The view from Hip Flask in Downtown Bethesda

 

The new Marriott hotel at 7707 Woodmont Avenue in Downtown Bethesda, MD is open and on the roof they have a bar called Hip Flask.  It was fairly crowded when i got there and they soon started limiting the number of people so by the time I left there was a line of people waiting to come up.

The have a bunch of nice looking cocktails and interesting appetizers but I found their beer selection to be fairly weak. There is an inside portion and and outside portion, I focused on the outside part.

What I was really interested in was the view, and it did not disappoint.  Because of where the sun was, I couldn't get a good picture looking west so all these pictures are looking east.  There wasn't good visibility to the north or south because building blocked the view.

From the roof-top bar you can see the LDS Temple just to the right of the Marriott HQ building (Surrender Dorothy).

I brought a camera that let me zoom in on downtown Silver Spring, do you recognize any of these buildings?  I really like the balloon mural towards the right of the picture.

Fall colors

 On Sunday I went for a hike along the Northwest Branch and saw this interesting bit of fall color.  The last few feet of the tree branch is brilliant red, but closer to the trunk the leaves are still green.

Hiking the Northwest Branch south of Colesville Road

 On Route 29, Colesville Road is Burnt Mills East park, it is on the same side of the road as the Trader Joe's and California Tortilla.  This park has a reasonably sized parking area and a number of nice trails.  Facing the trailheads, the trail on the right is closest to the Northwest Branch and it is called the Fall Line trail.  It Proceeds downstream and ends when it meets the Northwest Branch trail.  On the left is the Northwest Branch trail. In this area it is higher up the hill than the Northwest Branch stream, but it will eventually come down and meet the stream where the Fall Line Trail ends.  The Fall line trail is the steeper, rockier of the two trails and is only suitable for hiking, whereas the Northwest Branch trail has been designed to allow biking too.

Another trail in the area is the Copperhead Run trail.  There are 3 "chute" trails that connect it to the Northwest Branch.

The Northwest Branch itself is a good-size stream.  In many places it is rocky, but other areas are smooth and placid.

One of the interesting, but noisy, sights is where Interstate 495 crosses the stream.  The bridge is high above the trees, and although you can hear the traffic, when you are walking south it is hard to see the bridge until you are right under it.

How is rush hour?

Yesterday I went in to work during rush hour for the first time since the CoViD-19 restrictions started.  As you would expect, traffic was lighter than a normal rush hour, but how much lighter?  I took these pictures at about 8:50 am, normally the peak of rush hour.

End of MD355 merge lanes: This is usually one of the larger bottlenecks on the inner loop of the beltway, it is where the merge lane from Maryland 355 (Rockville Pike) ends.  People stay in the merge lane (on the left of the picture) up until the very end and it slows the left lane down significantly as they merge in.

Inner Loop near the Mormon Temple: This is between Connecticut Avenue and George Avenue, you can see the Mormon temple in the distance to the left. You can see the outer loop traffic is also much lighter than usual.

George Avenue exit: Another common slowdown, this is approaching the exit for Georgia Avenu (MD 97) in Silver Spring.  Not very crowded today.

The Georgetown Branch trail closes tomorrow

The Georgetown Branch trail will be closing on Tuesday.  Today is your last day to get a run, walk, or bike ride on the trail.  After that it will be closed for the next four to five years while they construct the purple line and the new (paved) trail.

The trail will be re-routed on surface streets between Silver Spring and Bethesda, but you will be sharing the route with cars.

Between now and then, the Apex building (which the trail runs under) will be torn down and a new building put up.  The trail will still go under the new building

It's Bethesda Big Train baseball season

Did you know that Bethesda, MD has its own local baseball team?  Bethesda Big Train part of the summer collegiate baseball program.  The season is on now and runs through the end of July.  They play at the Shirley Povich field right next to Cabin John Ice Rink.

