My Aunt takes Us to Dinner

Frank, Kurt, Doats, Simone, Bill and Peggy

Farmers Market

This summer there's been a Farmers Market on Wednesday mornings at Bryce Resort.

Marie Meets Monsters

After Marie and I hiked at Harpers Ferry two weeks ago, we had lunch and cooled down. Then we went to White Post, Virginia to visit Dinosaur Land. We had stopped there briefly on Thanksgiving but the place was closed. She vaguely remembered going there as a small child, and of course she wanted to go back.

Dinosaurs

Perhaps you are driving east from Stephens City en route to the Virginia State Arboretum and as you pull up to a traffic light, there they are: Dinosaurs!

Yes, you should stop and take some pictures. Admission is reasonable.

Links:

Dinosaur Land website

Story on RoadsideAmerica site

Posing with the King

Dinosaur Land has more than dinosaurs. And the folks who created it understood the value of a photo opportunity. The giant figure of a Kong-style gorilla is designed with a place for you to sit in the palm of his hand Faye Wray-style. We took advantage of the photo op.




This big gorilla doesn't seem scary once you sit in his hand. I wonder how many folks have posed there?

See Marie's album of our dino-tour.

Link: Dinosaur Land

Avoiding Frames inside Frames

In January I wrote about putting your blog in an inline frame. I did that with this blog on a couple of pages including my Civil War Field Trips homepage. (You'll need to scroll down that page to see it, and I coded it to show only posts tagged "Civil War.")

If I clicked on a link in this blog from the framed page, the link opened inside the frame, perhaps inadvertently framing someone else's website, which is not a good thing since it can cause confusion and even charges of copyright infringement. Plus I could create a situation of multiple frames nested inside each other by clicking on a link back to my Civil War homepage and scrolling down to the inline frame which would then appear inside the other frame! You might have to see it to imagine how messy it gets but guess what? You won't see it here because I found a "fix:"

Within the [Head], put the following:

If you know HTML, you'll find that pretty simple to add to a regular page. In Blogger, you edit your template through your Dashboard. You click Design and then click Edit HTML. If you haven't done a lot of that before, you should probably save a copy of your template before changing the [Head].

There are also codes to prevent your site from being framed at all, but since I want to be able to display my blog on my other sites, I'm not concerned with that here.

Congratulations to Webhero

I see that Webhero is the oldest web hosting company! They've been around for 17 years and in terms of the web, that's a long time.

When I first signed up with their service, they were called Catalog.com. The sites I have with them are CivilWarFieldTrips.com, VirginiaPhoto.com, and Colinda.com.

Evening Sky

At Harpers Ferry in 1983

At the Point where the Rivers Join

Here I am in 1983. In defense of my hair, I will say that I was on a camping trip and did not have access to a blow dryer. Other than that, I wish I still looked that good!

In Front of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy

Last Friday Marie and I went here to get some hiking info. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy Visitors Center is on Bolivar Heights in Harpers Ferry. They have trail information, maps, and some exhibits. I believe that the organization was still called the Appalachian Trail Conference when I was visited the building over two decades ago.

In front of the building on Washington Street is a historical marker titled "Harpers Ferry" which reads:

Named for Robert Harper, who settled here in 1747 and operated ferry. Site purchased for Federal arsenal and armory in 1796. John Hall first used interchangeable gun parts here. Travel route thru Blue Ridge gap, and river, canal, and railroad connections added growth. John Brown's raid and Civil War brought national attention. Post-war site of Storer College for blacks, and National Park, created in 1944.

Loudoun Heights Marker

I've visited the site of the Battle of Loudoun Heights with Dr. Poland's Civil War class. There is a historical marker there that I did not photograph until last week when Marie and I were in that area. It starts out:

Union Maj. Henry A. Cole’s 1st Maryland Cavalry was camped here on Loudoun Heights on 10 Jan. 1864 when Confederate Maj. John S. Mosby and Capt. Benjamin Franklin “Frank” Stringfellow attacked before dawn with about 100 mounted Partisan Rangers.

For the entire text, see Loudoun Heights Clash on HMDB.

John Brown's Fort

Harpers Ferry, WV

This building is famous as the place where John Brown and a group of followers barricaded themselves in their ill-fated raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. However, it stood in a different spot at that time. It was moved to Chicago for the 1893 World’s Fair, returned to Harpers Ferry in 1895 and moved a couple more times before finally resting on its present site in 1968.

See the Historical Marker.

Stairway to Harper Cemetery

Along the Appalachian Trail in Harpers Ferry we saw sets of stone steps leading up to Harper Cemetery. These are not far from Jefferson Rock.

Two years ago I took photographs of Harper Cemetery. You can see them on my Civil War field trip pages for Harpers Ferry to Third Winchester and on the historical marker database page #10203.

Ruins of an Old Episcopal Church

St. John's Episcopal Church
Harpers Ferry, WV

Like most visitors who hike to Jefferson Rock, we passed the ruins of St. John's Church.

