Saturday, August 1, 2020

Kayakers at Great Falls



Thursday, July 16, 2020

Go Visit: Seneca Creek Greenway Trail at MD-28

The Seneca Creek Greenway trail runs for 16.2 miles alongside Seneca Creek in Montgomery County, MD.  There are a number of places to access this trail and I went to the one on MD-28, Darnestown Rd.  I walked west, towards the Potomac River, which is a bit over 6 miles away.

The entrance to the parking lot is easy to miss. As you are going west on 28, it is on the right, just before the bridge over Seneca Creek.  It is a gravel parking lot that will fill up on weekends, but even when it is full, there aren't many people on the trail.  At the far end of the lot is an information sign and the entrance to the Seneca Creek Greenway trail towards the Potomac River.  At the other end of the lot is the trail going towards Black Rock Mill.

After a quick walk down a gravel path, then a little bit of old MD-28, the trail goes off to the left, under the bridge.

There are a number of places you can access the creek from the Seneca Creek Greenway trail.  Here there is a wide gravel bank alongside the water.

The trail is mostly flat, not a lot of hills so it is an easy and relaxing walk.  There are blue trail marker that say "Seneca Greenway Trail" so you don't need to worry about getting lost. The trail is natural surface and goes through a mix of grassy areas, older trees, and some young trees.

Friday, July 10, 2020

Go Visit: Monocacy Aquaduct

 The Monocacy Aqueduct is where the C & O Canal crosses the Monocacy River.  The aqueduct has been restored and you can walk or bike across it.  Right near the parking lot is a large field which slopes gently down to the Monocacy river.  People are often fishing on the river bank.  There is also a boat dock nearby that you can launch small boats from.

 In the early morning sun shines brightly on the arches of the aqueduct.  The aqueduct reflects on the still Monocacy river.

 On the aqueduct looking towards the parking area.  The tow path runs on top of the right wall.  You can also bike or walk down the canal bed.  You don't get good views, but it is a lot smoother.  The tow path in this area is made of compress stone dust, it is smooth and easy to ride a bike on.

 This is at the bottom of the field, the Monocacy aqueduct crosses over the Monocacy river.  During the Civil War, the lock keeper from nearby lock 27, Thomas Walter, convinced confederate general D. H. Hill not to destroy the aqueduct but to instead breach the earthen banks of the canal.

 The Monocacy river as seen from the aqueduct.  The water is smooth and has a light brown color

Less than three quarters of a mile south (turn left on the tow path from the parking lot) of Monocacy Aquaduct is Lock 27 on the C & O Canal.  The lock keepers house is still there and there is a bridge across the lock so you can see it from the other side.  It is a pleasant walk down a smooth towpath with trees shading you the entire way.

If you continue south past Lock 27 you will get to Pepco's Dickerson Generating Station.  There is a constant noise coming from the plant.  Past it, the river is very close to the canal edge and there aren't as many trees shading you.  Whites Ford and White's Ferry are even further south.  From the aqueduct to Whites Ferry is 6.5 miles, a long walk but not a bad bike ride.

There is a small parking lot, but on busy weekend days it fills up early and people park along the road.

Thursday, July 9, 2020

Bethesda Timelapse: Wisconsin and East-West

This morning I made a time lapse of the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue (MD-355) and East-West Highway (MD-410) in downtown Bethesda.

It starts with traffic on East-West Hwy continuing straight onto Old Georgetown Road (MD-187) and turning left onto Wisconsin Ave.  Then southbound Wisconsin traffic gets the green light, followed by northbound Wisconsin with some vehicles continuing north and some turning onto Old Georgetown.  Finally, it wraps up with East-West Hwy getting the green light again.

Also in the video look for people walking, a large T crane moving around, and clouds flying through the sky.

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Go Visit: Whites Ferry

 There is still an operating ferry in the DC area.  Whites Ferry crosses the Potomac near Poolesville in Maryland and Leeseburg in Virginia.  You can take your car across it.  You pay when you get on the barge, no need to pay in advance.  If you have never been on a ferry, it is a fun trip.  I used to commute from Maryland to Dulles, VA and would take the trip twice a day, it was much more enjoyable than being stuck in traffic on the American Legion Bridge.

 Here is the store and grill attached to the ferry, I'm not sure if it is open right now due to CoViD-19

Whites Ferry is also a great place to start a walk or bike ride along the C and O canal.  The canal doesn't have water in this area, but the tow path is in good condition and made of compacted crushed stone dust.  The canal runs all the way from Georgetown in Washington DC to Cumberland, MD.  A total of 186 miles.

