The ride started out pretty normally.  I got the train at Dupont Circle, boarding Breda 3147 – the lead car.  I was doing Facebook, and noticed this man who looked like a very serious businessman in a suit with his tablet computer and all that…

…and then I noticed that he was actually playing Angry Birds on his tablet.

When we got to Takoma, the train operator powered the train down and left the cab.  My first thought was that he was being relieved to use the restroom, and that a supervisor would be taking over the train shortly.  But no supervisor arrived, and I was starting to get a little bit concerned about when we were going to leave Takoma station.

So I tweeted to Metro:

I figured that’s all it was.  I figured it was just a simple case where the operator was supposed to be relieved, but the supervisor hadn’t gotten there for whatever reason.  Then I heard our operator announce on the PA (from another cab) that the train was going to be offloaded.  Well, fun.  And so off to the platform we went:

If you look carefully (click the image to access the high-res version), you will see that the blue light is lit on the side of the second car pair, which in this case was Rohr 1090-1091.  On the 1000-Series cars, as I understand it, the blue light indicates some sort of fault condition, but I’m unclear about exactly what an illuminated blue light represents on the 1000-Series cars.

There was a supervisor at the end of the platform near where I was standing, and so I asked her about what caused the offload.  Turns out that there had been reports of smoke on the train.  Fair enough.  Once the train was offloaded, the train proceeded down the tracks, out of service, in the normal direction of travel.  This is the usual case when a train goes out of service.  The idea is to take it out of service and then get it off of the line in the most expedient way possible.  The next train was directly behind the train that we were offloaded from, and so it looked like things would have a happy ending.  The next train arrived, everyone got on, I got a seat, and all was well, at least as far as I could tell.  My tweet said it all:

I saw no reason to think that this would be any more than a minor offloading.  The doors closed, and we continued.  Our train stopped short of Silver Spring station.  I looked up from my phone to see where we had stopped, and saw heavy smoke up ahead, coming from the train that many of us had just been offloaded from just five minutes earlier.  My first reaction was to say, out loud, “Oh, S—!” and then get up from my seat to get a better look.  I took a photo:

Yes, that is heavy smoke coming from the train that we had just been on a few minutes earlier.  That, by the way, is also the moment that one realizes that one will not be making one’s bus connection to get home.  That connection to the 51 goes right out the window right there.  Not happening.  Since I was right up next to the cab, I was able to overhear what they were saying on the radio, and our train operator quickly got his orders: reverse your train and go back to Takoma station.  So that’s what we did.  The train operator walked through the train to the other end, and soon we were headed back to Takoma station, where our train went out of service.  The train went back in service on the same track a few minutes later, but as a Shady Grove train.  It was quickly becoming apparent that they weren’t single tracking around the incident, but rather, they were suspending all train service through Silver Spring.  A quick check of the Twitter turned up this tweet from Metro:

That was all I needed to hear.  Time to leave the platform and find a shuttle bus.  By the way, it’s worth noting that most likely due to platform renovations currently going on at Takoma, many people were unable to hear any station announcements being made over the PA system, either from Central Control or from the kiosk.  I couldn’t hear any announcements until I was in the mezzanine.  But since I had information, I took the bull by the horns and led people out.  I held up my phone (it helps to show how you got your information), and as I was walking down the platform, periodically said in a loud voice for everyone to hear that shuttle buses were going to be run between Takoma and Forest Glen.

Outside, there was a pretty sizable crowd.  As is normally the case with shuttle bus service, it takes a while to get them in place.  Thus we had to wait.  My strategy in this case was that I didn’t particularly care if it was a shuttle bus or not.  My plan was to get on any bus going towards Silver Spring and then transfer to a Y bus from there to get home.  Seemed reasonable enough.  The first bus to come in was an Orion V from Ride On.  This was a regular bus – not the shuttle buses that were being run (those would be Metrobuses).  I was close to the bus and tried to board, along with another regular 51 rider, but we weren’t close enough.  After all, a 40-foot Orion V doesn’t have nearly the capacity as a 75-foot railcar, and so we couldn’t get on.  Drat.

However, when the next bus arrived, I quickly realized that I wasn’t going to get on any bus any time soon.  A whole bunch of people rushed the bus:

Seriously, everyone rushed towards the door at once, trying to get on.  And this wasn’t even a full-size bus.  This was a 30-foot “baby Gillig”.  The driver had to stop everyone and get them to board in a more orderly manner.  What you see in the picture is the first people boarding the bus after the driver started letting people on.

It quickly became clear that these people needed to get home far more urgently than I did.  This led me towards looking into how feasible it would be to walk to Silver Spring.  I looked it up on my phone, and as it turned out, it wasn’t that bad of a walk.  It was a 1.7 mile walk from Takoma station to Silver Spring station.  That’s the same distance that I have walked many times before between Glenmont and my house.  I could handle this.  And considering that I had come to the realization that I wouldn’t be able to make it to the pool in time, walking would be a reasonable enough substitute for the lost pool workout.  A few other folks agreed to come along, and we were off!

And by the way: smartphones are awesome.  My phone provided step-by-step, turn-by-turn directions for walking.  Before smartphones, I would have probably waited ages to eventually board a shuttle bus, which is what happened to me in 2009 after the big Red Line collision.  But with the smartphone, I just looked up where I needed to go, and the phone held my hand (so to speak) the entire way.  I think I probably saved myself a lot of time that way.  Plus exercise.

On the way to Silver Spring, I also spoke on the phone with Liz Essley of the Washington Examiner.  It quickly got around on social media circles that I had been on the fire train, and so she wanted to do a quick interview with me.  That went into an article about the incident.

Arriving at Silver Spring, I caught the Y8, and all was well in my world again.  It would be a longer than usual bus ride home, but sitting down in the seat on that Y8 bus meant that I was on a vehicle that was going to get me home.  And based on a tweet that I made as I walked into the house, I got home at 8:23, which is slightly less than two hours later than I usually get home.  But it was okay.  I still got something of a workout, I got to be resourceful and take a leadership role in a crisis (perhaps I can now add “crowd management” to my resume?), and I also made a new friend.

And then Metro performed well enough during the whole situation from what I can tell.  I will not fault them for not having buses waiting in the wings for shuttle service like they do during weekend shutdowns.  By their nature, emergency bustitutions are not planned, and so the buses and their drivers are being employed in other ways doing normal service.  And it takes time to get buses into place for an emergency shuttle service during rush hour, especially if they’re called out of revenue service while they still have passengers on board.  Thus they have to complete their routes and then do the shuttle.  I refuse to fault Metro for that.  If Metro could make fifty buses magically appear to start shuttle service and get people moving again, trust me, they would.  But as much as we wish it were otherwise, saying “hocus pocus alimagocus” will not make a Metrobus suddenly materialize.  Likewise, my hat is off to Metro for offloading my train at the first sign that something was wrong, well before the fire got big (you could see no smoke in the photo above).  Yes, my commute was two hours longer than usual.  But no one was injured during the entire incident.  Better to be slightly annoyed about being late getting home than to be injured while trying to escape a burning railcar, or worse.  The only thing I will fault Metro for is the inability to hear the station announcements from the platform at Takoma.  That needs to be fixed, and hopefully the completion of the platform renovation at Takoma will rectify that soon.

Also: Metro later verified that the fire car was 1091, a 1000-Series car.  The cause was determined to be a connector shoe, which is part of the way that the train receives power from the third rail.  No idea how extensive the damage was to 1091, but the exterior was noticeably blackened in photos posted online.

This evening, I went over to Giant after I went swimming and got all of the stuff to make it happen.  I had the stevia, and I had previously gotten the popsicle molds on Amazon (I tried several places locally, and none had them!).  Then I just had to get the kale, the yogurt, and the fruit.  Giant was out of both the frozen pineapple and the frozen strawberries (hey, it was late in the evening), and so I substituted fresh.  Just as well, I suppose, considering that I was blending it all until it was smooth anyway.

