Here’s what my desk will look like after I get organized. Meanwhile I’ll keep this handy as a reminder of Belmont’s July 29th field trip to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. A few other snaps from, in, or outside:
What we really went to see, a day or two before the exhibition closed July 31st:
July 6th news from the blue bench garden appears here.
Fredericksburg Area Runners Club: Saturday morning runs start 7am in the summer, across the road from Hyperion Espresso.
First performance was Saturday June 25th 7pm at St Peters Lutheran. Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3qJWQCPC_M\u0026t=19s ; part 2: https://youtu.be/4BqmDEPNoE0. We repeated the concert 3pm Sunday at the Marine Corps Museum (not recorded).
Hartwood Precinct Election Officials, June 21, 2022: Heather Smithson, Mike Friedel, Cassie Corcoran, me, Chuck Schafer, Robert Bady, Margery Schafer, Bob Jankovits, and Electoral Board Secretary Gloria Chittum. A Republican primary for the Virginia’s new 7th district of US Congress. Just 685 people came to vote in our precinct, 244 for Vanuch, 220 for Anderson, 98 for Vega, fewer for Reeves, Ross, and Ciarcia. However this NY Times report shows the winner as Vega (endorsed by Ted Cruz) with 10,875 votes (28.9%). She’ll face Democratic incumbent Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger in November.
Above, one of a pair of pre-Civil War catalpa trees in front of Chatham Manor, facing Fredericksburg on the far side of the Rappahannock River. Below, 1, the Fredericksburg railroad bridge seen from the Chatham bridge, and 2, the city dock with Gary the white goose supervising his adopted Canada goose family.
Nick’s pic of Dad on his 101st birthday.
More pics to come from Dad’s family birthday weekend. Meanwhile, following is a 1993 USGS satellite image including Dad’s 28 acres. I had been hoping to find the subsequent satellite image I remember clearly showing the X in the oats field (which here appears as a perfectly clear rectangle). The corn field and the punkin field also appear clear here. We never knew what to make of the strange spiral formation on the neighbor’s property to the right.
The old Western Maryland Railroad station at Meyersdale is now the Meyersdale Historical Society and a great rest stop for cyclists, walkers, and runners on the Great Allegheny Passage Trail. That trail (which Trudy H and I bicycled three years ago) runs 156 miles from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, where it connects to the C&O Canal trail for another 184 miles to Washington DC (I haven’t done that leg yet). Only about a mile from the Meyersdale Station is the Salisbury Viaduct, 1900 feet long, and 100 feet above the Casselman River and US Route 219. The viaduct selfie below is from April, when I had a run from Linda McD’s house a couple of miles towards Pittsburgh and back, then a couple of miles towards Cumberland and back. This view of the viaduct I snapped from the car on our Export trip in May.
How times change: on the Bloomery Pike from Paw Paw, West Virginia, towards Winchester, Virginia.
When we Export Ridouts first explored Appalachia in 1963, naively unaware of the practice of chewing tobacco, we were amused to see ancient and decrepit barns, freshly painted and exhorting “Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco — treat yourself to the best.” Gareth’s comment this week: “Eschew Mail Pouch Tobacco?” Commissioned photo by Jan G, at speed, looking backwards from side window. More about Bloomery and bloomeries.