Seein’ the DMV: Celebrating the Holidays 2025
As I have mentioned in previous posts, this has been a difficult year for my family. I’ve kept my travels close enough to the DMV that I could get back fairly quickly if needed. With the passing of my eldest sister’s husband in October, I’ve intentionally stayed close to home. Sometimes, though, we are blessed through difficult moments. My sister asked me to sing for the memorial service. I’d stepped away from public performing, but I couldn’t refuse her. The blessing I received was both spiritual — rediscovering that I still have the gift to sing, but I have to change the way I do it — and practical — a limited return to public performance. I am even considering giving a concert in late Spring 2026. More about this if it actually gets past the wishful thinking stage. Holiday Concerts in the DMV Most of November and December was…
Seein’ the DMV: Three Shorts – August-September 2025
There’s a lot going on in my family, so I’ve stayed pretty close to home base lately. However, I did make three short excursions that I’m sharing here. Western Maryland Mountain View – August 28 2025 has been filled with astrological sights, or at least more have come to my attention. One of my efforts has been to find a dark sky site–one where the effects of ground lighting offer no/limited interference to viewing the night sky–within a two-hour drive of home (plus a quickie-trip would give me an excuse to test drive my new prescription shades). My latest effort was a drive to western Maryland, initially to Catoctin Mountain Park. I found numerous hiking trails and cabins for housing, even a swimming pool and various other event sites. I also passed a road with cautionary signage that might have led to Camp David, which I read was in close…
More Tennis and a Really Big Drive-In-August 2025
I’ve stayed pretty close to home this August due a family situation and a need to be readily available. There have been two little trips, though. The first was an impulse drive to Baltimore County, Maryland. I’d seen something about drive-in movie theaters, and my research yielded information about one there. Popcorn and a Drive-in Movie Bengie’s Drive-In, which advertises itself as “the home of the BIGGEST Movie Theatre Screen in the USA,” is located in Middle River, approximately a half hour’s drive from Baltimore. If I was going to make the drive there, I would need to leave early enough in the day to avoid both DMV and Baltimore rush hour traffic. So, I decided to see if there was a state park nearby and found that Gunpowder Falls State Park-Hammerman Area was close enough to the theater to make it a layover destination for that afternoon. The park…
Seein’ the DMV: Concerts and National Aquarium
Two Concerts I don’t normally post about musical concerts I attend because I don’t like to write reviews. However, I’m going to spend a little time touching on three concerts I attended in July, but the bulk of the post will cover my second visit to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Since my return to the DMV, I have taken as much advantage as I can of the stage events offered here. This summer, this has included concerts from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s Summerfest schedule–an all-George Gershwin program and movie music by John Williams, plus the performance of Carl Orff”s Carmina Burana, performed by the National Symphony Orchestra, soloists, Choral Arts Society of Washington and the Children’s Chorus of Washington. The Gershwin concert started what was a very busy week on Sunday, July 20. The program included his Cuban Overture, excerpts from the opera Porgy and Bess, Rhapsody in Blue,…
Unplanned Mini-Trip: Rock And Roll HoF, Cuyahoga Valley NP, Western Maryland Scenic RR
Some trips just happen. This was one of them. I was watching a news story on Monday, June 9th, about the extremely rare Strawberry Moon scheduled to occur on Wednesday and decided I would find an different place where I would see it. Next morning, with minimal preparation, I jumped into the Silver Bullet (SB), texted a family member I was headed out of town, and drove towards Ohio’s Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Now, those of you following this blog know I have been there before. Twice, in fact, in 2024, first to witness the total solar eclipse, then traveling on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad. On neither visit, however, did I actually see much of the park itself. The downside of unplanned trips is that I WILL forget something. In this case, I forgot that my usual ability to get satisfying photos from the camera on my very dependable…
Seein’ the DMV: A Day in Baltimore and Some More Old Business
First, the Old Business Found another set of pictures with no post to describe them. This time, I traveled to the Living History Farms in Urbandale, a suburb of Des Moines, with my new student host daughter for a rally during President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign for his second term in office. I wanted my host daughter to experience this great American event as part of her time studying in the United States. The young woman was from China, and I wanted her to observe a part of the election process and to see the president in person. One of the nice things about being in Iowa was that candidates for president, even incumbents, made it their business to visit the state regularly, so this was not the first time I had attended an Obama event. In fact, I was at his first visit to Grinnell College in 2008. Even…
Seein’ the DMV: Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center
I woke up unusually early Sunday morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. After watching the sun rise, I realized that I wanted to get out and enjoy what looked to be a sunny–if not particularly warm–day somewhere other than home. After searching on my cellphone for scenic drives in Maryland, I decided to connect with my return to researching spirituals by taking the Harriet Tubman Byway, what was described as “a self-guided driving tour that winds for more than 125 miles through the beautiful landscapes and Maryland’s Eastern Shore,” as well as into Delaware. Mistake number one was not making sure that the full route was downloaded to my phone. As it worked out, Wifi access in that part of the state is spotty at best. Secondly, I underestimated the scope of the trip, thinking I could do most, if not all, in a few hours. It clearly needed…
Finding Harriet Tubman Museum-123119
This post demonstrates the disadvantage of uploading photos without immediately writing the blog. Sooner or later, something is going to fall through the cracks. In this case, I managed to forget to write the blogs for pictures I loaded from four different trips in 2019, to DeSoto Preserve (Iowa) in August, to a workshop at the University of Michigan with side trip to Detroit and the Gerald Ford Presidential Library in September, and December’s trips to the African American Museum in Washington and the Harriet Tubman Museum in Maryland. Oh well, here comes a series of backtrack blog post…. At this point, I don’t remember why my youngest brother and I decided to make the 1.5 hour trip to the Maryland Eastern Shore town of Cambridge, location of the Harriet Tubman Museum & Education Center. However, I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that we made the trip the day after…
Seein’ the DMV: With the Fishes–National Aquarium, June 2024
I love aquariums. I always try to have one in my home, even a one or two gallon one, and I imagine having a 50-gallon saltwater tank filled with fish. Since that isn’t likely to happen, I settle for visiting aquariums, and I now live within a short drive to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Since the city is in Maryland, I decided to use the visit as my DMV exploration entry for June. I left early enough to have lunch at a restaurant one of my brothers recommended. I’m afraid I didn’t really like the fish filet I ordered. Despite this, I want to go back when I can try their pasta, which looks very tasty. The National Aquarium is in the Baltimore Inner Harbor area where several cruise tours that look like possibilities on future trips were based. I had come on a Friday afternoon when the aquarium…
Ease on Down the Road (Day 4)
Nearly bit off more than I could chew today. I’d spent several hours in the gracious company of Eugene Simpson, with whom I discussed several research approaches to Hall Johnson’s compositional philosophy and ways I should prepare for a much more extended visit and study of the Johnson collection. I then visited and got a tour of the home of my host daughter, Tianhan. We went out for an enjoyable dinner of shrimp (me) and grilled octopus (Tianhan) at an uptown restaurant in Philadelphia. (BTW, if you know of a dignified way to eat corn-on-the-cob and take the head off of shrimp, please let me know.) I am so proud of how well she is adapting to her new surroundings, which are so very different than Iowa. Since she’s now graduated from the college, I guess I’m not technically her host mother any more, but I hate giving up the…