And then when I got home, I started throwing things into the blender.  First, the kale and the fruit:

Then the yogurt:

Then just add the stevia, and then away we go!  At this juncture, by the way, it should be noted that kale on bottom was a bad idea.  It ended up sitting above the blades, and so when I started it up, nothing happened.  I ended up having to mix it around a little bit with a big spoon:

And that took care of it.  Look at this concoction:

At this point, I had a small sample of it with the spoon.  The flavor vaguely reminded me of a Strawberry Julius (from Orange Julius).  One shouldn’t take this as what the final product should taste like, since it’s served frozen, but that was reassuring.  It wasn’t bad.  And then from there it was into the molds:

And then into the freezer:

And now they’re just chilling out in my freezer.  Once these are all frozen, I’ll have to try one out.  I figure I’ll try one tomorrow morning or after work.  I’ll leave a comment below about how they taste once I’ve tried one.  Should be interesting in any case.

Sandwich fixings at the cafe in the building where I work.

A snack at Pitango Gelato in Logan Circle.  I got three flavors: mojito, passion fruit, and pomegranate.

Chocolate iced donuts with sprinkles at the Wawa in Beltsville.

“Cookies and cream” donuts at Wawa.  This may sound unappetizing, but the presentation of the cookie part reminded me more of cigarette ash than crumbled up cookies.  My guess, however, is that these are crumbled up Oreo cookies.

Twisted glazed donuts at Wawa.

So there you have it, I suppose.  For more of my various photo encounters, check out my Instagram feed.

And I am writing this on a Microsoft Surface tablet with one of those flat keyboards.  Take a look:

And you know, a tablet might just be the kind of hardware that replaces my netbook.  That computer is about two and a half years old now, and while I think that I can still get a couple more years’ worth of use out of it, I’m going to have to replace it eventually.  After all, the netbook only cost me $200.  To upgrade it in any significant way defeats the purpose of buying such an inexpensive computer in the first place.  Thus it becomes an outright replacement vs. an upgrade scenario.  And considering how technology is going, I’m thinking that a tablet would be a better plan than another laptop.  After all, you can use a tablet in more ways than a laptop.  Need a camera?  No problem.  It acts like a big camera.  Need a computer?  Great.  It does that, too.  Need to work in a small space?  Great – shed the keyboard and work using the touchscreen.  I can handle that.

The only thing that worried me about using a tablet going into this was the little keyboard:

The tablet keyboard, you see, is as flat as a pancake.  But once I sat down, I quickly discovered that this keyboard is no impediment to my productivity.  As you can see, I’m just flying over it.  It’s a slightly different feel here, but it works.  And it feels natural to me.  So no major learning curve.  I can handle that.  The keyboard also has a trackpad mouse on it, and so it feels just like my netbook.  Awesome.

And then there’s the pen:

That could be handy for all of my various little graphics needs.  I could actually doodle on the screen, vs. drawing on paper and then scanning it in like I do now.  Handy.

And then this thing runs Windows 8.  Not Windows RT, but Windows 8.  Which means that I can bring all of my usual applications over and use them on a tablet.  That’s important, because Windows RT can’t run most Windows applications, and I use a lot of older software that just plain works.  And I am already using Windows 8 on my big computer at home, so I already know the OS.  I have Windows 7 on the netbook, because it’s so cheap that to upgrade the OS would be grounds to replace the bloody thing.

So after testing the tablet out on this Journal entry, I think I might be sold on the tablet as my next computer.  But not for a while.  I still can get a few more years out of the netbook.  Plus tablets are expensive.  This one I’m typing on costs $900 (plus tax).  I’ll bet that by the time I’m ready, the prices will come down and the specs will get better.  They always do, after all.

And by the way, the employees at the Microsoft Store just loved Schumin Web.

And then there was Baltimore.  I was out exploring Fells Point on this particular day.  I chose Fells Point based on an episode of Bar Rescue.  One episode featured J.A. Murphy’s, which was located in Fells Point.  That bar, renamed “Murphy’s Law” during the show’s makeover, had closed, but I knew that going in.  No worries, though.  I wanted to explore.  I parked on the street (in front of Dogwatch Tavern, also featured on the episode), and went to work.  In getting the lay of the land of this area, I ended up dividing it into three sections.  First area was south of Thames Street.  This was the harbor area.  Then the next area was Broadway from Thames Street to Broadway Market.  The street around Broadway Market was a bit of a choke point due to construction on either side of the building that took away the sidewalks.  Then the third area was the block of Broadway between Fleet Street and Eastern Avenue.  I could have gone further north, I suppose, but owing to time considerations, I cut it off there.

And here’s what I got…

First of all, this is the former J.A. Murphy’s/Murphy’s Law.  There a business called Bradley’s of Fells Point is now in the building.

And then it was off to the harbor.

Baltimore Water Taxi.

Docks at Fells Point.

Vintage lettering on the City Pier.

Sea gull over the water.  You know I had to try again with bird photos after my less-than-successful attempts to get a bird in flight in Annapolis.

And then the next section.  I actually found myself most drawn to the construction, where historic building facades had been preserved to reuse in a new development.

Fells Point historical marker.

Construction site behind the facades.

Historic facades along Broadway, supported by steel while construction continues.

And then north of Fleet Street, I mostly centered on another building that was also being supported by steel.  However, this one was a burned out building that originated as a Hecht’s store (though it hasn’t been a Hecht’s in a long time, as I understand it).

The former Hecht’s building has definitely seen better days.  Based on appearances, as well as the current Google Street View imagery as of this writing, the building’s first floor was most recently a grocery store.  It would appear that much of the building is gone from two fires that occurred in the building in 2012.  I don’t know if the awning’s current state is a direct result of the fires, or if it was cut away to erect the steel.  I’m guessing a little of both.

This building had a few iterations of a painted sign on an exterior wall.  From what I can tell, it’s “Rosenstein’s Big Store Clothing and Furniture”.  Not entirely sure what the two other versions of the sign said.

After I finished at Fells Point, I had to do two things in fairly quick order.  First, get out of Baltimore to avoid traffic stemming from an Orioles game.  Then the second thing was to get to Arundel Mills in order to wait out rush hour.  I’ve been to Arundel Mills before, and there’s stuff to do there – enough to entertain me for a few hours while I wait for traffic to calm down.  I have found that taking I-95 or B-W Parkway during rush hour, even on the relatively short distance that I take it (to Laurel) is more fun than I wish to handle.

The trip to Arundel Mills was kind of unremarkable, but I did get one amusing photo of myself at Best Buy:

I call this my “refrigerator inspector” photo.  All I did was set the phone up in the back of the fridge, and use the front-facing camera.

And that was my vacation, more or less.  Now I have a lot of work to do with all of these photos.  Look for some new photo sets based on all of this work… one of these days.

In going to Annapolis, I was kind of surprised at what I encountered.  I knew that Annapolis was a smaller town as state capitals went, but exactly how small it was surprised me.  Realize that every state capital that I had been in or through (Little Rock, Richmond, Boston, Providence) has been its own metropolitan area.  Annapolis reminded me of Staunton, Virginia with a harbor on it.  It was a cute town, for sure.

By the time I did Annapolis, I had done a lot of photography.  By my accounting, by the time I set foot in Annapolis, I had taken 1,971 photos.  So I had pressed the shutter button quite a bit.  I wasn’t that interested in doing a cohesive photo set, though if I ended up getting a cohesive photo set out of it, that would be a plus.  Honestly, I was just looking to see what caught my interest and looked interesting to photograph.  What I ended up doing was wandering through the downtown area a bit, wandering around the harbor, and then going around the Maryland State House.  I had a good time, photographing signs, architectural details, birds, some boats, and (of course) fire alarms.  I feel as though I probably took more fire alarm photos in Annapolis than I did anywhere else on my two week vacation.  The reason was that in Annapolis, unlike in other cities that I photographed, a lot of buildings had fire alarm notification appliances on their exteriors.  Most were just bells, but I did spot one horn/strobe on the exterior of a jewelry store.

