A Little Piece of Countryside in NoVA

On Saturday, I left the house determined to find my photo of the day. I decided to drive down a road that I hadn't been down for about 6 or 7 years. I remembered it as being a part of Northern Virginia that time had forgot, a piece of rustic country charm that had stood still in time. Here I was sure I would find a memorable image.

 I drove down Braddock Rd and as I left Centreville, I started looking ahead of me watching for when the road would turn from tarmac into dirt and I would leave the bustle of modern life. It didn't come. I passed hundreds of ugly new single family homes and townhouses, widened roadways and construction loomed ahead of me. My heart sank as I realized another area of beauty was being gobbled up by flimsy drywall and community signs welcoming new residents to Kirkpatrick Farm or Stone Ridge.

The photo above is typical of a long stretch of new construction along Braddock Rd, but then suddenly it ended just after a junction and I saw this in front of me:

 The road abruptly finished and became a dirt track. It felt like a scene from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe as I entered another world. No cars were following me so I slowed down and finally relaxed.

One of the first buildings I saw was this rustic little barn. All around were old wooden buildings, farms, outhouses and sheds. Old working trucks lined the driveways while horses and cattle peered over the fences. A large Angus cattle farm has been down here since 1946, probably unknown by neighbors only a few miles away in their modern mansions.

 As I left the car to greet these horses and take their photo, an old chap in denim coveralls in a truck came down the driveway and cheerfully waved at me as he passed. 

 I carried on bumping my way along the dirt track in Stuart and drank in the wonderful rural sights. Turkey vultures fanned across the road in front of me and bobbed on branches above my head. I could hear bulls lowing, birds heralding the spring and NO traffic. It was bliss.

I nearly thought this little fisherman was real until I zoomed in with my camera.

This is the first time I'd seen one of these signs. Not something you'd see near the local Safeway...

I eventually hit Rte 50 in Aldie and not ready yet to join the heavy traffic, I turned around and went back the way I'd come.

 I saw this old truck stuck in the hedge as I left old VA and returned to the hustle and bustle. It seemed like a marker that had been purposely left and I hoped that it would be allowed to remain there. It became my photo of the day.

This stretch of rustic beauty was only about 8 miles long before it joined up with a main roadway again. The farms along its stretch seemed as though they would remain for ever, they appeared so entrenched in the countryside, but a lot of the farmland had been swallowed up and lost for good since I'd last been down here. I shall not leave it so long to return again and document what is sure to slowly disappear.

Morgantown Powerplant, MD

On Saturday, we met with our local exploring group and took a supervised trip around Morgan Powerplant. We weren't allowed cameras inside the building so we grabbed a few shots before we entered the grounds. This power station is run primarily by coal on 2 generators as this is the U.S.'s most abundant and cheapest fuel, even though most of it comes from Columbia because most of WV coal is exported to China. It also has 6 generators that run on diesel oil if needed, but these are only used in emergencies as this fuel isn't so efficient. It was built in 1970-73 and although it has a full time crew of 190 people, only 10 are needed to actually run it.

 

  

 The red and white stacks are the diesel stacks and the large white dual stack is the one run by coal and operates continuously, (see photos lower down). The plant likes to keep about 30 days of coal in reserve but on the day of our visit, they only had 3 days of fuel left, and considered themselves to be in a state of emergency. This is due to the bad snow storm and the plant unable to receive coal by rail which it does on a daily basis. There were 18 trees per mile on the rail tracks during the storm. The coal is pulverized to a dust to create continuous explosions providing maximum efficiency. Inside there is a film of black dust everywhere, but because of the efficiency of the plant, people aren't required to spend too long on the operating floors, so we rarely saw the employees and those we saw did not wear masks, only hard hats, safety glasses and ear plugs, the same as us visitors.

 

These pipes take the coal from the river to the plant where it is crushed. They are enclosed so that none spills into the river. The plant makes a tremendous effort to be environmentally friendly and has reduces its dust particles by 99%, removes 98% of SO2 from the air (sulphur dioxide which creates acid rain), reduces carbon monoxide, has a new materials handling system, a new dual flue, a new waste water treatment system and a new desalination plant, all of this control equipment costing around $1.6 billion.

  

 

We were allowed up on the roof which offered fabulous views and we sneaked a few shots. The surrounding area around the plant looked spotless and well maintained and it was evident that our guides were proud to show off their power station.

The tour was excellent but it was almost painful not being allowed to take photos inside the building. We are so used to seeing rusting industrial equipment with peeling paint, cracked dials and seized levers, and then to see all this equipment running with the dials working, it was torture not to be able to record it. Regardless, I avoided the temptation, kept my iPhone in my pocket, and just absorbed the atmosphere and energy.

Once we left the site, we then went to a local bar and crab house on the water to have lunch.

 Mark did a great job of annihilating the crackers before our food turned up! Once our appetites were sated, we went back outside and explored a small abandoned power plant building.

 

Everybody's tripods came out and the place quietened while we set up our cameras that we'd been itching to use all morning. 

There was also a pretty beach area covered with oyster shells and driftwood.

 

Emily missed this dead gull, but because I am aware of her obsession with photographing any dead animal that she finds, I kindly set about grabbing a few shots that I could pass on to her and maybe dedicate to her on Flickr!

