Trips and Tips
Featured Events This Week
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Winter’s Eve
Join Piscataway Park and its barnyard favorites like Sir Nigel the Hog Island sheep, for their holiday festival. Take a ride in the lighted hay wagon, tour the livestock barn, explore the historic Laurel Branch farmhouse and garden by candlelight, try candle-dipping and sing carols around the bonfire on…
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Dutch Gap: Paddling a Rewilded Landscape
I set out one perfect fall evening to visit Dutch Gap's tidal lagoon, formed as a result of 20th-century mining operations. I soon discover there’s no better place to explore the interactions between nature and humans than Dutch Gap, nestled along a bend in the James River about 10 miles south of Richmond. This area was once wooded land and swamps. But from the 1920s to the 1960s, mining companies scoured the site…
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Suggested Trip
Harpers Ferry: Where History and Natural Beauty Converge
When visiting Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, I began my journey at the visitor center where I got a map and advice on trails to hike. The cost per vehicle was $20 at the main visitor and parking section. Limited parking is available closer to the park at the station parking lot. Listening to information about the park on the shuttle to Lower Harpers Ferry got me excited to hike the…
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Suggested Trip
Exploring the Patuxent around Jug Bay
When Captain John Smith and his crew ventured up the Patuxent River aboard their Discovery Barge in early August of 1608, they found Late Woodland Indian communities settled in villages all the way up to Mattapanient. Thanks to the accuracy of the extraordinary map that he published in 1612, we know that village site endures today as the Merkle Natural Resources Management Area. Capt. Smith named this location along what is now…
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Suggested Trip
Kings Creek – A Water Trail Fit for Royalty
When Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy’s 2014-2015 Chesapeake Conservation Corps volunteer Christine Burns created the Kings Creek Water Trail, her goal was to “connect people to our rivers and ultimately inspire them to help protect these special places.” I first kayaked on this peaceful, secluded waterway in 2006, nine years before the water trail was officially launched, and observed that the solitude, natural beauty, and diverse ecology of the area would make Kings Creek a water trail…
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Event Spotlight
Fleet Week Baltimore, Past and Present
Over thirty years ago, I served as a Marine on board the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), the last and largest conventional (non-nuclear powered) U.S. aircraft carrier. When our crew of over 5000 wasn’t working or training to support naval flight operations, we were given the opportunity to spend time in various ports. Some of these ports celebrated our visit with Fleet Week, an event first recognized in 1935 at the California…
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