Have you seen the Aurora Borealis?

 

The Aurora Borealis (or Northern Lights) have been strong recently.  A couple of times there have been predictions of them in the DC area and I have tried to go see them without luck.  Last Thursday night was a super strong one and I happened to be in Shenandoah National Park. I watched them for a couple of hours and got some great pictures. Some friends of mine posted photos they took in Olney, so they were visible in Montgomery County, but, with all the light pollution we have around here I'm not so sure about Bethesda.

This one is from early in the evening. It started out as a pale green that spread across the sky, the reds came in later.

To my naked eyes, this looked a but like light pollution on high clouds, but a long exposure on the camera really brought out the color.  I highly suggest taking pictures. The night mode on your camera app does a decent job.  I used a full-frame mirrorless camera and all this pictures were 30 second exposures.  Later in the evening, I could see the reds spread across the whole sky and some pale green even without using my camera, it was incredible.

If you have missed them so far don't give up. the Northern Lights are caused by sunspot activity and they go through an eleven year cycle that is peaking over the next few months.  The aurora isn't visible every day, I use a couple of websites to keep track. Space Weather is the first one, usually the top paragraph is telling you the chance of a solar flare (this is what causes the aurora) hitting earth.  Look for G4 or G5 class flares if you want a chance of seeing them around here.  The second site I check is SolarHam, which is for amateur radio, but they have a page with the forecast and pictures that show how far south the aurora should be visible.

 

 

 

 

Taste of Bethesda, Today until 4pm

The 32nd annual Taste of Bethesda is today, Saturday, October 5th. It is going on now and runs until 4pm.  Come and taste food from a large selection of Bethesda restaurants.  Tickets are 5 for $10 and tastes are from 1-4 tickets each (mostly 3 or 4).

Lots of people and lots of good food.  I especially liked the crab cake sliders (2 for 4 tickets). All the way at the end of Norfolk was maman bakery which had mini croissants, chocolate chip cookies (with or without nuts) and chocolate croissants.  They get my vote for best deal there.

I also saw guy with a life-sized Trump cut-out that you could take your picture with.  Smile and give a thumbs up, or frown and give a thumbs down, great fun for everyone.

Woodward High School is ready for students

 

Montgomery County Public Schools has been re-building Woodward High School for the past several years.  They demolished the old building in the Spring of 2021 and since then I have posted quite a lot about the construction progress. (See them all here.)

After all this time, the school is finally ready for students.  A couple of caveats apply though. First, the school isn't completely done, there are not yet athletic fields or a theater, or a couple of other things, and second, it isn't reopening as Woodward yet.  For the next few years Northwood High School will be based here while the rebuild that building.

Northwood will be here when the school year starts on Monday. Yes, it is just days away from a new school year.

 

Here's the school from the Southwest, there is a large parking lot, I think for bus drop-off, and, in the bottom right, the shadow of me taking the picture.

The school is set a ways back from the road and the sidewalk will also be moved back from the edge of the road a bit.

 

 

 

The Montgomery County Fair is now going on

The midway at the MoCo Fair

It's that time of year. Time for "The best 9 days of summer" at the Montgomery County Fair.  The fair runs through the end of the week (Saturday August 17, 2024) so you don't have much time.  It's a great place to take the kids to see animals, shows, and ride rides.  If you want all the activities, here's a pdf of the full 2024 fair schedule.

Piglets

Every year they have piglets at Old MacDonalds barn. This year's are especially cute

Prize winning vegetables

In the Old-Timers building you can see all the vegetables that people have entered for judging. This picture is of the largest squash by weight. The winner is 10 pounds 5 ounces!

A circus act

Multiple times a day the Circus Incredible does their thing.  Here is the Trapeze portion and a crowd of people watching.

And here's who they're looking at. Lyric Wallenda of the “World Famous Wallenda” family performing on the trapeze.

 

Caroline Freeland Park renovation continues

The park's progress

 It has been over a year since they closed Caroline Freeland park in downtown Bethesda, MD for renovation.  The park still isn't open, but progress has been made. The new lights are in and tables with umbrellas are sitting on a new concrete pad for example. but there is a lot more to do.

Park and Road

The park sits at 7200 Arlington Road between the library and the Giant Food store. It has long been a popular place to take kids to play or to eat lunch.  Despite how it looks in the photo, Arlington Rd is quite busy (except early on Sunday mornings apparently). The sidewalk used to be right next to the road, now there is a grass strip separating the two.

Repainted Sculpture

The round sculpturey thing of people walking in a circle was designed by George Greenamyer and was installed in 1989. It remains and has gotten a fresh coat of paint.