So here’s a sampling of what I saw in Annapolis…

Neon sign in the window of a restaurant.

American flag flying near the harbor.

Bird on a dock, with its mouth open.  It looks to me like it’s saying, “Hey, Bill!  It’s over here!”

A child throws bread into the water for the birds, who go after the free food.

Gas pump on a dock, for fueling boats.

A man drives a powerboat down the harbor, seen from near the Compromise Street bridge.

This is the aforementioned fire alarm horn/strobe.  It’s a Wheelock MT with a horizontal strobe (different from my MT), on the exterior of La Belle Cezanne Jewelers.

Steeple of St. Anne’s Episcopal Church.

Front entrance of the Maryland State House.

Maryland State House dome.  I got a bunch of pictures of the dome, but none of them were ones that I thought looked amazing.  This was the least bad in a field of stinkers.  Maybe I’m just not getting it from the right vantage point.

Now that I have seen the downtown area of Annapolis up close and gotten something of a feel for the layout and atmosphere of the town, I could definitely make something out of this area for Schumin Web.  I should come back here during the summer.  I could also have some fun doing nighttime photography around Annapolis.  It might just work!

I got finished in Annapolis right around 3:00.  For those familiar with DC area traffic, that’s not a good time to travel on account of evening rush hour.  My return trip would take me on the Beltway, and I wasn’t in the mood for tackling that.  So I went over to Annapolis Mall for a few hours to kind of pass the time.  Annapolis Mall, for those not familiar, is a very large single-level shopping mall – largest in Maryland, in fact.  It’s apparently an important mall for retail chains, as most places there have invested a lot of money in keeping their store designs up to date.  Compare this to many smaller malls, where store chains haven’t renovated or otherwise updated their locations in decades (Staunton Mall is a good example of this).  The mall has two very distinct sections.  There’s an older part with a lot of skylights, and there’s a newer part that has no skylights and a sloped ceiling.  Biggest difference that I’ve noticed is that you can get pretty good cell phone reception in the older part of the mall, but the newer part of the mall is like being in a cave.  Almost no cell reception in there.  Good luck trying to check your Facebook on that side of the mall.

But that’s not to say I didn’t have fun over there.  I had a lot of fun in Brookstone.  I decided to play with a few of their massage stuff.  Along with the obligatory full-body massage in their big massage chair, I also tried the other massage chair that has a built-in sound system.  So I tried it out with my phone.  I played a few selections from The Rock-afire Explosion on there, specifically their covers of “I’ve Got a Feeling” and various Monkees songs.  Then I also played with a few head-mounted massage devices.  First device that I tried was a head massager.  That fits over the top of your head like a hat.  Its job is to massage your head.  However, I have a big head, and the pressure it put on my head was uncomfortable.  This is the face I made while this thing was running:

I don’t know if the word that you want to use for this is “surprised” or “terrified”, but it certainly felt as though it was going to pop the top of my head off.  And as fun as that sounds, I wasn’t in the mood for that on this particular evening.  Then the other head-mounted massage tool that I tried to test was an eye massager.  It looked like this:

Ummm, yeah.  That looks classy.  And the bloody thing didn’t even work.  I guess all of the other people goofing off in a shopping mall got to it before me, and killed it.

So all in all, not a bad time in Annapolis.  Then I’ll share Baltimore in a separate post.

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.

However, since getting there is half the fun, I have a couple of highlights from the trip over.  First of all, at the South Mountain Rest Area…

Have you spotted the grammar mistake that Maryland SHA made?  Yes, that’s an apostrophe on the sign that does not belong.  They need to fix that.

Also, along I-68, I needed to make another restroom break.  I ended up making this stop in Flintstone, Maryland.  There’s a gas station there, which was my original intent for getting off the highway in Flintstone, but right off the exit ramp, and way closer than the gas station, was a place called “Alpine Pantry”.  It was a really cute place:

While the exterior is nothing to write home about, for someone who grew up in Stuarts Draft, the interior should look very familiar.  Yes, it’s essentially a clone of The Cheese Shop in Stuarts Draft.  It’s a lot smaller than The Cheese Shop, but it sells the same sort of products, and is also Mennonite-run.  However, the most interesting thing was this pair of signs in the entrance:

The first sign was on the front window.  The second sign was in the vestibule as you reached the second set of doors and entered the store itself.  I found these kind of amusing.  I understand that this is private property and they can say and require just about anything that they want, and I can understand communicating desired behaviors by doing it one’s self, but really?  Explicitly asking this of the customers seems like overkill to me.  It generated a lot of discussion when I posted these on Facebook, for sure.

Once I got into Cumberland, I did sort of a loop around the area to get my bearings.  To put it nicely, I was disoriented within the town, as the highway just dropped me into the middle of the downtown area from an aerial structure.  I needed to find the railroad tracks, find the Amtrak station, find the Town Clock Church, and figure out exactly what the extent of the town was so that I could devise a plan.  Add another little surprise to the mix: Cumberland isn’t even a 3G area for Verizon.  I got 1X extended network coverage out there.  Thus data was a bit slow, which made using the phone GPS more challenging, as it took a few tries for destinations to register in the phone with the data issues.  But once the destinations registered on the phone, things went well.  I spotted the church, found where the town trailed off, and then navigated back to the Amtrak station using the phone GPS.  And from there, I determined my boundaries.  I was going to start east of the tracks, and roughly follow the tracks as I worked my way north as far as Town Clock Church.  After photographing the church, I was going to cross over the bridge carrying Bedford and Frederick Streets, explore Cumberland’s Downtown Mall, and then end up back at the Amtrak station.

I parked in front of the Union Street Laundry Mat, which I had spotted from the train before.  I stopped in at the Amtrak station to take a quick look.  That was a little different than I expected:

I admit I didn’t quite know what to expect, but to see a completely unstaffed station like this was a surprise to me.  There wasn’t even a Quik-Trak kiosk at Cumberland.  Additionally, despite the “no smoking” sign, the facility smelled like stale cigarette smoke.  But at least the facility was clean, and the restrooms were impeccable.

And from there, off to see the town.  First stop was the Cumberland Shoe Hospital, which I had previously been unable to tell whether it was open or not.  (Spoiler: it’s abandoned.)  I got some photos of it:

That window was something I really should have played with more than I did.  I really like the reflection off of the big window in the second photo, and I did play with the reflections on that window a little later on in the day.  But during the day, I focused more on the letters than the reflections.

And from there, on to the church…

The church was difficult to photograph without getting power lines in the shot, so I ended up taking a lot of close-in photos to avoid the lines:

It also struck me then that this church has that “haunted building” look to it, and I kind of played that up in the photos just a little bit.  I wonder if anyone ever thought about filming scenes for a horror movie here.  It could work.

Then I photographed from the bridge…

From there, I headed to Cumberland’s downtown mall.  That was a bit disappointing.  First of all, the sun was angled as such that half of the buildings were in shadow – enough to make them not worth photographing.  Additionally, trees in the pedestrian mall made many of the signs difficult to photograph, which reduced the appeal of things.  I did, however, find an interesting labelscar on the wall of one of the buildings:

See the “Peoples Drug” labelscar?  Apparently this location used to be a Peoples Drug back in the day.  Peoples became CVS in the 1990s, and considering that there is a modern CVS/pharmacy store nearby, I’ll bet that this location converted to CVS along with the rest of the Peoples chain, and then later moved up the street.

And then to return to the Amtrak station and the car, I went through a pedestrian tunnel to go under the road and the tracks:

That was the unpleasant surprise of the day.  The tunnel had standing water in it, trash of all manner, it was dark, it had graffiti, and it smelled awful.  I didn’t want to know what that smell was, and after I shot a few photos in there, I left out the other end.  I understand now why I saw so many people crossing the street and the tracks vs. using this tunnel.  Not exactly a jewel in the Queen City’s crown, that’s for sure.

