A Cryptic Saturday in Maryland

After a lot of digging, shoveling and help from neighbor Tom and his tractor, our steep incline was cleared by Friday evening and we could all get off the hill. I was very pleased having been stuck in the house for two days and on Saturday I was elated to be able to keep to my plans of a tour around the Cryptologic Museum near Fort Meade, MD. I met the group early and was pleased to catch up with some old friends. We all huddled in the glass lobby, steaming up the windows as we waited for the doors to be unlocked.
The museum opened in 1993 and is crammed full of machinery and devices spanning a couple of hundred years used for decoding and coding messages. Our tour guide was a retired NSA employee who was a mine of information. He walked us through explaining about devices used during the Cold War, about supercomputers, cracking codes and famous people, one of whom was Gary Powers, shot down in a CIA U2 spy plane by Russians and held captive for 2 years before being swapped for a Russian spy. He then tested aircraft for Lockheed Martin and eventually wound down by becoming a helicopter weather reporter. But unfortunately in this job, and not during his eventful career, was where he perished. his helicopter crashed because he forgot to fill it up with fuel after a longer than usual report the day before.

This looked like a prop from an old James Bond movie.

There were a lot of machines and phones on display which I found intriguing as these were the kind that disguised voices, broke up the speech pattern or covered it with a white noise. A huge bank of computers stood on one side called the Sigsaly Speech Encipherment System which operated from 1943-46 and required 15 people to operate it and weighed 15 tons. It had 2 handsets. Another machine was The Frostburg Connection device used to perform higher-level mathematical calculations from 1990-99 and could perform 65 billion calculations per second. These were huge blocks of machines with working parts that weren't really visible. What really grabbed my attention were the decoding machines.

There were many of these here, looking like old fashioned typewriters, not really complicated at all to look at but they had the ability to outwit the most clever of human minds, for some of the time. And the most famous of these is the Enigma machine from WWII, which initially didn't take off because it was so expensive at $1200, a sum of money that could buy a house. Used in a large number by the Nazis, they could send messages throughout the war to plot attacks and caused havoc until the Polish military intelligence cracked the codes which in turn created more complex machines by the Nazis.

Our guide explained how they worked, using a map of 3 number codes which were then imput on to the rotors and changed daily or more frequently. I was allowed to have a go and entered 111 on to the 3 rotors, (the silver cogs at the top of the machine). I then tapped in the letters USA on the keyboard and these showed up on a display above the rotors as TFH. When the message receiver got the TFH transmission he would tap those on his keyboard using the same rotor code and USA would appear on his display. It was a very cool experience to actually have a go on this machine.

There were a lot of Enigma machines on display, some of them with 4 rotors, added by the Germans to make the code breaking even harder. The British played a huge part in cracking these codes.

There were some very early books on display also, this one is the first book on  cryptology to be published.

This beautiful Nazi dress dagger caught my eye.

Some of the group listening to how the U.S. Navy Cryptanalytic Bombe determined the rotor settings on Enigma machines.Created by Joseph Desch, an employee with the National Cash Register Company.

Japanese Enigma machines.

And of course, there was a large display on the Comanche, Choctaw and Navajo code talkers, explaining how the Native American languages were used to transmit code messages. The Navajo language was also impossible to decipher because it was like no other language in the way that its verbs change. Here's an interesting little video with some Navajo spoken in it.

These posters must have made an impact during the war.
After our tour, we drove to the Recon field to see some planes that were used during the war.

It was just too cold for me out there. I snapped photos of the Douglas A-3 Skywarrior and the Lockheed C-130 Hercules which were magnificent planes but then had to dash for the warmth of the car and peer out until the others also froze and returned to their vehicles. And then we formed the longest convoy I've ever been in, about 20 cars, and drove to an Italian restaurant for food and beer.

Marshall was still a frozen wonderland when I returned home, this snow will be around for a while. There were plenty of little footprints out the front of the house, making me feel happy that my feathered friends had found the bird seed I'd scattered before I left that morning. Nice to know everyone in and around the house was fed and content.

A Lot of Snow in Marshall

The snow started on Wednesday night and dumped a good few inches over most of Virginia and the upper east coast. It continued Thursday, easing off around noon. We had a good 15 inches or more, it came up to my knees.

Of course the birds had to be fed and the crows were very grateful for the many nuts I threw outside.

I went outside with my camera and immediately found that my boots were not adequate, they just filled up with snow. I'd cleared an area for the birds and shoveled the snow away that had built up against the front door, cutting a path to Stuart and digging around him, he was half buried in a drift.  but as soon as I started walking in the snow I developed a severe balance problem. The wind was howling, pushing me around, and then as I started walking, I felt a pain in my knees from the crust of snow that had frozen to ice. I had to keep pushing forward and leaning into the snow to remain upright and after a while that hurt. I walked around Meadow House and the barn before giving up, it was just too cold and uncomfortable.

