Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Fort McHenry 03-19-06
Click here for the Fort McHenry photo album.
I went to two places on Sunday, the B&O Railroad Museum and Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine. The B&O Railroad Museum requires permission to publish their photos and I am still waiting for it. I will blog the trip to the B&O when I get the permission and post the images.
Fort McHenry (see also, In Depth) in Baltimore, Maryland is a really great place to visit. It has history, industry and a bit of nature and a lot of scenery. You’ve seen me complain before about how badly park services treat their parks on their websites and often leave it up to the individual parks to provide more detailed information. By clicking on In Depth you will see an effort to provide more information. There is a considerable amount of good information on the monument here. As of this writing, the “Last Updated” date is February of this year so it shows someone is making an active effort to maintain the page. In Depth also has a good aerial photo of the site that is good to refer to when viewing some of my photos. Local.live.com also has good aerial photos and bird’s eye views. Using the aerial photos and bird’s eye views can be good if you want to locate some of the features I have photographed.
It was in the 40s but quite windy the day I went to Fort McHenry. I do not like to go out photographing on windy days because of all the stuff that can be blown onto the lense of my camera. I really loved by visit here. The Fort is beautiful and well kept and has good signage. Some of the exhibits inside the buildings in the Fort are dark and hard to see in, but I think they are making a point. That is what it was like in 1814. The flag pole is a replica of the one that was there when Francis Scott Key wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the flag that was flying the day I was there is smaller than the one he would have seen due to the wind that day. They do have a full size flag and when the wind speed is right, they hoist it up. They don’t use the full size flag all the time because it would cause undue stress on the wood flag pole. Note that the flag has 15 stars and 15 stripes.
In addition to the features of the Fort, the position of the Fort lends to excellent views of some of the industries around it. I saw quite a lot of ships. Of particular interest to me was the Ro Ro (Roll On-Roll Off) ships. One opened at the nose and the other opened at the rear. According to the Atlantic Ro-Ro Carriers website, they have 7 ships and travel between St. Petersburg, Russia and several US ports, one of which is Baltimore. There were also three big boxy auto carriers and a few other ships. Some industries could be seen on shore as well. I even scored a shot of some covered hopper railroad cars near where the Ro Ro ships were. I also got a very good shot of the WWII Liberty Ship John W. Brown. I thought it might have been a Liberty Ship when I was looking at it, but did not think it was likely. When I looked up Liberty Ship on the web, the website for that ship was the first hit. Read their site if you are unfamiliar with Liberty Ships. They played an important role in WWII.
Also visible from the Fort grounds is the huge Francis Scott Key Bridge. It does not look that large from the Fort, but I drove over it while going to North Point State Park to get pictures and it is huge. I had the opportunity to watch one of the big auto carrying ships pass under it on its way out to the Chesapeake Bay. I had the excellent opportunity also to watch and photograph a pair of tugboats head out from the direction of the Inner Harbor towards the auto carrying ship, once the ship was underway they returned. I got a picture of the two tugs returning along with a pilot boat heading out.
There were quite a lot of birds around the Fort, mostly waterfowl. I saw three different kinds of ducks, the Bufflehead, the American Wigeon and the Mallard. There were also some Double-Crested Cormorants flying around. I want to stop for a minute and talk about two resources I bought to help me identify birds. I dislike seeing something and not knowing what it is, so I am viewing my adventures as an educational experience as well. The first item I bought is a fold up waterproof “quick-guide” by a company called “Local Birds” – I got it from the Chesapeake Environmental Center. The second is the “Peterson First Guides Birds” book. I felt like it was written specifically for me because the beginning of the book goes into the basics of bird identification which itself is an educational experience on what kinds of birds there are out there. I will definitely be buying more from the Peterson First Guides collection. The book is excellent sized to drop it in a backpack and keep it with you while out on the trail, but I intend to keep it here at home base for identification after I upload the pictures. I bought this book at the Battle Creek Cypress Swamp. So anyway. Before I had these resources, the only bird I could identify was the Mallard. What is interesting is that while the Mallard will dip into the water for lunch, the Wigeon will actually dive. I saw a raft of about 6 of these things off shore and they would disappear from view for 30 seconds at a time.
There is also a trail that winds around the Fort next to the water all the way around. There is also an oddity on the property, a large statue to Orpheus. Read this PDF file to find out why it is there.
This is an excellent if somewhat surreal place to visit. The view over the archaic cannons aiming out to the modern industry can help put a bit of a perspective on how much things have changed.