Playground

The playground has been enlarged and has more, larger playground equipment.  It looks much the same as when I last provided an update in February. The fences and benches are new since then.

Elm Street entrance

The Elm Street entrance the park is a bit more open and has a bit more concrete than the old entrance.

Heavy equipment

There is still a lot to do on the library side of the park with lots of bare ground and piles of dirt, sand, and gravel.  According to the county, the park should be open this fall.

Well Hello, Kitty

 

The Hello Kitty Cafe has arrived in Bethesda for the day.  The food truck is on Bethesda Row right at Bethesda Avenue and Bethesda Lane.  It is open from 10 am to 7 pm today only.

I walked by there before 9 am, over and hour before it opened and there was a line of people stretching down the sidewalk and around the corner onto Arlington Road.  

The people in line were well prepared to wait, most had chairs and some head umbrellas too. My first indication that something was up was when I saw a woman dressed entirely in pink get out of her car with a red stool and start walking towards it.  Almost everyone in the line was a woman and many were wearing pink.

Amalyn Townhouse updates

 

Roughed out

And now for the status of townhouses in the Amalyn Development of houses in Bethesda, Maryland.  See my last post for the status of single family homes.

This row of townhouses are still just wood with holes where the windows will be.

Further along

Houses covered in Typar and with installed windows. The balconies and garages are still just holes.

Further still

Getting close. Lots of Typar but stonework is going in too. All the windows and doors are installed.

Very close

Close to being done. Landscaping is still needed and some interior work too.

 

 

 

 

 

Amalyn Single Family house updates

 

Just the first floor

Here's an update on new single family homes at the Amalyn development in Bethesda, Maryland.  A lot of the houses have been built and people have moved in to them, but there are still a bunch under construction and a lot of open land that they will put houses on in the future.  There's a lot to cover, so this post will just be about the single family houses, I'll post about the townhouses separately.

Some of the houses along the eastern edge of the development will be quite a bit bigger than the rest.  This is one of those larger houses that is just the first floor right now.

The full house, but in wood

This is another, the house walls and roof are up but are just plywood.

Yet a third

Here's a third one, even further along.  This was the first of the really big houses and they were making fast progress but for some reason that progress has slowed down.

A house in green

This house is in a different part of the development and has a ways to go. It's walls are covered in green ZIPsystem.

Rows of tightly spaced houses

Here are a couple of rows of tightly-spaced houses. The green ones are along one road, and the white/tan ones are on another road.  They really are fully detached houses even though they don't look that way.

That's a tall ladder

They have been painting this house and have some really tall laddders that stretch from the ground to the top of the roof.

Almost ready

These houses are almost ready to be moved in to. Most of them are in some variation of depressing gray.

 

A new sound wall at Amalyn

 

The new Amalyn housing development in Bethesda is nestled against Interstate 495and the Interstate 270 spur.  This means you can get a lot of road noise.  Most of the road already has sound walls, but since this area wasn't already developed there isn't any here.  With over 300 houses and townhouses going in, there is a need for some sound abatement and a sound wall is being installed between the development and I-495.

This stretch of the outer between Fernwood Rd and Greentree Rd has temporary jersey barriers closing the shoulder. In a couple of places the trees have been removed all the way to the road.

A surprisingly wide swath of trees have been removed so the wall can be installed.

In a few areas ground up tree parts and root balls are piled up. Most of the tree trunks have been removed in long segments and are stacked up in other areas of the development.

The new sound wall will connect to the existing wall here.  Someone had moved a couch and a chair here to make a smoking area where you could enjoy the smell of cigarettes and burned gasoline while taking in the sounds of heavy traffic. How enjoyable.

Stormwater vault at Amalyn

 

Preparing the site

In the Amayln development of new houses and townhouses in Bethesda, they are installing a very large underground stormwater management vault.  After digging out the whole area and prepping the site, the actual installation is going very quickly. The vault is made up of pre-cast concrete so they can rapidly bring them in and set them down.

This is how the area looked on June 18th. The vault is going on the gravel pad that was built.

Precast sections

The individual segments of the vault look like this.  These will be moved into place and set two high.

Amalyn is a development of over 300 houses and townhouses being built on what was the 75 acre WMAL radio transmitter site. I have made numerous posts tracking it's progress over the past few years.

Building the vault

Here are the ones in place as of Friday night.  It doesn't look like there is any way for water from the vault to infiltrate the ground and recharge the aquifer.

The vault from another angle

You can see there is quite a lot of volume in this vault. It is also surprisingly close to the surface.  I expected it would be deeper so they could plant trees on it, but it looks like it will only be a couple of feet below ground.