Here is the remains of a tunnel that took a creek under the canal, and behind it, a bridge that used to take vehicles over the canal to the ferry.

 Looking south down the canal.  On the right is the tow path, on the left, between the trees is river road.

River Road goes all the way to Whites Ferry, It is a narrow gravel road by the end.

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Go Visit: Lake Needwood

If you are looking for a place nearby to get out and enjoy some fresh air, Lake Needwood is a great place to visit.  It is a man-made lake just outside of Rockville, MD where you can picnic, walk on trails, bike, and boat.  There is no entrance fee for this park which is run by the Montgomery County parks department.

In the main area there is a boat rental place that rents canoes and paddle boats.  You can also bring your own boat, but you have to either pay a day-use fee or get a season pass.

 There is a trail that runs all the way around the lake (about 2.7 miles) as well as a number of other loop trails that branch off from it.  Parts of the trail are gravel and other parts are packed dirt.

I went on a Sunday afternoon, and the picnic areas and parts near the parking lot were busy, but once you got a little ways away it was quiet.  Lots of people walk around the lake, but it is a big loop so it is easy to keep appropriate distance.

At the south end of the lake is a large dam.  You can't roll down the grassy side of the it because of fences, but you can get a good view of the lake.

Saturday, June 20, 2020

Bethesda Streetery

 Due to CoViD-19, Bethesda closed off some roads and put tables on them so that people could order from restaurants then eat while remaining at a safe social distance from other diners.  I was down there on Thursday, the day before phase II reopening began.

 Two musicians were right in the intersection of Norfolk Avenue and Cordell Avenue playing instruments and singing.

Lots of people were out walking around and sitting at the tables eating and enjoying conversation with each other.  Here is one end of the road closure on Cordell Avenue

 The other end of the road closure at Cordell Avenue.

Monday, May 25, 2020

Is it my imagination or is toilet paper back in stock?

Friday morning I went shopping, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a fully stocked shelf of toilet paper!  What a difference from the past 6 weeks.

Saturday, April 25, 2020

How is the US doing with it's COVID-19 Response?

I've seen a lot of ways to compare the US to other countries when seeing how bad it is here compared to other countries.

Many of the comparisons just take the raw number of infections, or deaths which may be useful early on, but as the pandemic continues that becomes less useful.

There is limited availability of testing in many countries, so there are many people who have Covid-19 that haven't been tested.  At some point in the future there will be enough testing, but right now,  the number of infections a poor metric because it significantly under counts infections and due to different levels of testing in different countries, makes comparisons not very useful.  A better metric seems to be death rate.  That too is under reported since some people die without being tested and without going to the hospital, but I think it is more accurate than infections.

The population of the countries is important.  Is it useful to compare the the United States with a population of around 330 million to Sweden with a population of 10.2 million?  Sweden has roughly the population of North Carolina.  I think you have to take that into account and a good way is to do the comparison per million of population.

The pandemic started at different times in different countries, and initially is an exponential curve, so a country with was first infected in February will have a very different number of infections or deaths than one that was first infected in March.  This makes comparisons strictly by date less useful.  Many comparisons I see start at when a country has some number of infections (or deaths).  Very early on the rates of change jump around a lot (if you go from one death to two deaths you double the number of deaths, but you can't have partial deaths).  I've seen a lot of charts start at 100 examples and I think that makes a reasonable place to begin.

Given this, I think a good metric for comparison is the deaths per million by country since 100 deaths were reported.  I couldn't find this chart anywhere, but fortunately, Johns Hopkins University is releasing the raw data they use.  This lets me make my own charts and update them whenever I want.

Here is the chart I made on April 24th.  I didn't include every country, mostly ones that have been in the news.  You can see that South Korea has done very well, just like the news reports say.  They currently have 4.72 deaths per million. Hubei, China, where this started, has really leveled out.

The next group is the US (dark blue on the graph) and Germany (black),  For a while they were neck and neck, but in the past week Germany has done a good job at slowing the death rate while the US has been going up at the same rate for the past few weeks.

The rest of Europe seems to be all following a similar path, and all have a much higher death rate than the United States.  Spain (yellow) is the worst, but France (green) and Italy (orange) aren't far behind.