I went to two places on Sunday, the B&O Railroad Museum and Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine. The B&O Railroad Museum requires permission to publish their photos and I am still waiting for it. I will blog the trip to the B&O when I get the permission and post the images.
Fort McHenry (see also, In Depth) in Baltimore, Maryland is a really great place to visit. It has history, industry and a bit of nature and a lot of scenery. You’ve seen me complain before about how badly park services treat their parks on their websites and often leave it up to the individual parks to provide more detailed information. By clicking on In Depth you will see an effort to provide more information. There is a considerable amount of good information on the monument here. As of this writing, the “Last Updated” date is February of this year so it shows someone is making an active effort to maintain the page. In Depth also has a good aerial photo of the site that is good to refer to when viewing some of my photos. Local.live.com also has good aerial photos and bird’s eye views. Using the aerial photos and bird’s eye views can be good if you want to locate some of the features I have photographed.
It was in the 40s but quite windy the day I went to Fort McHenry. I do not like to go out photographing on windy days because of all the stuff that can be blown onto the lense of my camera. I really loved by visit here. The Fort is beautiful and well kept and has good signage. Some of the exhibits inside the buildings in the Fort are dark and hard to see in, but I think they are making a point. That is what it was like in 1814. The flag pole is a replica of the one that was there when Francis Scott Key wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the flag that was flying the day I was there is smaller than the one he would have seen due to the wind that day. They do have a full size flag and when the wind speed is right, they hoist it up. They don’t use the full size flag all the time because it would cause undue stress on the wood flag pole. Note that the flag has 15 stars and 15 stripes.
In addition to the features of the Fort, the position of the Fort lends to excellent views of some of the industries around it. I saw quite a lot of ships. Of particular interest to me was the Ro Ro (Roll On-Roll Off) ships. One opened at the nose and the other opened at the rear. According to the Atlantic Ro-Ro Carriers website, they have 7 ships and travel between St. Petersburg, Russia and several US ports, one of which is Baltimore. There were also three big boxy auto carriers and a few other ships. Some industries could be seen on shore as well. I even scored a shot of some covered hopper railroad cars near where the Ro Ro ships were. I also got a very good shot of the WWII Liberty Ship John W. Brown. I thought it might have been a Liberty Ship when I was looking at it, but did not think it was likely. When I looked up Liberty Ship on the web, the website for that ship was the first hit. Read their site if you are unfamiliar with Liberty Ships. They played an important role in WWII.Also visible from the Fort grounds is the huge Francis Scott Key Bridge. It does not look that large from the Fort, but I drove over it while going to North Point State Park to get pictures and it is huge. I had the opportunity to watch one of the big auto carrying ships pass under it on its way out to the Chesapeake Bay. I had the excellent opportunity also to watch and photograph a pair of tugboats head out from the direction of the Inner Harbor towards the auto carrying ship, once the ship was underway they returned. I got a picture of the two tugs returning along with a pilot boat heading out.
There were quite a lot of birds around the Fort, mostly waterfowl. I saw three different kinds of ducks, the Bufflehead, the American Wigeon and the Mallard. There were also some Double-Crested Cormorants flying around. I want to stop for a minute and talk about two resources I bought to help me identify birds. I dislike seeing something and not knowing what it is, so I am viewing my adventures as an educational experience as well. The first item I bought is a fold up waterproof “quick-guide” by a company called “Local Birds” – I got it from the Chesapeake Environmental Center. The second is the “Peterson First Guides Birds” book. I felt like it was written specifically for me because the beginning of the book goes into the basics of bird identification which itself is an educational experience on what kinds of birds there are out there. I will definitely be buying more from the Peterson First Guides collection. The book is excellent sized to drop it in a backpack and keep it with you while out on the trail, but I intend to keep it here at home base for identification after I upload the pictures. I bought this book at the Battle Creek Cypress Swamp. So anyway. Before I had these resources, the only bird I could identify was the Mallard. What is interesting is that while the Mallard will dip into the water for lunch, the Wigeon will actually dive. I saw a raft of about 6 of these things off shore and they would disappear from view for 30 seconds at a time.There is also a trail that winds around the Fort next to the water all the way around. There is also an oddity on the property, a large statue to Orpheus. Read this PDF file to find out why it is there.
This is an excellent if somewhat surreal place to visit. The view over the archaic cannons aiming out to the modern industry can help put a bit of a perspective on how much things have changed.