I managed to get this awesome character shot of Barb astride a hilltop as the afternoon faded. When the sun started dropping to the horizon, we regrouped for farewells and promises to meet again soon, and then headed in different directions to faraway homes and computers waiting for downloads.

Veterans Medical Center, MD

 

A small group of us went to a Maryland hospital in the hope of meeting the guard who maintains it and asking him for a tour. We found the place empty so strolled right in. The place is enormous and we focused on the main hospital area used during WWII.

These were Army officer’s homes in the early 1900s, when the place was an Army fort. There are other old, unused World War One Era Army buildings there in various states of decay. There are 37 historic buildings on the VA portion of the site, built between 1898 and 1943.

This old lighthouse just off land had a door open. Very tempting if the water hadn't been so cold.

 

We entered the main hospital building and found a large computer room downstairs in the basement complete with computers still turned on which was a little unnerving. I found this handbook; who can remember MS-DOS?

 

Much of the medical and lab equipment was still in place along with rehab areas for the war vets. This interesting article is from a vet who once stayed here.

  We also found the pathology lab with equipment intact. The only people who seemed to have been here other than fellow explorers were the scrappers. Apart from their mess, and natural decay, there had been little vandalism.

 

I enjoyed playing around with this mirror on the ceiling and my camera. The place was deathly quiet and we took care not to disturb the silence.

 

  

Much of the building is still intact but the natural elements are starting to take a hold and there were areas with capsized corridors and leaking roofs. 

 What is an abandonment without a chalkboard? Of course, we signed it.

This huge bath and spa was used for rehabilition. 

Many local veterans had hoped to see this area conserved and reused as a retirement area for them. Walter Pasciak, 84, was so eager to move to a proposed $180 million waterfront retirement community for veterans in eastern Baltimore County that he paid $5,000 to be given "priority consideration" on the waiting list. "The location is great, and all the facilities would have been there," said Pasciak, a World War II veteran. Now he doesn't know whether he'll see the money again. In August 2009, the Department of Veterans Affairs terminated its contract with Federal Development LLC, a Washington-based company that had been selected to redevelop Fort Howard Hospital and other buildings at the one-time Army base on the North Point peninsula. 

There is a 'Bayside' sign at the entrance and I found this site on line, but there is no evidence of building work starting. We shall return to check out the other buildings before they may be razed to the ground.

Exploring Locally

Today, Jeff, Barb and I checked out an old building here in Centreville. Having driven past it for about 2 years, I knew it was abandoned and had been reading a thread on line which is hilarious. It had once been a film developing and storage company and before that The Broadmoor Motel. I had always been curious about what was left of the place and wanted to scope it out.  We had to cross snow that was still over a foot deep  which made traversing the field a great workout.

 

The old motel sign is still on top of the building.

 Peering through the windows, we could see old computers and film processing machines. We weren't able to access any of the buildings so contented ourselves with just looking through the glass and walking around.

 

Around the back of the building were some old trailers which were used as storage. One was wide open with boxes of film stacked inside.

 

This looked like it was a cutting/editing room.

I got a couple of interesting shots using this mirror and a completely unaware Barb. We completed our investigations and racked this one up to be the shortest exploration ever. I was satisfied though that I'd checked the place out and could now drive by without wondering every time what was back there.

Exploring with my Boyfriend?

On Saturday, I met up with Emily and Mukul and introduced them to my new man, Steve. I've known Steve as a neighbor for a while, but we met in the pub on Superbowl night, and have been in sync ever since. He was intrigued to experience himself my favorite hobby, and I was delighted to have him along.
Since the snow had thwarted any outdoor explorations, we headed for a previous haunt in Baltimore, the brewery. Access was denied to us for a while as we skirted the building looking for a way in. Eventually, the boys hauled themselves up a wall and, lo and behold, discovered a ladder inside, which Emily and I used to make a more graceful entrance.

 

I used a long exposure and a gel flashlight for this. Steve was a superstar lighting the way as I fiddled with my camera in the near blackness.

We saw these light bulbs and he mentioned about them looking like the eggs in the movie, 'Aliens', so I hunted for a critter on the internet and came up with this fantasy image.

 

This was the dreaded room in which Emily and I were trapped on our last visit. I've drawn the path we took that finally led us out on to the roof and to freedom. Nobody wanted to cross the floor this time and we had the door held open with a large brick to ensure egress.

This room was very dark and we managed to spook ourselves by thinking we heard footsteps and voices. After skulking around quietly for an eternity and taking photos, someone made a loud noise and either scared off the other visitors or quelled our imaginations as we heard no more sounds after that.

 

I think Mukul made these footprints in the snow as he had gone before the rest of us, but I loved the way they 'walked' with the stray cat prints.

 This was a hallway with large stainless steel fermentation tanks on either side which were still spotlessly clean. Mukul climbed inside one of them while me and Emily contented ourselves with some more gel shots.
A large part of the brewery was now inaccessible due to padlocks so after about 3 hours we left in search of food and beer.

 

We passed this cool retro sign in Camden and then warmed up in the pub with hot food while checking our photos. I was really impressed that Steve had stuck with us and enjoyed the trip. He is keen to explore further and even develop his photographic talent which he had already cultivated on this trip. How awesome to have my guy into urbexing! Roll on next adventure!