Piedmont Maryland

1) Does this shirt make my belly look big? ... or ... 2) Some of them may look out-of-shape, but they ran up-and-down the field the whole game.

(Or: hey, can we see what you guys have in there?) (Most photos of lacrosse face-offs are generally just dominated by, well, a player's backside; but hopefully this one is an improved variation on that theme.) In a lacrosse game, play starts with a face-off (at the beginning of each period, and after every goal) and certain rules must be followed to ensure fairness by each player. It seems like a lot of officials/referees in a small area, but in a few seconds one official will back off about 15 meters and the other will stay closer to observe the face-off technique. (Hood College, in white, versus Shenandoah College.) Lacrosse was developed hundreds of years ago by North American First Peoples as an alternative to war, generally in the area of what now is western New York, and they called it baggataway or tewaarathon. It was named "lacrosse" by French Catholic missionaries who thought the deer-hide and wooden implements carried by competing warriors looked like "the cross" carried by penitents on their way to Mass.

(Suggest: Full Screen view) ... Milkweed Tussock Moth Caterpillars are poisonous, as evidenced by nature's characteristic warning colors. They become poisonous by eating milkweed leaves which contain a cardiac poison. So, nothing eats them. But the adult Tussock Moth is comparatively drab brown, and would be prey only to bats. It also is poisonous, but at night-time and without bright coloration, the adult moth has evolved an organ that warns away bats with an ultrasonic signal easily detected by bats. The signal warns the bats to avoid a noxious distasteful mouthful.

(Suggest: view Full Screen) ...

This old building (history undetermined) is located directly on the banks of the Potomac River and adjacent to The C&O Canal, and in modern times houses a raw river water intake facility of the Frederick County (Maryland) Water Treatment System. Apparently this water intake system was installed around 1969 (though the building is much older), and at that time the pollution of the North Branch of the Potomac was so bad nobody would swim or fish in it, much less drink or wash in it. (The fish had all died anyway.) South Branch was OK; I did a lot of swimming and water recreation there. This pumping station is downstream from the confluence of the North Branch and South Branch, and of the Shenandoah River too. I sure hope they used a lot of filters and chlorine back then.

... where the railing stops, and where the shadow starts, can trick the eye ...

75 & 80 Dragstrip seen better days.

Through-the-Window (3 of 3) -- Inside an old residence in old Middletown Maryland. Truly historic, this Main Street here is actually a pre-Revolutionary War thoroughfare that led from Baltimore and Georgetown (Washington DC) to eventually what was the beginning of the National Road. Wikipedia says: "The National Road was the first major improved highway in the United States built by the federal government. Built between 1811 and 1837, the 620-mile road connected the Potomac and Ohio Rivers and was a main transport path to the West for [hundreds of] thousands of settlers".

Through-the-Window (1 of 3) -- Kind of spooky when viewed "On Black" ...

The backside of the announcer's tower at abandoned "75 & 80 Dragway" ... (a family-run community drag racing track that eventually closed down when the owners got too old and/or disinterested to operate it anymore.)

I think this is a depiction of whipped cream on a cup of, I guess, hot chocolate. An unusual trend (and maybe it is widespread, and maybe it is somewhat wacky) has a local chapter: Frederick Rocks. As noted in a local news article, "... the idea is to paint rocks with positive messages and images on them, hide them throughout Frederick County, Md., and whomever finds them can either keep the rock or hide it again, so the process can be repeated." 1) Apparently some people have too much time on their hands; and 2) I did not fawn over this rock, nor toss it in the nearby creek, but just pushed it further back into the fencepost mortise; and 3) people nowadays don't realize the sanctity of a battlefield where men fought and died, so they do frivolous stuff.

Old shed by the pathway at Gambrill Mill, Monocacy Civil War Battlefield

Gambrill Mill, Monocacy Civil War Battlefield ----- American Civil War -- In Summer 1864 U.S. Grant's National Army had Robert E. Lee's Rebel Army trapped near Richmond Virginia, and William Sherman's National Army was "marching [rampaging] through Georgia" heading for South Carolina. So in time, barring a nasty miracle, the industrial northern United States was going to defeat the agricultural secessionist southern Confederacy. But that miracle nearly happened!! A small Confederate army outmaneuvered a poorly-led National army in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and invaded Maryland and turned toward Washington DC. National General Lew Wallace [later of Ben Hur fame] gathered a scratched-together, outnumbered force of regulars, reserves, and invalids; and fought a bitter delaying action on the banks of the Monocacy River 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Washington DC. Wallace's force was defeated and scattered, but the Confederate army was delayed for nearly a full day. It then marched on through Maryland to assault the previously unmanned defenses of Washington. But the Confederate attack came only an hour after veteran National troops sent by ships from Grant's army disembarked to successfully garrison Washington's defensive forts They got there just in time. (and as a spectator Abraham Lincoln nearly got himself shot). One or two hours changed history-that-could-have-been. Thus, repulsed in an attempt to invade the Capital of the United States, the Confederate army eventually retreated back into Virginia; on the way, they demanded ransoms from towns in Maryland and southern Pennsylvania, and burned Chambersburg Pennsylvania in retaliation for Nationalist depredations in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia ... And the American Civil War then bloodily proceeded to the now inevitable Confederate surrender.