. When I take train trips, I like to look at the scenery. Some of it intrigues me, and it leads me do more research on it later. Take the Koppers facility in Green Spring, West Virginia. I always found it interesting to see these piles of neatly stacked lumber along the tracks. I researched it, and I enjoyed learning a bit more about what I had seen from the train. Towns are a similar idea. These little towns that the trains either pass through or stop in make me want to do more research. Unfortunately, many of these little towns are beyond my reach without incurring a lot of travel expenses, but for the places that I can reach, if they interest me enough, I’ll pay them a visit.
Cumberland was one of those places. The Capitol Limited spends a lot of time in Cumberland. Going west, the first thing that they do is a crew change, where they exchange engineers. Then they continue a little further west and do the passenger stop. That stop takes about ten minutes, and is also a “smoke stop”, where passengers who smoke are permitted to get off of the train and have a cigarette. While on the train waiting through the crew change and the longer passenger stop, I got to take an extended look at Cumberland. And I liked what I saw. I saw a town with some character to it, and I saw a few places that I would love to explore more deeply. I saw houses, I saw churches, and I saw the WTBO sign on Wills Mountain. And I was sure that there was much more that was interesting beyond what I could see from the train.
So this past Tuesday, I did exactly that. I grabbed the camera bag, got in the car, and headed off to Cumberland. This, by the way, is not exactly a short trip. Amtrak gives three hours and nine minutes to take the train from Union Station in DC to Cumberland. Google Maps gives two hours and 123 miles driving from my house in Aspen Hill to Cumberland Amtrak station by car. That’s going via the Intercounty Connector and I-370 to Gaithersburg, I-270 to Frederick, I-70 to Hancock, and then I-68 to Cumberland. I’ve done the drive on I-270 to Frederick a number of times in the past, and so I knew what to expect there. Interstate 70 through to Hagerstown took me over a number of hills and past the Appalachian Trail. I had taken I-70 west the rest of the way through Maryland when I went to Breezewood in 2006. Then I-68 was really awesome. The first thing you do is go through a highway cut through Sideling Hill, and then you go over a number of mountains before you arrive in Cumberland – directly in the middle of downtown.
Categories: Amtrak, Cumberland, Photography, Railroads, Travel
A train ride with far more excitement than you might expect…
4 minute read
September 19, 2012, 9:21 PM
This is also why, when I’m traveling on a public mode of transportation, the idea is to leave early so that I can be at the boarding location in plenty of time, just in case anything goes wrong in the process. Today was one of those days where something went wrong. I described it as a “clusterf—“, and I think that was putting it nicely.
First of all, though, to set things up: I’m in Stuarts Draft right now, and I went there on Amtrak’s westbound Cardinal. To get there, my plan was to take the 51 from my house to Glenmont, and then take the Red Line to Union Station. Initially, things went well. I caught the same 51 that I usually get to go to work, and caught my Red Line train.
And then things went downhill from there.
The Red Line was having a power problem on Track 2 at Brentwood Yard. Thus they had to single track through the yard, during morning rush hour. Whenever you hear “single tracking” and “rush hour” in the same sentence, by the way, that’s never a good sign. So at Glenmont, we sat for several minutes before we started the run – much longer than usual. Then we proceeded to Wheaton and held again. No hold at Forest Glen. Then we held for about ten minutes each at Silver Spring and Takoma.
And then things got worse. There was a second power problem on the Red Line at Van Ness-UDC, with single tracking over there, too. Lovely. By this point, Metro was telling people in the e-alerts to consider taking the Green Line. That’s when you know it’s bad. With two areas of single tracking, I bailed at Fort Totten and took the Green Line.
Renovations at Union Station!
2 minute read
July 25, 2012, 2:16 PM
This is my traditional posted-from-Club-Acela-at-Union-Station Journal entry, because I’m going to be on a train to Chicago with my mother within the hour. Should be fun. However, at Union Station, I was surprised to see a lot of netting and scaffolding in the Main Hall. Last time I was at Union Station, which was in October for the anti-Walmart demonstration, this wasn’t there. From what I can find, this scaffolding and netting is for ceiling repairs necessitated by damage from the earthquake that happened last August.
In any event, it’s pretty neat looking, seeing all of this extra hardware in what is otherwise a very clean looking Main Hall:
Lights under the scaffolding around the statues on the west side of the Main Hall.
Categories: Amtrak, Washington DC
While preparation is good, I really don’t want to have to use it…
4 minute read
July 16, 2012, 11:19 PM
So I’m going to Chicago with Mom in a little more than a week. Like every time we go to Chicago, we’re taking the Capitol Limited both ways, and we’re going to be taking the “L” to get around the city. So far, it looks like it’s going to be a fun trip.
