The Weekend Before Crhistmas in Baltimore

OK, a few mundane weekend things . . . .

I hung out in Baltimore this past weekend, pretty nice weekend with TONS OF SNOW. 20 inches or so.

Friday night we went down to Fells Point and had supper at Brick Oven Pizza (BOP), good pizza, best pizza I have had in Baltimore to date. I think that of the three big named places for pizza in Baltimore I would have to rank them Brick Oven Pizza, Iggies and Matthews. Matthews is the crowd favorite, but I don't know why. BOP had a great crust and a good selection of toppings. Iggies had good toppings, but I was not a fan of their crust - - it was very thin. Matthews, the one that has the most press, was kind of disappointing, weird crust, plain toppings, just not that spectacular. None of them could beat the original Valentinoes, though.

After pizza, we went to a local Christmas attraction: 34th Street. Folks on the block went close to the Griswold level to decorate their houses. There were some pretty standard decorations (Pictures in the normal picture place) to some very Baltimore-unique stuff. Old Bay seasoning, crabs, National Bohemian beer cans (Natty Bo?) and some other kitschy stuff were predominant throughout the street. The highlight was an open house where a guy had some of his metal art work out. I am not a fan of eclectic art, so I was mostly in the "Hmmmm, Nice?" mode. You be the judge, and let me know what you think. Sparkplugs, really? Um, ok, if you say it is art, it is art.

I probably should have left that night, everyone was talking about how much snow was going to fall in B'more that night, I didn't believe it. Of course, we got about a foot of snow that night, and another 8 inches that day. Way too much for this Carolina loving man. I took a couple of pictures of my car under the snow, very tragic. We did some driving around on Saturday (had to find coffee, no electricity in the house or in the local 7-11, tragedy), but, quit after we realized that there were way too many crazy folks, and way too much snow. Luckily, the power went out too, so it was just a great weekend. We played a little bit of Scrabble and just hung out, basically, not that much else we could do. The power came back on about 6 pm. We ended up the night by watching the latest Harry Potter movie. Not sure what the folks were thinking when they made that movie, but it was very confusing to me. I had even read the book, and had problems following the movie, and I thought some of the actors were just going through the motions.

I came back Sunday morning, and hung out on the bay, so, good weekend.

Why is Myron undressing in the snow?

So, why IS Myron getting naked? Who is Myron . . . . .

We had the third hike with complete strangers brought together by the internet, it was pretty good, but VERY cold. Friday, the temp was just below 32 degrees, but there was a 30 mph wind hawking through the valley as we were hiking. It warmed up to a balmy 33 degrees on Saturday, and the wind disappeared. All in all, a good hike. We went from just north of the Pennsylvania border south to Washington Monument State Park. Some of the terrain was challenging, there were some good ups, and fierce downs, it was definitely AT hiking, there were a lot of rocks, some very pretty streams, good views of the valley and snow. Andrew (from my first MD section hike) and his climbing buddy Myron (pictured above) joined me for the hike.

We started off by shuttling cars around, so we had a car at either end of the section. This almost caused a Strategic Hiking Error (SHE) on my part: We left the parking lot on the north end, hiked about a mile when I realized that I had left the keys to my truck in Andrew's car. Luckily, I recovered and went back to the car and got the keys. That would have been really bad. After the key recovery, we hiked about 7.5 miles into MD and stayed at the Raven Rock Shelter, older shelter, but big enough for me to hang my hammock inside the shelter. Now, this would normally be poor hiker etiquette, but I waited until about 7:30 PM to hang the hammock, so there was really no chance that another hiker would come through, especially with the temperature dropping down. Who, in their right mind would be hiking on that weekend? Even in the shelter, it was kind of a cold night, I had another SHE: I left the end baffles on my hammock quilt open, so it wasn't as effective as I really needed it to be. I realized this about midnight, got up and made the correction, snug as a bug in a rug after that.

Saturday we started off about 7:45 and hiked pretty steadily throughout the day. The highlight of the day was Myron crossing our second stream of the day . . . .

Myron's Demise:

Stream crossing on the AT can be kind of iffy, especially on Saturday, cold weather + water + rocks = some icy rocks. On this stream crossing, Andrew went first, found a pretty good path, pointed out a very icy rock for the next guy to avoid and waited on dry ground. Myron made it to the second rock, but hesitated on rock #3, there was a bit of ice and he probably should have gone on to rock number 4. He hesitated slightly, which is BAD when crossing streams - - -you lose your momentum. Then, he went into a climber's pose, tried to get a third point of contact on the rocks, then went in. If it wouldn't have been 32 degrees or so, it would have been kind of funny to watch, and after it was all over, we all did get a chuckle, but, Myron took a spill off or rock #3. For the record, Andrew laughed first, I had two thoughts: 1. Damn, I bet that is cold. 2. "I wish I had a camera . . . . " (a quote from the Peony Park accountant-hag, Smokey). I couldn't get my camera out quick enough, so I went across to stream to see if I could help out. Myron quickly changed into dry clothes and we kept on hiking.

Myron's final resting place, just in front of the tree.

The rest of the hike was pretty tame as far as the AT goes, some ups, some downs, and some very urban hiking areas, good hike. We ended up at the Washington Monument, which as per AT tradition was at the top of a hill. Myron was a good sport about it, and admitted he would probably hike again, but would really rather wait til it warmed up a little bit. I agree with him, I think our next hike will be Marchish.

The Magic of the Internet

I am very new to the Maryland area, some things are kind of interesting to me. One of them is the magic of the internet. So far, I have found a running group, a local hiking group and a group of folks that are interested in enabling my Appalachian Trail hiking habit. All of these folks, prior to me meeting them were perfect strangers, but we did some initial introductions on the internet, and then took off on some runs and hikes. So far, no axe wielding maniacs on any hikes.

In addition to the hike on the Appalachian Trail (Harper's Ferry to South Mountain State Park in Maryland - - home of the original monument to George Washington), I hiked with a group of folks in Gunpowder Falls State Park, just outside of Baltimore. Pretty good hike, I put some pictures in the normal area to the right, about 3 hours of walking, talking, looking, picture taking, generally enjoying nature. This was the day after the first snow storm here, so there is a lot of brilliant white stuff on the ground, but it was not too cold or anything. By the time we got done it was kind of melting, but it was a good day for a hike.