The interpretive sign (on the right-hand side of this picture) tells the following:

Built in 1852 with money provided by church fairs, St. John's served as a hospital and barracks during the Civil War and suffered considerable damage. It was rebuilt afterward, but was abandoned in 1895 when a new Episcopal church was built in the upper town.

Marie at Harpers Ferry

Too Hot for Loudoun Heights

My daughter Marie had this inspiration that we could hike the West Virginia section of the Appalachian Trail. Knowing that the West Virginia part of the trail is famously short (about 4 miles), that sounded okay to me. Then I learned that it goes up Loudoun Heights and I changed my mind! I had read on other websites that the trail up Loudoun Heights is steep and strenuous, and even if I were in better shape for hiking, I would not attempt it on a hot July day. So we decided to hike the short section of the AT between the Shenandoah River and the Potomac.

Below is a photo I took of Jefferson Rock with Loudoun Heights in the background. From the point where the trail crosses the Potomac to it's high point on Loudoun Heights, there's an elevation change of 1,000 feet.

Craig Swain described a hike on Loudoun Heights from the perspective of a Civil War researcher. He climbed part of the way on the AT and then switched to the Loudoun Heights Trail.

Train Crossing the Potomac

Harpers Ferry, WV

Where the Shenandoah River Ends

Harpers Ferry, WV

1) Marie took this picture of me by the point where the Shenandoah meets the Potomac.

2) View from Jefferson Rock

Another View from Harpers Ferry

Marie has posted a narrative of our hike at Harpers Ferry on her No Hurry in Jersey City blog. Also see her photo album: Harpers Ferry and Appalachian Trail.

Where the Rivers Meet

Harpers Ferry, WV

Where the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers Meet

Link: West Virginia Wild and Wonderful

Blog Post 2550

I hope you're having a good summer. It's hot here! We had some just-in-time rain though so the mountains and valleys are still green and lovely.

June was a pretty month this year! See my June posts. While we're at it, check out last July's posts. It starts off with some photos from past years: 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, and 2001. (Yes, they appear in reverse order, like all the posts here. That's a technique that Blogger provides in order to keep new posts on top of the page.)

Black-Eyed Susans

Queen Anne's Lace

Ancestor of the carrot, the plant has edible roots but the leaves are somewhat poisonous.

(More about Daucus carota)

Book Mentions Tea Allergy

In the past I've written about allergy to tea and the posts drew a number of comments. For some reason it is hard to find information on tea allergy, even on the web.

My allergy to tea was found via skin-prick allergy testing which also revealed that I am allergic to black pepper. These tests are not usually part of the most popular series of skin-prick tests which necessarily tests for a limited number of allergies. After all, there are more substances to test than you would have done at one time.

Anyway, since tea allergy is seldom mentioned, my eyebrows shot up when I read the following in Dr. Amen's book Change Your Brain, Change Your Body:

"As far as food allergies go, the most common culprits are peanuts, milk, eggs, soy, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, and wheat... Other foods commonly associated with allergies include corn, chocolate, tea, coffee, sugar, yeast, citrus fruits, pork, rye, beef, tomato, and barley."

(I added bolding to emphasize the word tea.)

You may have seen Dr. Daniel Amen on television. I saw him on PBS and then checked out the book from our county library.

Trying Out a New Nikon

I finally had a chance to try out my Coolpix P6000 today. I've owned it for months but it never worked! Twice I sent it to Nikon for repair and yesterday it arrived, actually fixed. I have no idea why it wasn't fixed the first time they worked on it.

Today was not the ideal day for trying out a camera because we spent much of the day getting my car repaired, and then it rained. We got the tires rotated and balanced at Rosen Tires north of New Market and then had the rear brakes fixed at Midas in Harrisonburg. (The brake shoes were covered under their warranty because they replaced them before.)

While we were waiting at C.C. Rosen Tires I walked around outside. I didn't bother to cross the road to photograph the Civil War markers because I've done so before. (See my recent Rude's Hill post.) Instead I took this picture showing New Market Gap in the distance.

See the Nikon Coolpix P6000 on Amazon.

Pictures for an Album: 2005

I finally got around to making another Blog2Print book. This one is for my first year of blogging, 2005. My blog-size images from that year were not sharp enough for the covers so I searched out other images to consider. Fortunately I had some on the back-up drive which sits on the table just a few feet from where I keep my laptop.

These are not my greatest photos but they do represent the sort of things we did that year. We spent some time in Glebe Harbor near Montross, and the beach scene is one I took there early one morning. For the back cover, I selected a photo of Frank and Ben exercising at Orkney Springs. Their smiles make me smile!

Some Pictures from 2005

These are images from 2005 that I considered for Blog2Print album covers but the resolution wasn't good enough. Generally you need better image quality for print media than you do for the web.

We spent some time in Montross in '05 so three of these pictures are from that area.

Trillium

Seen in Harrisonburg, April 2010

Spring at JMU's Arboretum

Arboretum: a plot of land on which many different trees or shrubs are grown for study or display.

Link: Edith J. Carrier Arboretum