Then after that, I headed up to the WTBO sign.  I knew that was going to be a quick mission: go in, get some photos, and then leave.  The WTBO sign reminds me of the Roanoke Star in that whole sign-overlooking-a-town-from-above kind of way, but it’s different because it’s letters and not a symbol, existing to advertise a radio station.  I kind of knew what to expect up there, as I did a tiny bit of research – just enough to know that the sign is on the grounds of the radio station.  Thus I could plug the station address in and get there.  Getting up there, I was met with a surprise: the radio station is in a residential area!  I would have expected it to be a remote area, but no – a neighborhood, and from what I could tell, one of the nicer parts of town, too.

Going into this, my plan was to visit the radio station and ask permission to go out and photograph the sign, since the sign is, after all, on private property.   However, I took one look at the radio station building and the parking lot, and quickly realized that no one was there.  Apparently the station is operated remotely under normal circumstances.  So I just helped myself.  There was the sign, I didn’t have to go through anything to get there, and that was that.  So the idea was to get in, get the photos, and get out, since I was technically trespassing, and I didn’t want a confrontation with anyone – but I still wanted the photos.  And here they are:

View facing the WTBO sign.

View of the town from behind the WTBO sign.

All in all, not bad.  I was pleased with how these came out, and was careful to be quick up there, but without compromising quality.

After that, I had lunch at a nearby Sheetz station, and then explored a bit by car, since I had time to kill before my next planned activity: trainspotting the Capitol Limited when it came through.  I ended up finding my way to a boat launch adjacent to the Gene Mason Sports Complex.  This is in a park situated along the Potomac River.  Thus the other side of the river, unbeknownst to me at the time (I discovered this from research later), was West Virginia.  There was a railroad bridge over the river (I think this might be where the Capitol Limited comes out?), and otherwise looks pretty natural.  Definitely not like the Potomac River that I’m used to around DC…

From there, I headed back to the downtown area to do some trainspotting.  My goal was the Capitol Limited, but I wasn’t going to turn down some CSX locomotive photos while I was there:

CSX locomotive 578, parked on the track.

CSX locomotive 9010 passes by, pulling a full load of freight cars behind it.

The end of the freight train.

As the Capitol Limited’s scheduled arrival time arrived, more people arrived at the station.  I had a wonderful conversation with a woman who was from PG County, and who was going to school in Cumberland.  Discussed the train, discussed Amtrak, and about Cumberland.  She agreed with my characterization of the town as something of a dumpy little industrial town.  It’s one of those towns where it has seen better days, as many of the buildings look very old, and a lot of the infrastructure looks quite old as well.  I also saw a lot of broken glass all over the downtown area.  No question that it was from broken bottles, but there was a lot of it – everywhere.  We also discussed how different the culture was out there.  Usually when I’m doing photography work, people generally leave me alone.  Here, I had a lot of people strike up conversations with me.  I found that odd, but such is small town USA, and Cumberland is definitely a small town.  It reminded me of Covington or Clifton Forge in Virginia, though on a somewhat larger scale than those two towns.  As a unit, Clifton Forge and Covington are a lot like Cumberland, in that they’re towns in very mountainous areas that feel somewhat isolated, as there are long strings of exits with no services at them around both areas.

And then the Capitol Limited arrived…

The Capitol Limited arrives at Cumberland.

The Amtrak employee on site at Cumberland interacts with the people on the locomotive.

The train departs Cumberland.  Next stop: Connellsville, Pennsylvania.

And with my trainspotting done, there was only one last thing to do, and that was to check to see if the WTBO sign was lit, and go photograph that.  But first, I got a few more photos of Cumberland Shoe Hospital, and played with the reflections on the window a little bit:

Not bad, don’t you think?

Then returning to the car, I spotted the WTBO sign once I got away from the train station, and the sign was lit up.  And so I headed up to see it again.  This time, I knew the drill, and rode right up the mountain and parked.  And here it is, all lit up at sunset…

View facing the now-lit WTBO sign.  Sadly, half of the “W” was burned out on this particular evening.

View from behind the sign at sunset, facing the town.

And with that, mission accomplished!  It was now time to head back home.  Not a bad day, if you ask me.  I definitely want to go out to Cumberland again, and focus on a few things that I didn’t get to focus on this time around.  I saw a number of churches around that I didn’t get to visit this time, plus I want to try for some better photos at the WTBO sign.  The daytime photos weren’t bad, but I thought that the nighttime ones were somewhat lacking.  I should haul out the tripod for those, as the above shots were handheld.  I don’t think they’re necessarily bad shots, but I think I can do better.  But now that I have been there and have gotten a feel for the town, the next time will be easy, though when “next time” will be, I don’t know.  And look for a Photography set from this trip to Cumberland at some point.  Not entirely sure what it’s going to feature, but it should be nice when it’s done.

I did the same thing that I did ten years ago, parking at the east end of the Canal and walking to the other end.  Like in 2003, I walked down the Canal and then headed over to the Belle Isle pedestrian bridge.  I also explored Belle Isle just a little, which I had never done before, as I had previously just gone to the end of the bridge and then turned around.

The biggest take from this trip was that the Canal area had grown up in ten years.  There were some new buildings, and there were new businesses in some of the older buildings.  The area had flooded in 2004 due to the effects of Hurricane Gaston.  I also noticed a lot more character in the area.  One semi-enclosed section of the Canal Walk now had all sorts of murals painted on it.  There was also a lot more life along the Canal itself, with recently constructed housing nearby, and shops and restaurants fronting the Canal.  Previously, the Canal was somewhat disconnected from the surrounding neighborhood, with not much to do on the Canal Walk except to walk.  Not anymore.

Then there was Belle Isle.  First of all, the bridge was giving people fits on this particular day.  The pedestrian bridge is suspended by cables from beneath a highway bridge, and it usually vibrates from people walking on it.  However, on this day, the wind was also causing the bridge to sway from side to side, which was an odd feeling.  It was a little more challenging to walk on, for sure, as one person described it as saying that it was kind of like walking drunk (and I’ll agree with that description).  Others were understandably nervous about walking on the bridge while it was swaying, but it was perfectly safe (the bridge was designed for these sorts of movements), though others indicated that the bridge’s movements were causing them motion sickness.  Me, I didn’t get any motion sickness from it, though I did find the sideways movement somewhat frustrating when it came to shooting photos from the bridge.  Lining up a shot is difficult when the ground beneath you is moving.  I could get the frame lined up well enough, but motion blurring from the movements was still a concern.  Belle Isle itself lent itself to some pretty nice photos of the skyline (such as the current Photo Feature as of this writing), and it also provided a fairly secluded place for people to hang out.  I saw a group of people (late teens probably) sitting in a circle at the east end of the island drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, and then saw a teenaged couple seriously making out a little bit down from them.  I also had a conversation with an adult couple down from the make-out pair, who gave me some tips on photography locations for a future Richmond visit.

But the photos came out pretty well.  Take a look…

Gates leading to stairs beneath the Reynolds Wrap building.

Detail on the Christopher Newport Cross.  Considering that this photo shoot was done on the day before Easter, I found it somewhat fitting, even though I don’t celebrate Easter.

One of the murals that adorns the semi-enclosed part of the Canal Walk (pictured here in 2002).  I saw this, and thought it looked like the evil twin of Looney Bird (from The Rock-afire Explosion).

The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.  Unlike in 2003, when I was harassed by a security guard for photography, I had no problems whatsoever taking lots of photos of the Fed this time around.

Riverfront Plaza Towers.  Compare this photo to the Photo Feature I ran of this subject in September 2007.

A tree in bloom.

Richmond skyline as viewed from the Belle Isle pedestrian bridge, near the river’s north shoreline.

Reynolds Tobacco building.  It has been completely refurbished (compare to 2003 photo), and now contains a restaurant on the lower level, and apartments above.

