Calvert Cliffs

Calvert Cliffs State Park is located on the Chesapeake Bay. There are a number of trails, but the most popular leads to a small beach on the Bay. It's known as one of the best places to find shark's teeth and fossils.

The trail always stays close to a small stream that becomes wider the closer you get to the bay.

Lots of butterflies along the trail.

It's interesting to see the change in the plants as you hike through the different zones. You start out in the woods, then the trail passes along a series of marshes until finally it ends at the bay.

Water lillies:

There used to be a viewing platform about halfway on the trail, but as you can tell from this picture it's very rickety and it was blocked off when we were in the park in August 2010.

Another view of the freshwater marshland:

After you've been walking for a while the trees suddenly disappear and you find yourself on the narrow beach.
Of course, the cliffs are the main attraction! I had to walk into the Bay with my camera to get this shot:

And the cliffs on the other side:

The small streams runs into the bay on the beach. I found a teeny tiny little water snake there. He was only about a foot long.

A pretty blue dragonfly:

The little watersnake never went far from the water.
















As you can tell from this picture the beach really is very narrow and it's not very long either. We've never had a hard time finding a spot to lie down though .. it's a very quiet area. Both ends are "blocked off" where the cliffs start because of the danger of erosion.

The water is very quiet, but there is no lifeguard on duty. The Bay is also known to have some of the most polluted water in the area so swim at your own risk.

If you look to your right after coming onto the beach you'll be able to spot the Cove Point lighthouse in the distance.

We spent several hours sifting through the sand and found a shark's tooth, ray dental plates and several small fossils. Yay! Shark's tooth safely put away it was time to head back to the parking lot.

This little squirrel really wanted to have his picture taken.

I saw this beautiful bird sitting in a dead tree in the marshland. I wish I knew what kind of bird it is ... any ideas?
















I love the contrast of the dead trees against the lush green forest in the background.

The trail on the way back. We saw a long black snake slithering across the path, but unfortunately it disappeared before I had a chance to take its picture.

There's a recycled tire playground next to the parking lot, so if you have little ones with you make sure to set some time aside for them to run around and play on the tires.

Trip summary:

Rating: 8/10
Distance: 50 mi
Time spent: 4 hours
Entrance fees: $5 per car
Trail hiked: red trail - 1.8mi

More information: http://www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/southern/calvertcliffs.asp

Random critters

A bunny and two (male) cardinals. The bunnies love the wild strawberries that grow in our yard.


A Fiery Searcher beetle:

Dragonflies on the porch.

One day I walked out of the house and heard something rustling in the leafs. It was a cute little toad ... but what's it doing?

Aha! Poor baby had gotten caught by a snake.

Eventually the snake let go of the toad and it was able to hobble to safety! The snake slithered away then stopped and stuck out its forked little tongue at me, before continuing into the bushes.

Our resident groundhog, George.

He gets spooked easily so it's hard to take good pictures of him. Here's one of him running to safety after he caught sight of me:

I found this beetle in the yard one day and haven't seen in since. It's a black and white spotted Leopard Moth.

There are lots of turtles in the neighborhood because of the water nearby, but it's not often we find them on the lawn.

They don't move to fast so it's easy to get a close up:

A beaver in one of the city lakes.

I'll try to post new animal pictures every few months or so.

Rockburn Branch Park

Regional parks can be a dime a dozen. Imagine our surprise when we arrive at Rockburn Branch Park and find the parking lot packed. Not a spot to be found! We end up parking in the overflow field next to the lot.

Nice stream. Looks like any other park, right?

Yes, it offers fantastic athletic fields and play ground, but so do many other parks.

There are bunnies! And squirrels ... and probably lots of other critters, but that's not why people flock to this park.

Nope. People come to play disc golf!

You're probably wondering what 'disc golf' is ... I know we were! Basically, it's golf, except instead of clubs and golf balls they use frisbees. The park is home to an 18 hole disc golf course that's a favorite with locals. Some show up with just one frisbee in hand, but the great majority lugs around big bags full of frisbees for different distances. They take this stuff VERY seriously! Maybe we'll go back and bring a (yes, just one) frisbee sometime.

