A great place to sit and relax

 Adirondack chairs outside of Levain Bakery in Bethesda.

Enter Through Orange Door

Well, I guess it is Halloween.
 

Auburn Professional building demolition site

 The demolition of the Auburn Professional building at 4915 Auburn Ave in Bethesda, MD (and the adjacent Huntington Learning Center/Maryland Radio building) is technically not complete, but it is close. Most of the debris hav been cleared, there is just a couple piles of metal and a layer of brick and concrete block are left on the ground.

Here's another view of the demolition site on Auburn Avenue, you can also see the building next to it has a new mural that looks to still be in progress.

The ground level view shows the piles of metal at the site of the former Auburn Professional building.

A burning tree along Fernwood road

 This morning a tree fell on a power line and caught fire on Fernwood Road by Interstate 495 in Bethesda, Montgomery County fire and Pepco responded, blocking off Fernwood Rd for a considerable period of time.

A Pepco employee watches the buring tree.  the tree was leaning against a power line.  While I was watching, there the fire flared up several times.

Fully Electric Ride-On buses are coming

 

I saw them testing out a new fully electric ride on bus this past weekend, they look a lot better than the current diesel buses (which I am not fond of).  This one wasn't in service, it was just driving on Sangamore Road.

Given that I saw the bus twice, once going in each direction, I think it was following the Ride On route 23, to see what real-world range is.

Demolition of the Auburn Professional Building continues

 I took a walk by the Auburn Professional Building this morning to see how the demolition is going. 

They were hard at work today demolishing the Auburn Professional building.  As the giant claw tore at the building and piled the metal away from other debris, a construction worker kept up a spray of water to keep dust down.  The Huntington Learning Center building (formerly Maryland Radio) is completely gone, the only trace that something was there is the concrete ramp leading to where the loading dock was.

The back of the Auburn Professioanl building. Demolition has started on the far side of it.  The Huntington Learning center building is already demolished, it used to block the view of the red brick building you can see in the distance.

From this angle you can't really tell the building is partway demolished, it looks like it is just undergoing renovation.  However, the far side fo the building is where the demolition is currently occurring.

Demolition of the Auburn Professional Building has begun

 The demolition of the Auburn Professional Building and Huntington Learning center building has begun. They started at the rear of the Huntington Learning Center building, you can see the back quarter of the building has been knocked down.

The front of the building has a fence close up to the wall of the  building.

The fencing continues down the block and goes around the Huntington Learning Center building.  Demolition has started in the back of this building.

The portables are gone at Walt Whitman High School

 

Notice anything different?  For the past few years there have been portable classrooms in this section of the parking lot, since the new wing is open they are no longer needed and have been removed.

Here's how this part of the parking lot looked earlier this year with the portables still in place.

You can tell exactly where the portables were because the blacktop has square patches where the classrooms were anchored down.

The new sign is now (mostly) done, proudly proclaiming the name of the school.  The black rectangle should get an LED variable message sign at some point in the future.

Here's the new classroom wing. The building is ready but there is still work that needs to be done on landscaping, water retention, and paving. Even though the parking lot has been striped, it has not been paved to be even to the curp bottom, another layer of blacktop is still to be added.

I understand that they might not want water going into the water retention areas yet since they are not complete, but it seems like an overkill and more permenant than needed to brick the drainage cuts up.

High water at Great Falls

 Wednesday the remnants of Hurricane Ida came through the Bethesda area and left a lot of water. I have been tracking the forecasts for the Potomac River and it was projected to peak this morning.  I went to Great Falls today to take a look, here are some comparisons for how it looks today and how it looks in slightly more normal times.

Great Falls on the Potomac River as seen from the Olmsted Island overlook.  This photo was taken in July of 2020, the water is a little bit higher than normal for mid summer.

Great Falls on the Potomac River as seen from the Olmsted Island overlook.  This photo was taken this morning. Compare it to the photo above that was taken last year,  All the rocks seen in that photo are submerged, only a few small trees on them poke above the water on the left side of the photo.

From Olmsted Island overlook looking across the Potomac River to the Virginia side.  This photo was taken in April of 2021, the water in the spring is usually higher than in the summer. On the far shore you can see the Virginia overlooks, and in the middle of the picture you can see a large tree trunk wedged between the rocks well above the waterline.

This is a photo taken this morning from almost the same spot as the prior photo. You can see the overlooks on the far shore, and, you can see the same tree trunk wedged between the rocks (and partially obscured by tree leaves. This time the river is within a few feet of it.

Little Falls branch after a storm

 

On Friday, a couple of hours after a storm, I went for a walk along Little Falls branch.  I was surprised how muddy the water was, lots of dirt gets washed into the stream.