I got plenty of other photos as well, and those will trickle through eventually.  I’m planning to make a Photography set out of this outing, and then I’m sure that this will turn into a few Photo Features in time.

I was also planning to go to Hollywood Cemetery, which I last visited back in 2009 with the Anons.  However, I ended up running out of time on that one.  While I did get over to Hollywood Cemetery after I finished at the Canal, I found the gates locked.  It should be noted that the cemetery closes at 5:00 PM, and so I had unfortunately missed it by about an hour.  This sounds like something for next time, I suppose.  Couple Hollywood Cemetery with the photo locations that the couple on Belle Isle gave me, and I think I might have a full day.

And then I-95 was a challenge, but such is par for the course.  I-95 between DC and Richmond, is, to put it bluntly, a pain.  It’s always congested, but even if you added more lanes, it’s still going to be congested.  But I did get a photo of the “LOVE” sign at the Fredericksburg Welcome Center:

Of course, Virginia is really only for lovers in heteronormative relationships, as same-sex marriage in Virginia is banned by constitutional amendment.  They really should add an asterisk and disclaimer to their “Virginia Is For Lovers” slogan until it becomes legal in Virginia for anyone to marry whomever they wish, regardless of gender.

And then thank goodness for Sheetz.  There’s a Sheetz in Ashland that I stopped at both ways – on the way down to give the car a drink, and on the way back to get me something to drink.  And following Sheetz, this is the slightly sunburned face of a person who had a very successful day:

And there’s more photography to be done while I’m still on vacation.  I’m going to be photographing up in Cumberland, Maryland on Tuesday.  That should be a lot of fun…

Photo: Isis

Isis found it interesting because everyone in the photo was wearing a hat in front of the “CITY CAP” sign and the mall train (both the other gentleman and I are train enthusiasts).  I found it amusing because I’m standing in a common pose for me when I’m out and about.  Holding my phone and tapping away.  After all, those amusing Facebook/Twitter/Instagram posts don’t just post themselves, right?

Otherwise, we also checked out the remains of Springfield Mall.  For those not familiar, Springfield Mall closed last summer, and is being converted to a town center-style development.  They are retaining the three anchor stores (Macy’s, JCPenney, Target), and are demolishing everything else.  So Springfield Mall is literally a shell of its former self right now.  Take a look:

Then after a few minutes, we got chased off by a mall security guard for taking photos of the demolition.  By the way, as a note to private security guards and anyone else who tries to stop people from taking photos: trying to stop me from taking photos is pretty much a guarantee I will be publishing the photos.  Just note that.  I can understand some concerns about industrial espionage, but seriously, lighten up.  If it’s that secret, actively conceal it from public view.  Otherwise, leave noncommercial photographers alone.

So all in all, not a bad time today, exploring dead (Springfield) and dying (Landmark) shopping malls.

But first, though, in case you’re wondering what the deal with the title is, let me explain.  My trip started out with proof that my kidneys do great work, and that having a cup of coffee before a three-hour road trip is inadvisable.  Yes, I took far more restroom breaks on this trip than I normally would.  I ended up stopping at the rest area on I-66 near Manassas, Sheetz in Madison, the new Trader Joe’s in Charlottesville, and then the rest area on I-64 near Ivy.  Usually I can make it on one restroom break.  But, noooooo… my body decided that this was the perfect time to unload a bunch of water.  And I was not shy about discussing restrooms on social media on the entire trip.  This from the Sheetz in Madison:

And I accompanied this on Instagram with the following caption: “This road trip has been brought to you by the letter P, and by the number 1.”  Yep… that kind of day.

Then on Monday, while at Staunton Mall with Mom, I commented on toilets again:

This was at the JCPenney store.  This time, I said, “This is a single-seat restroom. Why even bother with the partition?”  But seriously, for a one-seater restroom, places usually dispense with the partitions.  Yet this place had one.  Odd.

Then at Costco in Harrisonburg on Tuesday, I discovered that Costco sells toilets.  Yes, they do.  So I wanted to see how a Costco toilet was:

Yes, I got Mom to take a photo of me sitting on the display commode.  And then while we were checking out, I showed the two people at the register the photo.  Mom got back and they were laughing, and she knew.  “He showed you the picture, didn’t he?”  She couldn’t believe, after all, that I (A) wanted to have that photo made in the first place, and (B) that I would show it to other people.  After all, you put a display toilet in a store, and what do you expect?  Plus social media.

Otherwise, though, I did enjoy the winter wonderland out there on this trip.  Realize that it was snowing for two of the three days of this trip.  The snow started on Sunday afternoon while I was visiting with Bergit, and it kept going until late Monday afternoon.  I drove over the mountain while the snow was falling for the first time on Sunday.  That was interesting, with the fog lights (now LED!) on, and big flakes falling.  The road was fine, but I drove more slowly than I would otherwise due to an abundance of caution, just in case.  I’ve been up on the mountain after snow had fallen before, but never during a snow event.  So that made me a shade nervous, and in fact, that was my only concern once the snow started coming down.  I knew how to drive in Waynesboro and Stuarts Draft in any conditions, after all.  And then on Monday after the snow stopped, I put the polarizer on the camera and got some photos of the neighborhood…

I think the last time I saw Stuarts Draft in snow was in January 2010 for my sister’s wedding.  Then it also snowed at my house in Maryland, but by the time I got back, it was gone.

Then the car was pretty gross from all of the snow and salt:

Look at how it wears that salt coating.  The back is particularly gross.  Can’t wait to get that gunk off.  And of course, this just after I put it through the car wash to get some mud off of it (no idea how that mud got on there to begin with).

So all in all, not a bad trip.  I leave you with this: the view out my car’s windshield on Monday right before Mom and I went out for a while:

The article is titled, “Mind the Gap! Where is Afton Mountain?” and discusses the geology of the area, specifically Rockfish Gap, and a few quirks of the local culture.  First, for those not familiar, Rockfish Gap is a wind gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which separate the Shenandoah Valley and the Piedmont region in Virginia.  Because it is the lowest gap for quite some ways traveling both north and south, the area became an important way to travel east and west.  Today, Interstate 64 and US 250 carry travelers through Rockfish Gap.

Technically speaking, this is Rockfish Gap, seen here in a 2003 Schumin Web file photo:

This view, facing east, shows Interstate 64, viewed from a bridge over the highway at the junction of the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive.  There is no signage identifying Rockfish Gap on Interstate 64, even though you go right through it.  If you travel on US 250, you do see signage for it, as US 250 in Augusta County is called “Rockfish Gap Turnpike” from the eastern border of Waynesboro all the way to the border with Nelson County.  Additionally, there is a small sign on US 250 at Rockfish Gap denoting the name of the feature and the elevation.  It’s right here:

Image: Google Street View

As you can see, it’s so small that if you blink, you might miss it.  Then it’s also marked at the junction of the Parkway and Skyline Drive, as one would expect:

Image: Google Street View

However, if you look around that area using the links to Google Street View that I provided, you will find some familiar structures nearby.  You may remember them from various features on Schumin Web, such as Photography sets done in 2003 and 2011, and also various Journal entries over the years.  Yes, folks, we’re up on Afton Mountain.  And, as I think many longtime residents of the area will be surprised to find out when reading the article, what we think of as “Afton Mountain” is technically a misnomer.