In the past few weeks Sweden has been held up as an example of a country that has not done stay-at-home orders but still has it under control.  This chart tells a different story.  Sweden (in light blue) is right there with the rest of Europe and deaths are growing faster than the US.  This isn't something I'd want us to emulate.  One oddity of the data you can see is every weekend the death rate flattens out, this has been happening for 3 weeks straight, so it seems like they don't report on weekends.  I'd expect a big jump on Mondays as they catch up then a slower rise for the rest of the week, but I'm not seeing that.

It looks like the US is doing pretty well compared to other countries.  Certainly there are a few other countries doing better, such as Germany and South Korea,
 but there are many more countries doing worse.

Friday, April 24, 2020

Another trip to the grocery store









Saturday, April 11, 2020

This weeks view of the grocery stores

The big change this week is that Giant has made all its aisles one way.  They have put big red arrows on the floor pointing the direction you should go in.  Compliance with the arrows was mixed.  Most but not all people obeyed them but it is a bit of an adjustment, I accidentally went the wrong way once and a couple of times had to go down an aisle I didn't need anything from to get to one that I did need something from.  I do think it makes it a little easier to maintain social distance so I think it is worth it. They also have stickers on the floor in some places indicating a six foot distance.

There is also now a maximum number of customers allowed in the store.  When I was there there wasn't anyone enforcing this, but there were also fewer than the limit so it didn't matter.  During busier times this may be an issue.

Stocking continues to get better with fewer things in limited supply.  There were only two pineapples when I got there, but the rest of the fruits and vegetables are in sufficient quantity.  One thing I did notice is that they have started to run out of less popular items.  I don't know if it is an actual shortage or if they are just prioritizing stocking the basics.  Pastas and sauces had lots of variety available with only a few items out of stock.

A bit change in the rice and beans aisle, especially in the rice.  You can see there is one spot on the shelf that is empty, but plenty of rice.  That doesn't even tell the whole story though, I saw several stacks of cases of rice in other areas of the store and one of the aisle end caps was devoted to rice.  Dried beans are back in stock (except split peas, which this store has had trouble with all winter) and canned beans were also well stocked.  There were two stacks of cases of chick peas on the other side of the aisle, so no shortage there.  In the distance you see some empty shelves where the canned vegetables are, but that is only some brands and varieties, overall there were plenty.

Cake mixes are slowly coming back in stock.  Much better than the past two weeks but nowhere near normal.  There was also a limited supply and selection of flour and sugar. I also couldn't find baking soda which I was shopping for.

Some things are noticeably missing or limited.  First off toilet paper.  I didn't see any of it.  I understand why there was a run on it early on, but I'm surprised that it is still unavailable.  (I also went to Costco a week ago and they were out too).  I did find paper towels at the front of the store with a limit of one, so be sure to check there.  Lysol and Clorox cleaner shelves were empty but a sign said to ask at the register and there was a limit of 1.  I didn't need any so didn't check to see if they were actually available.  Paper plates and cutlery were well stocked, which is an improvement from last week.

Frozen vegetables were pretty picked over, still some but might not be what you want.  Frozen ice cream treats were better than the last couple of weeks but the freezers were out of at least three quarters of the varieties.

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Some flowers to brighten your day

 Over the weekend I went for a walk on the C&O Canal. Spring is in full bloom and I saw many beautiful flowers growing along the tow path.  here are a few of them.

Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Outdoors and excercising with distance

For the past three weeks I've been working from home and exercising by walking around the neighborhood.  This past weekend I really wanted to go for a long walk and have a change of scenery.  Mid March I went to Great Falls (which was great, btw) but the towpath between Great Falls Tavern and the Billy Goat Trail was pretty crowded and I wanted to go somewhere it was easier to maintain my social distance.

I went further north up the canal to get away from the crowds.  I skipped Swain's Lock because it is close enough to Great Falls it gets some of that traffic and it has a small parking area.  There are several other spots that are just a short distance further, the one I chose was Rileys Lock which is conveniently on Rileys Lock Road.  This is where Seneca Creek joins the Potomac River.

There were other people there, walking, running, and hiking but they were easy enough to keep a distance from.  You can see from these first two pictures that much of the time there was no one in sight.

If you choose to bike there, be warned, the tow path isn't as smooth after Riley's lock as it is before and there are muddy areas.  Since it hasn't rained hard in a while they were generally easy to avoid, but in past years when I've gone it has occasionally been treacherous.

Here's a father that will let nothing get in a way.  He was riding on a bicycle built for two with his pre-teen child helping pedal.  Behind that were two more kids in a double trailer (one behind the other) and behind that was another trailer with 3 bikes in it.  I can only imagine the amount of energy pedaling that took.