The trails are okay, but you have to keep an eye out for errant frisbees and we found several ticks on our clothes. Yuck! Probably would not recommend this park for hiking/biking unless you want to play disc golf, or use their other facilities (sport fields, play ground, etc).

Nice old house by the parking lot. We noticed it was near one of the holes on the disc golf course ... and that many of the windows were either broken or boarded up. Coincidence? Hmm ...

Trip summary:

Rating: 6/10
Distance: 35 mi
Time spent: 1.5 hours
Entrance fees: free
More information: http://www.co.ho.md.us/RAP/RAP_HoCoParksRockburn.htm

Centennial Lake

Centennial Lake is a pretty cool park. It has a little bit of everything; lots of different sports fields, miles of paved pathways, a beautiful large lake, and tons of pretty birds!

A great blue heron stands perfectly still at the edge of the lake.

It's caught a fish! I don't think the fish ever saw it coming ... it moved so fast.

Stone jetty by the boat(?) launching area. We didn't see any boats on the water, but in the summer they rent out paddle boats and canoos.

Canada goose. Although they're called Canada goose, they live in this area almost year round.

Baby geese! They're so fuzzy when they're little :)

View across the lake

Even though the lake is the main attraction, the woods are nice too. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of trails that really go through the woods.

A doe hiding in the shrubs. She was standing right next to the path, but still I almost missed her. We watched each other for a while, then she turned around and walked back in the woods.

I loved this beautiful red bridge!

A turtle swimming under the bridge. When the suns out you'll often see them sunbathing on rocks and logs sticking out of the water.

Lillies in the wildlife area of the lake; its roped off and the path is further away from the water to provide the animals with a quiet place.

It was overcast the entire time we were there, but it was still a nice trip.

Trip summary:

Rating: 7/10
Distance: 30 mi
Time spent: 2.5 hours
Entrance fees: free
More information: http://www.co.ho.md.us/rap/rap_hocoparkscentennial.htm

Great Falls and Manassas Battlefield Park

After the somewhat disappointing visit to Antietam, we decided to pay another visit to our favorite battlefield park. With rolling acres as far as the eye can see and relatively few roads crossing the park Manassas is in my opinion a lot nicer ... although I will say the visitors center doesn't come close to the one in Antietam.

Anyway, first we make a quick stop at Great Falls ... another National Park. It's a favorite with local rock climbing enthusiasts.

You won't see me scaling those rocks anytime soon, but I can't resist this fallen tree leading to a small island in the river.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I managed to trip over my own feet on a graded section of the gravel trail to the first overlook and take a chunk out of my knee. Didn't look too bad, but I'd hate to make someone queasy, hence the picture of it bandaged up.

At least the view is worth it!  

We make it to viewpoint three without getting my knee looked at, but at this point I'm starting to scare small children so we head to the visitors center to get it cleaned. The woman at the front desk takes one look at my knee and decides that the first aid kit is not going to cut it and she calls a park ranger to take care of me. Can't remember her name, but she told me all kinds of good stories about people doing stupid stuff haha!

I'm all bandaged up so we get back on the road to Manassas.

I love this place!

We'd love to watch a civil war reenactment sometime, but somehow we always miss them. They actually had one the day we were there, but it was long over by the time we got there ... we did see these people in period clothing hanging out. Pretty neat!

Wooden Henry House has been recently renovated.

Beautiful clearing. My knee's throbbing a bit, but I push on and we end up going for a long walk through the woods.

Deeper in the woods it's hard to tell that spring has arrived.

And we're back!

We get back in the car and drive across the road to Chinn Ridge. Pictured here is the Benjamin Chinn house site, but not much is left of it.

Hey, what's that?! 7 Deer in the clearing

Trip summary:

Rating: 8.5/10

Distance: 43 mi (Great Falls 17 mi ; Manassas 27 mi)

Time spent: 8 hours

Entrance fees:  Great Falls: $5 per car; or $3 per person - Manassas Battlefield: $3 per person

More information:

http://www.nps.gov/grfa/

http://www.nps.gov/mana/