I went to see them play the Silver Spring-Takoma Thunderbolts tonight and it was a fun, casual affair with the fans full of families.  you can look at the schedule and see if you can go to any of the games.

The Purple Line functional plan

I see today that the approved and adopted Purple Line Functional Plan is available.  A 61 page pdf file with lots of aerial views with the exact route of the purple line overlaid.  If you are curious about what the current plan is and how close the purple line is going to be to places you like to go, you can pretty quickly scroll through it and see.

The purple line has been in the planning stage for a long time and it will affect Bethesda, MD pretty significantly since the final station is here.

Silver Spring Transit center

I do occasionally make it out of Bethesda and last week went to Silver Spring to see what was going on over there. The new transit center is slowly moving along and doesn't actually look very different from a month ago. It is still all bare dirt but it looks like they have excavated a lot towards the back of the site. They were actively digging while I was there.

[where: Silver Spring, MD]

50 cent words

In general, I am in favor of using appropriate words and not dumbing things down to a 4th grade reading level. Treat people like humans, not like idiots. I'm not sure I would use bus stop signs in this way though. I saw this metrobus stop by the Discovery Channel building in Silver Spring, MD. I have to admit, I wasn't 100% sure if alighting meant getting on or getting off, and that is a critical distinction in this case. I'm sure I would have figured it out the first time a bus passed me by.

The larger question is what would be a better word or phrase? It has to be short, unambiguous, accurate, and (at least mostly) correct english. "Getting off only" would be humourous, "This stop is for people to get off the bus and not for picking up people" is a bit long. Maybe "Dropoff only" or "No pickups"?

[where: Silver Spring, MD]

The Metrobus Q2 (Veirs Mill Road line) is being studied

The Q2 is one of the most used lines in the Metrobus system with 10,200 passengers a day. They are looking for ways to improve service and will be having a public meeting on Thursday, February 5 at the Holiday Park Senior Center, 3905 Ferrara Drive, Silver Spring, MD. The open house will begin at 6:30 pm, followed by a presentation at 7:00 pm.

They also are conducting a ridership survey. They did it on the bus on Dec 17, but you can fill it out online too. If you ride the Q2 go fill it out.

When I was younger I rode the Q2 every day. It took a long time and traffic was slow, but it was faster (and much cheaper) than taking the red line from Shady Grove to Silver Spring. I looked at the comments people wrote on the survey and it looks like things are worse than when I rode it. Overcrowded to the point that the bus drivers can't always pick up passengers, no buses for a while then two or three right in a row, still only rarely have the extra long buses.

[where: Shady Grove, MD]
[where: Rockville, MD]
[where: Wheaton, MD]
[where: Silver Spring, MD]

(from the gazette)

Here there be eels.

I went for a walk on the Sligo Creek trail in Silver Spring, MD and saw a sign from our friends at "Friends of Sligo Creek" letting me know that American Eels live in Sligo Creek. I really had no idea. (I didn't even know that there were freshwater eels, let alone living in Maryland, let alone living this close to me.) They breed in the Sargasso sea but spend most of their life here. Another interesting tidbit is that Maryland produces the largest harvest of eels of all the states.

I also learned that posting advertising on trails by creeks is an effective way of reaching people like me.

I didn't actually go there to look at the flyer, I went for the walk and to generally check it out, I've never been there before. Sligo creek is fairly narrow, one side of it has Sligo Creek Parkway and the other side has the trail. The park itself is pretty narrow so you can almost always see both the road and the houses along the side of the park. Along the trail there are numerous small playgrounds for the surrounding neighborhoods. This time of year most, but not quite all, of the leaves are off the trees and the paved trail was covered with a layer of leaves. There were a reasonable number of people on the trail (it was a weekday morning after all, why weren't they at work). A mix of joggers, walkers, and people pushing strollers.

[where: Silver Spring, MD]
[where: Sligo Creek Trail, Silver Spring, MD]