And then of course, you’re welcome to place your bets on how long it takes for a CTA employees with a chip on their shoulder to harass me about photography in the system. Recall that last year, a CTA employee at Fullerton station made a scene about photography. Additionally, I was harassed about it at Howard station in 2010. I occasionally get the same crap from WMATA employees in DC, but I have learned that I can shut them down fairly easily just by standing up to them. I have found that CTA employees are a little tougher to crack than the DC folks, but my lack of access to Chicago transit (living in the DC area and all) makes it harder to figure out what quickly shuts them down.
Now going into this, I have two things in my favor. First, I have the official CTA photo policy from their website. It states:
The general public is permitted to use hand-held cameras to take photographs, capture digital images, and videotape within public areas of CTA stations and transit vehicles for personal, non-commercial use.
Large cameras, photo or video equipment, or ancillary equipment such as lighting, tripods, cables, etc. are prohibited (except in instances where commercial and professional photographers enter into contractual agreements with CTA).
All photographers and videographers are prohibited from entering, photographing, or videotaping non-public areas of the CTA’s transit system.
All photographers and videographers are prohibited from impeding customer traffic flow, obstructing transit operations, interfering with customers, blocking doors or stairs, and affecting the safety of CTA, its employees, or customers. All photographers and videographers must fully and immediately comply with any requests, directions, or instructions of CTA personnel related to safety concerns.
Categories: Amtrak, CTA, Photography
My trip to Stuarts Draft… via Amtrak!
5 minute read
September 27, 2011, 10:41 PM
So this is actually a Video Journal entry. And here it is:
Categories: Amtrak, Cell phone, Family, Staunton, Stuarts Draft, Video Journal, Waynesboro, WMATA
And tomorrow, I’ll be treated to a lovely view of Virginia from the inside of an Amfleet coach…
4 minute read
September 20, 2011, 10:57 PM
Indeed, tomorrow is going to be fun. I’m going down to Stuarts Draft to visit the family, and unlike every past trip I’ve ever made between DC and Stuarts Draft, I’m doing it via public transportation. Specifically, I’m taking the Cardinal, Amtrak train 51. Since it’s only a four-hour train trip, I’m going in coach. That will be a new experience, because aside from like ten minutes in coach on the Capitol Limited in 2007, I’ve always traveled in a class higher than coach, being in the sleepers on the Capitol Limited, and then traveling business class on the Acela and the Downeaster (though it should be noted that the Acela does not have a coachclass section – business class is the lowest class of service).
The reason I’m taking the train is because I will be hosting a visitor as soon as I get back to DC. Specifically, Mom! The reason it worked out like this is because of a perfect storm of events. Sis and Chris are going to be in Virginia to attend a wedding in Blacksburg, stopping by to say hello and have lunch with all of us on Thursday. And of course, I just won’t pass up a chance to see my sister and my brother-in-law, since they live so far away and I don’t get to see them often. Then there’s the National Book Festival in DC, which Mom has attended for a number of years. So because of the timing, it seemed silly to drive down to Stuarts Draft in the Sable, and then take two cars back to DC. So the Sable is staying in Maryland (and it’s likely already parked where it’s going to stay for about four days), and Mom’s Scion is making the trip up and back. But we’re going to be leaving at 4 AM – yecch. I’m not going to the Book Festival, though. I’m just going home. So while Mom’s out meeting authors, I’m going home and taking a nap, getting the rest of the sleep I won’t be able to get on Friday night.
Categories: Amtrak, Cell phone, Family, Swimming, Weight loss
And at last, we finish Chicago…
6 minute read
August 30, 2011, 10:16 PM
Just in case you thought I forgot to finish my description of Chicago, let me disabuse you of that idea. Here’s the last installment of the trip to Chicago.
First thing Sunday, Mom and I had breakfast in the hotel restaurant with Sis and Chris. To save money, since my main complaint about the trip in 2010 was that we spent too much on food, we bought food for breakfast, and had something reasonably healthy for breakfast that we bought at a nearby grocery store. I had oatmeal and some fruit. Yes, I did my darndest to be good on this trip, despite it all. But this being the last day, we splurged a little, and ate in the restaurant.
Then we went down to Rogers Park. Sis and Chris promised us a farmers’ market, and so we saw the farmers’ market in Rogers Park. It was initially raining, but we managed. Since I couldn’t buy anything on account of the train trip that Mom and I would be taking later in the day, I decided to have a little camera fun, photographing the fruits and vegetables for sale. And unlike the CTA workers, who think that when they harass photographers, they are doing it in the name of national security (puh-leeze), the folks at the farmers’ market were more than happy to show off their wares for the camera. And here are some of the results:
