Soldier's Delight Natural Environmental Area

We wanted to get a hike in today, but we also wanted to avoid the traffic of everyone returning from a long weekend. Soldier's Delight Natural Environmental Area, northwest of Baltimore fit the bill. The area has some of the rarest habitat in Maryland, including oak savanna, partly due to its unique geology. You can read more about that here. The day started gray and foggy, but cleared up about halfway through our hike. We had a pleasant 6-mile walk and saw a number of flowers along the way.

 Oenothera biennis (Evening Primrose)

Red Dog Lodge, which was a hunting lodge for the former landowner.

 A rabbit looks on skeptically while I try to take its picture.

 Ferns growing on the chimney of the lodge.

 Packera anonyma (Small's Ragwort)

 A snail hiding in a borehole in a tree.

 The serpentine barrens that the area is famous for.

Arabis lyrata (Lyre-leaved Rock Cress)

 Silene caroliniana (Wild Pinks)

 The entrance to chromite mine that once operated here.

 We had lunch near this tiny pond and listened to Green Frogs call to each other.

 A mushroom near the trail.

 A white moth on Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia)

 An Eastern Box Turtle.

Cerastium arvense var villosum (Serpentine Chickweed) a rare variety that only occurs in serpentine barrens

Assateauge Island and Old Rag

We spent this weekend camping out on Assateague Island with several friends. We rarely go to the beach. Michael and I grew up about as far from any ocean beaches as you can get in this country and neither one of us saw the ocean for the first time until we were adults. We just don't feel the draw that a lot of other folks do (the mountains, on the other hand...). We just don't get out there much. We've been out to Assateague a few times, but always in late fall or early winter and we hadn't ever spent more than a couple of hours out there. This weekend, some friends organized a camping weekend out there and we had a great time in spite of some marginal weather.

We arrived on Friday and, although the water is still pretty chilly, it was warm enough to play in the surf for a little while. We had great weather that night and even lucked out that a large thunderstorm passed just south of us.

 Our campsite in the state park.

 Improvised clotheslines between the Subarus.

Oenothera humifusa (Seaside Evening Primrose). These were all over the beach and they just looked like a non-descript groundcover. Shortly before sunset, they all bloomed.

Saturday, we awoke to high winds, which only strengthened as the day progressed. In the middle of the afternoon the gusts were around 40 mph. It was also 20 degrees colder than the previous day. We originally planned to kayak on Saturday, but that wasn't in the cards. We wound up doing a bit of walking on the beach and on some of the bayside paths. Then we spent the afternoon in a coffee shop.

 Early morning beach walk

 A sandpiper feeding in the surf

 Michael flying a small kite

 A crab burrow

 A horseshoe crab shell.

Sisyrinchium atlanticum (Coastal Blue-Eyed Grass)

This morning, the wind settled down some and we were able to go kayaking on Ayers Creek, which is slightly inland and a little more protected than the bay behind the island.

 Heading upstream

 Our group where the creek narrowed a little.

 One of our friends

Michael near the end of our kayaking trip.

We had a blast and many thanks to our friends who organized the trip.

I also wanted to post a few pictures from our last trip up Old Rag with ORMS. It was kind of a crazy day: over 90 degrees when earlier in the week it had been in the 40s and raining. People were so not prepared. We rarely give out water because we don't want people to think they don't have to carry it. We wound up filtering water out of a water source on the mountain because there were people in visible heat distress.

In any case, there were lots of great flowers blooming and we had a good day:

Houstonia cerulea (Bluets)

Geranium maculatum (Wild Geranium). As an aside, if you have a sunny spot with marginal soil in your garden, these do really well and they are widely available at local nurseries.

 Conopholis americana (Squawroot)

 Obolaria virginica (Pennywort)

 Orchis spectabilis (Showy Orchis)

 Trillium grandiflorum (Giant Trillium)

 Uvularia perfoliata (Perfoliate Bellwort)

 Pedicularis canadensis (Lousewort)

 Barefoot hiker headed down from the summit towards the rock scramble.

 The curve where I always take a picture

 Rhododendron nudiflorum (Pink Azalea)

 Cypripedium parviflorum (Yellow Lady Slipper)

Asarum canadense (Wild Ginger) hiding in the leaf litter