As Bailey points out in his article, there are a few things that make the “Afton Mountain” name, as it’s commonly used, a misnomer.  First of all, geologically speaking, the defining feature of the area that we refer to as “Afton Mountain” is a wind gap.  There is no mountain peak in that area, but rather, a low spot in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Second, the area that we refer to as “Afton Mountain” is not generally considered part of the community of Afton, Virginia.  The community of Afton is firmly within Nelson County – not straddling the line between Augusta and Nelson Counties.  I should point out that all of the (mostly abandoned) buildings that I have shown you on the mountain are in Augusta County.  The boundary runs just east of Dulaney’s property, adjacent to The Inn at Afton and the former Skyline Parkway Motel.  To reach Afton from Rockfish Gap, you take US 250 a short distance, and then make a right turn onto Route 6, and go down the mountain.  There, you will find the community of Afton, about two miles away, according to Google.  The area that people refer to as “Afton Mountain”, according to photos that I’ve tagged on Panoramio, is “South River, Virginia” (see example).  Don’t worry – I’ve never heard anyone use “South River” to refer to that area, either.  Bailey’s article indicates that Interstate 64 east of Rockfish Gap is located on the south side of Scott Mountain.  I’ve never heard anyone use the name “Scott Mountain” to refer to that area, even though that is technically more accurate.

I would also guess that many people in the area most closely associate the term “Rockfish Gap” with Rockfish Gap Outfitters, a local outdoors store (similar to REI) on the eastern outskirts of Waynesboro.

And third – and I didn’t know this prior to reading the article – there is actually a summit named Afton Mountain according to the United States Geological Survey, but it is approximately two miles southwest of what is popularly referred to as “Afton Mountain”, i.e. Rockfish Gap.  But there’s an interesting twist to this: that name is only around fifteen years old.  The U.S. Board on Geographic Names was petitioned to name a mountain “Afton Mountain”, and they did.  Bailey mentions that based on the location, calling it “Swannanoa Mountain” would be a better fit, and I agree.  Calling that peak “Afton Mountain” was a poor decision, considering the local usage of the term.  The designation seems to muddy the waters a bit.  So naming an actual peak “Afton Mountain” came much later than popular use of the term to describe Rockfish Gap.

Having lived in Stuarts Draft for fifteen years from 1992-2007, I think I might be able to shed some light on where the “Afton Mountain” name came from in the context of Rockfish Gap, and what it means.  First of all, the term was already common when my family moved to the area in 1992.  Additionally, for those who have lived in or are familiar with the area, it is generally understood when one says “the mountain” without qualifying the term, it means Rockfish Gap.  To get to Charlottesville from Augusta County, you go over the mountain.  Yes, the Blue Ridge Mountains are referred to locally as “the mountain”.  I use this terminology on Schumin Web like it’s the most natural thing on Earth, such as in a 2011 Photo Feature that is titled “Broken window on the mountain“, and in a 2011 Journal entry where I say “the mountain” without any qualification first, and say “Afton Mountain” later.  And it all refers to Rockfish Gap.

I also wonder how many people use both terms.  I use both “Afton Mountain” and “Rockfish Gap”, and I use them to mean different things.  In reading Bailey’s article and then looking at my own writings, I came up with a good explanation of the two usages.  For me, I say “Rockfish Gap” to refer specifically to the passage, more along the lines of naming a landmark.  I use “Afton Mountain” as a place name to describe the general area, much like how neighborhoods and communities have names.  Think “Ridgeview Acres” and “Sherando” here.  I consider the place known as “Afton Mountain” as the areas along the Interstate 64 and US 250 corridors, beginning in the places where the elevation starts to go up.  In other words, this is the area that I would call “Afton Mountain”:

Image: Google Maps

This saxophone-shaped area is that which I would refer to as “Afton Mountain”.  It starts at the Waynesboro city limits (right after Exit 96 going east on I-64), and encompasses the two roads’ paths until the roads reach the bottom on the other side in Albemarle County.  It includes Rockfish Gap itself, it includes the abandoned buildings and The Inn at Afton, but it does not include the Blue Ridge Parkway or Skyline Drive.  Thus once you hit the Parkway, you’re not in an area that I would consider to be “Afton Mountain” anymore, despite being on the same mountain ridge.

How I differentiate between the two terms is best exemplified in this quote of mine from the Humpback Rock Photography set.  There, I said, “The site is approximately six miles south of Rockfish Gap (and the abandoned buildings on Afton Mountain), accessible via the Blue Ridge Parkway.”  I said “Rockfish Gap” to refer to the landmark along the Blue Ridge Mountains as one passes through along Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Then I said “Afton Mountain” to refer to the general area.

The distinction that I draw between the two terms may be lost on some.  And I admit that I say “Afton Mountain” way more than I say “Rockfish Gap”.  But it does rectify the discrepancy between the geological feature and the popular name for the area.

Now how the area got to be called “Afton Mountain” in the first place is a bit of a mystery.  I did a Google search and came up with an article about the history of the area, as well as a timeline, but no one mentions how the “Afton Mountain” name came to be applied to the I-64/US 250 corridor through Rockfish Gap.  The best explanation that I can come up with is that the term originated with Interstate 64, which opened in September 1971.  There are few references to Rockfish Gap on US 250, which predates Interstate 64 (and the “Rockfish Gap Turnpike” name on the Augusta County side only dates back to the early 1990s), and there are no references to Rockfish Gap at all on I-64.  There is only one exit on the mountain, Exit 99, at Rockfish Gap.  It’s signed as such, as seen on Google Street View:

Image: Google Street View

Image: Google Street View

The first image is a sign on eastbound I-64, seen as one is climbing the mountain on the Augusta County side.  The second is at Rockfish Gap itself, on westbound I-64, just before the exit.  Of the two town names seen on Exit 99 signage, Afton is unique to Exit 99, and Waynesboro is also listed with top billing on the previous two exits: Exit 96 (Waynesboro/Lyndhurst), and Exit 94 (Waynesboro/Stuarts Draft).  Additionally, when traveling eastbound, one passes a sign that says that one is leaving Waynesboro.  Then the next exit is Exit 107, signed for Crozet, and by the time the first sign for Exit 107 comes up, one has been off of the mountain for a while.  So from this information, it is reasonable to think that Exit 99 is located in Afton.  Signage on the exit ramp does not seem to contradict this perception.  Turn left for Waynesboro, and turn right for Afton, and eventually, Charlottesville.  And the first sign of civilization that you see when you turn right is the mostly-abandoned lodging and restaurant complex.  So it is reasonable to think that this must be Afton.  But for those who stay on the highway (like those going to Charlottesville to shop), there is no signage to mark the features that the road is traveling over, and “Waynesboro” is shared with two other exits.  This leaves “Afton” as the only term that drivers see that is unique to the mountain.  The use of “Afton Mountain” reasonably follows from that, and there is no signage to contradict this assumption.  And then I would also assume that once the term became common, it took on something of a life of its own.  This would make sense, since it is the de facto place name for that area.

Thus far, I have found nothing to contradict my theory that Interstate 64 gave birth to the “Afton Mountain” name.  The Inn at Afton, which dates to the 1960s (predating I-64), was a Holiday Inn until the mid 1990s, when it took its current name – thus it’s consistent with the theory.  Afton Mountain Vineyards, a locally-owned producer of wine, according to what I’ve found, dates back to the late 1970s.  No contradiction there, either.  Afton Mountain Bed & Breakfast only dates back to 2002.  No problems there.  The only proper name that I have found in documented use for places in that area prior to Interstate 64 is “Skyline Parkway” on some old postcards that someone scanned and sent to me, for some now-abandoned motel properties (you know which ones).  That name is clearly derived from the nearby Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The location of the places depicted on those cards is described as the intersection of US 250, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and Skyline Drive.  No mention of “Afton” or “Afton Mountain” anywhere.

So if anyone can find evidence to contradict my theory for how Afton Mountain, as the name is most commonly used, became known as such, please let me know and leave a comment.  I would be interested to hear about it.  So far, that’s the best I’ve got to describe how the area came to be called “Afton Mountain”, despite that the name really is a misnomer for a number of reasons.

But, hey, no one ever said that local names for places had to make sense, right?

Now in looking at all of this, I latched onto the fatalities related to crossing the arterials.  I am on each side of the pedestrian-driver coin in Montgomery County at various times, and so I am familiar with both driving around pedestrians, and walking around cars.  And I have crossed Georgia Avenue on foot many times.  In these instances, the Columbia Pike incident happened in the southbound lanes at the intersection with Oak Leaf Drive in White Oak.  The Connecticut Avenue incident happened at the intersection with Everton Street, in the Wheaton area.  The Georgia Avenue incident occurred at the intersection with Heathfield Road in Aspen Hill.  I looked at these areas, and there are some common factors in all of them:

• All three incidents occurred after dark
• All three incidents occurred at unmarked crosswalks (any intersection is considered a legal crosswalk in Maryland whether it’s marked or not)
• The main roadway in all three locations is a six-lane divided highway with three lanes on each side
• There are bus stops on both sides of the road at all three locations
• There is street lighting on the side of the road where the incidents occurred (Columbia Pike and Georgia Avenue have lighting on only one side in these areas, and Connecticut Avenue has lighting on both sides)

I hope you see the pattern here: these people were most likely struck while crossing these major roadways to reach a bus stop.  This is a major problem, and I sense that there is plenty of room for improvements that will make the roads safer for both drivers and pedestrians.

The incident on Georgia Avenue occurred about a mile away from where I live.  The intersection with Heathfield Road is just north of Home Depot.  So I visited the location this evening to take some photos of the area at night (wearing my Metro safety vest so that I was visible), using 15-second exposures (thus these photos make the area appear brighter than it really is).  Here’s what I found…

The speed limit through this area is 50 mph.  Generally, the speed limit on Georgia Avenue gets progressively slower as one travels south between the Intercounty Connector and the Beltway.  The speed limit is 50 from the Intercounty Connector to just north of Connecticut Avenue.  There, it drops to 45, and stays at 45 until just south of Glenmont station.  There, the speed limit drops to 35 for the remainder of the distance to the Beltway.

The bus stop on the east side of Georgia Avenue at Heathfield Road, served by the Y5/Y7/Y8/Y9 bus routes.  There are no streetlights on that side of Georgia Avenue.  The orange light in the foreground is coming from streetlights on the opposite side of Georgia Avenue.  The greenish light to the left of the bus stop comes from an apartment complex’s security lighting.

Wider view of the same area, facing approximately southeast.  The southbound lanes of Georgia Avenue are closest to the camera.  Note lack of pavement markings for a pedestrian crossing, and also note how the security lighting, even with the help of my long exposure photography, does not reach the other side of the roadway.

Same location, facing approximately northeast.  Again note lack of a marked crosswalk, and the dark areas on the road.

View up Georgia Avenue from Heathfield Road.  Southbound traffic is coming off of a slight curve in the road and continues down a small slope towards Connecticut Avenue from this location.  Due to the hill, pedestrians are lower than the driver’s horizon until fairly close.  See for yourself on Street View.  A pedestrian crossing sign exists before the curve.

And then for those wondering, this is what Georgia Avenue looks like at night in real life, taken without the aid of long exposure times, about a mile north of this location at Leisure World Plaza:

Councilwoman Navarro’s analyst, Ken Silverman, mentioned in a blog post on this matter about making various physical improvements to the area and also aggressive enforcement of the area.  Silverman also, however, said, “It may not be feasible for everyone to dress head to toe in reflective orange[...],” which to me sends the wrong message.  It seems to suggest that one is invincible when wearing high-visibility clothing.  That is the wrong message to send.  You’re not invincible just because you’re wearing bright yellow or orange, plus reflectors.  I wore a safety vest to take these photos, but I behaved like I wasn’t wearing it.  These folks who think they’re invincible when they’re wearing high-visibility clothing can still get hit just as easily as someone who isn’t wearing any.  So shame on him for that.

I also don’t know if aggressive policing is necessary just yet.  That seems to be something that you do after you make improvements to the roadway.  In fact, the thing that seems quickest and easiest to me would be to mark those crosswalks adjacent to bus stops.  This is helpful for both pedestrians and drivers.  For pedestrians, it says, “Cross here.”  While I was taking these photos, I observed several people crossing the road in any number of different ways.  Not all of them took a straight path across Georgia Avenue, with some crossing diagonally from the bus stop to Heathfield Road.  Some guidance seems in order here.  For drivers, a marked crosswalk serves as a reminder that pedestrians will be crossing the road at this location.  I’ve been driving that stretch of road for years, and it never really occurred to me before that this is an area with high foot traffic.  I always think of Georgia Avenue as a place where angels fear to tread.  I try to avoid crossing Georgia Avenue on foot whenever possible.  But as I observed tonight, lots of people cross to use that bus stop.  A marked crossing is a constant reminder that people cross the street here.

Another solution along with explicitly marking the crosswalks is more/better signage.  I don’t think it’s necessary to install overhead flashers for these sorts of crossings.  However, it might be a wise idea to install flashers on the pedestrian crossing signs that already exist.  I again use my own experience here, and didn’t realize that this was a high cross-the-street area.  Draw attention to it.  And yes, flashing lights are noticeable.

Additionally, as far as physical improvements go, the lighting needs to be improved dramatically along much of Georgia Avenue.  Currently, the streetlights on this section of Georgia Avenue are a bit far apart, with large dark patches on the sidewalks and the roadway.  The fixtures themselves also appear to be quite old.  I have no doubt that the fixtures are at least 30 years old, and probably even older than that.  This seems to be something that could save the county money in the long run through reduced energy usage by replacing the older streetlights with newer and more energy-efficient models (think LEDs).  And in addition to energy efficiency, newer fixtures use the light more effectively as well, pointing it down at the street where it belongs, vs. the older fixtures, which don’t do as well in this regard.  This also would be the opportunity to reimagine placement of light fixtures.  Why only light one side of the street?  That is also the perfect time to remedy truly dark stretches of road where pedestrians go.  Take Georgia Avenue between Bel Pre Road and Leisure World:

No, you are not imagining things.  There are no streetlights in that area, which leaves Georgia Avenue very dark through that area.  And due to the speed limit, plus the way people tend to speed, people drive through that area at freeway speeds, and there are four bus stops along that stretch (two on each side).  Lighting would make this a far safer stretch of roadway for drivers and pedestrians alike.

And as with marked crosswalks, lighting is a situation where everyone benefits.  The drivers can see better, pedestrians can see better, and each has a far better chance of seeing the other.

Then lastly, I kind of alluded to it earlier, but a lowered speed limit would increase pedestrian safety as well in these areas with higher foot traffic.  It might be worth evaluating whether the Georgia Avenue corridor has grown to the point where it is a good idea to extend the 35 mph speed limit north of where it currently ends.  It could also be an option to eliminate the speed increase to 50 mph at Connecticut Avenue and leave it at 45 all the way to Olney.  Or step it down to 40 from Glenmont Metro to Bel Pre Road.

And then once you make all of the physical improvements, then you can pay for it all by putting the cops out on fundraising detail in the area.  But you have to agree – the status quo is no longer acceptable, because one life lost, let alone three lives lost for the same reason, is too many.

After all, what’s the fun of having a monkey wrench if you can’t throw it in someone’s plans, right?

Meanwhile, it’s funny how this picture came about.  I actually was out looking to buy a monkey wrench today, and so while I was out with my friend Matthew today, we stopped by the Home Depot in Reston to look for one.  Turns out, by the way, that monkey wrenches aren’t cheap.  The cheapest monkey wrench at Home Depot was $15.  The monkey wrench that I am holding in the picture was $100 (needless to say, I wasn’t about to buy it).  After a discussion with a salesman, we determined that a pair of slip pliers would be sufficient for what I was doing, which was to change the showerhead in my bathroom.

The reason I ended up changing the showerhead today should be taken as a lesson for anyone who would otherwise be inclined to install water-saving devices in their house.  The property management where I live notified us that they would be installing compact fluorescent lights and low-flow faucet aerators and showerheads.  They did this last Tuesday.  So far, so good, right?  I got home that night to see all of the changes, and while the new CFLs were nice (I have been using CFLs since I moved in, so now I have a spare set), the new low flow devices were horrible.  I quickly realized that these new devices weren’t saving me anything, and if anything, used more water than the older devices because they ran so slowly that it took twice as long just to wash my hands.  It also lengthened my shower time considerably because of the slow water.  I’m guessing that if these new water-saving devices had kept the pressure the same and just put out less water, I would have kept them.  But since they killed the water pressure that I was getting out of my taps, they had to go.  The old aerators went back on the same night, and I finally put the old showerhead back on this evening after getting the proper tool to do it.  Funny how these well-intentioned changes backfired, though.  The assumption was that one would use less water and take the same time doing it.  But no – the water ran so slowly that it was harder to do everything.  Net water saved was zero or worse, plus it pissed me off in the process.  And I was actually welcoming the changes when they announced them, because I’m all for being green.  But the implementation here was terrible.  But at least I learned something.  I also got to stand on the side of the tub and fool around with the showerhead.

So in short, don’t fix what isn’t broken.  And now I know that I can change a showerhead with relative ease.

In this dream, I was at the building where I work in DC, and I was in the office doing work.  And outside, at least according to the dream, there was a volcano erupting.  Yes, a volcano.  In the DC area.  I know.  That said, this volcano was one of those explosive types of volcanoes, putting out tons of volcanic ash, but no lava, much like the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius that buried Pompeii.  In fact, in the dream, I even recalled that this was just like Pompeii.  Volcanic ash was falling all over, and the entire city was going to be buried, just like in Pompeii.  And we were all apparently doomed due to falling ash and poisonous volcanic gases.  It didn’t matter in the dream that Pompeii was only buried under nine feet of ash and my office is on the third floor, at least twenty-some feet above street level.  We were all doomed, and our building was going to get buried.  Completely.

With me so far?  Basically: big volcano erupts in DC area, ash falling all over the place, we’re all going to die.

The thing that got me in this dream was actually my own reaction.  Of course, I’ve noticed that in dreams, I seem to often “have a copy of the script” and know many details that are taken as indisputable fact within the dream’s fictional universe as things play out.  Thus how I knew volcano, ash, and pending death.  The only thing I saw in the dream was the inside of my office building.  Which had orange-red walls in my dream.  (Go figure.  The real office has mostly eggshell walls.)  But as my coworkers were panicking due to our impending burial by volcano, my reaction was indifference to our fate, because I had stuff that I had to take care of.  Yes, I was doing work as we were about to be buried under ash, decay completely, and then become plaster casts when we were rediscovered a thousand and some years later.  And yes, the idea of plaster casts of our final positions like happened in Pompeii came up in the dream.  I know.

Have you also ever noticed that sometimes in a dream, you’re also something of an outside observer as well as a participant?  This was the case here.  Apparently my subconscious cast me in my dream, playing myself.  But then at the same time, I’m also watching it all play out, almost as if it’s a play or a TV show.  And I was puzzled by my own reaction to our impending doom in the dream as the dream was happening.  Why was I completing tasks for work when we would all be dead soon, including me, and I knew it?  I remember thinking that it was odd as I was really not reacting to it like I would expect someone to react to knowing that they are about to die at the hands of nature and that there is nothing that they can do about it.  I would think that I would recognize that doing work around the office is pointless if I knew that a fiery death would be coming in the very near future.

You would think that it I would be experiencing something like the five stages of grief in some form or another.  But no, I was ignoring it because I had work that had to be done, impending doom or not.

Now what’s strange is that I actually experienced something like the five stages of grief for fire drills in high school.  Specifically, it happened in situations where the fire drill was either preannounced in the morning, or I somehow got wind of what would otherwise be a surprise fire drill ahead of time, and it was scheduled for the beginning of fourth block, which in my high school was the last period of the day.  So for all intents and purposes, I got to fidget all day waiting for a sudden, loud noise (we had Simplex 4040 horns in my school) that was coming near the end of the day.  And I couldn’t predict exactly when the sudden, loud noise would be coming.  I had my watch synchronized to the regular bells, so I knew when those were going to ring, right down to the second.  But the fire alarm was a manual activation.  Couldn’t do that.  But on days with that situation (and I can think of three times where it happened), I found myself kind of in denial of it, that they really wouldn’t be having the fire drill, later on, as third block came around, I found myself kind of negotiating with myself, figuring out if I could get away with sneaking outside ahead of time and waiting somewhere, out of sight, outside until the fire drill was over (I never convinced myself on that), and then when it was time to go to fourth block, resigning myself to the fact that a sudden, loud noise was coming very soon and accepting this fate.  But then once the alarm was going off and everything was underway, I was fine again.  But yeah, on those particular days (January 30, 1997, September 9, 1997, and September 8, 1998, but who’s counting?), learning pretty much went out the window as I was more or less consumed by the impending fire drill. The fire drill is about the only thing that I remember from any of those days (that and smashing up the Previa later on in same day as the September 1997 drill).

And so in real life, for something that death would probably be preferable to (I really hated the “surprise” part of “surprise fire drill”), I went through some stages over the course of a day.  But then, in a dream, everyone is going to die, including me, I’m going around doing work?  I don’t get it.

If you think you know or otherwise want to offer your own views, feel free to comment.  I feel somewhat at a loss on how to interpret this one.

So there you have it, I suppose.  For around half the cost of a pair of compression tights at Sports Authority, I am outfitted.  I got this snazzy pair of jogging tights at TJ Maxx for $15, and then I got the wicking shirt at Target for $20.  Not bad, if you ask me.  And, it all holds my stomach in place quite well.

And yes, I will wear shoes when I actually use this outfit for exercising.  I was trying it on for the camera at home in this case, and so, yeah, I didn’t bother to put on shoes for the photo.

Meanwhile, I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to call the activity that I’m planning to do on weekends (in addition to my swimming regimen).  Do I call it running?  Or is it jogging?  What is the difference between the two?  Does jogging turn into running?  Where is the boundary?  According to fitsugar.com, a nine-minute mile is the difference between jogging and running.  And you know, I might be able to pull that off.  Who knows.

Now, of course, I’ve got to figure out how to get started.  First of all, I think it’s still too cold right now to do some outdoor jogging.  No treadmills for me – I hate the blasted things.  I am going outside for this.  The real question is, how long is too long when I’m starting out?  I’ve only gone running once before, but it had potential, though I was paying for that run for a while afterward, and that was less than a mile.  I don’t want to overdo it, but I don’t want to waste my time, either.  I did that September run back from my haircut as a run/walk.  I started out sprinting, and then I switched to a walk until I caught my breath.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Not a bad time, though.  I think I went through about three run/walk cycles to get home.

As far as routes go, I have a pretty good jogging course right near me.  The Matthew Henson Trail is right across the street from me and parallels my street for some distance.  I looked up the distances, and to leave my house, get on the Matthew Henson Trail at one end of my street, go to the end of my street via the Matthew Henson Trail, and then go back home on my street is 1.7 miles, and I could do it (mostly) continuously without having to stop for traffic.  I worry that this may be too much to do at once, though, but it’s definitely something to work my way up to.  What I want to eventually be able to do is go the length of the Matthew Henson Trail or similar length.  A similar length would take me from Georgia Avenue to Twinbrook station.  For that I would take the Matthew Henson Trail from Georgia Avenue, go through a neighborhood, west on Randolph Road, and then up past the Rockville Target and around to the west side of Twinbrook Metro.  That’s a little less than 4.25 miles.  Then from there, my reward: a Red Line ride from the Shady Grove side, which I don’t usually do (since I can reach everything there more easily by car).  And yes, the two branches of the Red Line are only about four miles apart.

So that’s the plan.  I have goals.  I have ambition.  Come some unseasonably warm day, or once it gets warm out, I’m doing to start jogging.  I am digging this.  And if you jog, please leave a comment with some pointers!  My coworkers have given some pointers, mainly related to the impact level of jogging vs. swimming, but any other tips would also be greatly appreciated.  Any pointers on a jogging fanny pack?  iPod holder?