Sodden gloves drying on the fire and a hot drink for me, a large drinking chocolate with a good shot of blackberry brandy, my latest concoction that I can't stop supping.

Mid afternoon I heard a rumble and saw a tractor out the front. He cleared a path up the hill and pushed a lot of the snow from out the front of the house but still left a good 3" on the ground. And then just as he left the snow started falling again and continued through the evening. I knew I'd be doing a lot of shoveling the next day.

Kota and Rosie Lee showing their annoyance at the snow, which was keeping them housebound for a few days. But plenty of food, treats, fluffy soft blankets and a hot fire can't be all bad!

Busting out the Alcohol in a Covert War

Saturday was a freezing cold day with snow threatening and winds whipping around your ankles as soon you left the safe warm haven of indoors. So I had no desire to be outdoors, instead choosing to visit a local brewery who were holding a soft opening and had 2 new beers for folks to sample.
I was meeting Kelly there but I arrived early at the cafe we were going to lunch at first. I was a amazed to see close by an old civil war building renovated with a sign outside proclaiming it was a Cold War Museum.

I went inside and nearly bumped into a guy who was vacuuming the place. John DePerro is a volunteer here who clearly plays a large part in this museum. He was actually a walking encyclopedia on the Cold War and bombarded me with information on the museum itself as well as the war. The Cold War ran from 1947 - 1991 and was basically a state of tension between the United States and the West, predominantly Russia. No large scale battles were started but there was some minor conflicts, it was largely a struggle for dominance. This building is bursting with relics and memorabilia,  there was stuff everywhere. A lot of the artifacts are still out loose because it hasn't all been unpacked yet or is waiting for display cases to be donated. Two were donated the day before and were already filled.

Peter showed me some artifacts while pointing and talking at the same time. I desperately wanted to just walk around and look at the stuff properly, especially as there is also an upstairs which I didn't get a chance to look at. I got a text from Kelly who had arrived and was in the cafe and had to make my escape, but I shall definitely be back here to investigate further once they are more on their feet.

I ran across the road noticing that the wind had picked up and dashed through the door of The Covert Cafe.

What a little gem this turned out to be. Wonderfully friendly staff and the food was amazing. I had the Cyclops Burger, which had a home made patty with bacon, lettuce, tomato, a fried egg and cheese. It was gigantic. But so worth it.
And then around the corner to the brewery. OBH has only 2 beers currently on tap, and we were going to try both. The IPA was very hoppy but after a few mouthfuls I got used to that and enjoyed it. It was bloody freezing inside with only a few folks who'd wanted to be there at the beginning like us, maybe people were put off since the snow had started falling outside.

They were selling apparel and growlers and also had Bad to the Bone BBQ on site, but I was stuffed to the gills from my Covert burger and had no interest in that. In fact the beer was filling me up even more, but that was just too bad since there was another to be sampled.

The next was their English style pale ale which we both really liked. So much so that we purchased a glass growler each and had it filled to take home. This was done in a cool glass vacuum container where the growler was first filled with carbon dioxide and then filled with the beer which in turn pushed out the CO2 and leaving no room for oxygen.
The place was hopping when we left, the afternoon was an obvious success, a pleasure to witness, it's so cool to have a brewery so close to home. They're going to be introducing a chestnut porter in the future so I'll look out for that.
We then felt we had to visit the Flint Hill Winery which was almost next door, so we scuttled in there for a tasting.

We went upstairs to a small area which had a bar and just a couple of tables and chairs. You could look down onto where the wine was made but there wasn't really a lot to see. Not a very atmospheric place. We sipped our wines and I enjoyed several but the most notable was the dessert wine which was surprising for me, I never usually like them because they're so sweet. But this one was sampled with a mouthful of dark chocolate, and I was sold. Apparently nearer Christmas time you can buy little dark chocolate cups in Wegmans which would be heaven to drink this out of, so I bought a bottle of the Chambourcin Virginia Dessert wine, already planning my Thanksgiving dinner ahead of time.

They don't grow any grapes here but buy them from California, Washington or Virginia. The wines were mostly pretty nice but I couldn't imagine wanting to come here and quaff any on a summer's day on their little patch of grass outside looking up at a newly built housing estate. No fireplace inside either so really just a place to come and purchase the wine only.
We trotted back over to Covert Cafe afterwards for a large cup of coffee and a homemade chocolate brownie, catching them just before they closed, and then it was time to head home with my alcoholic beverages for a well needed nap.

I stopped for 2 photos, one of this beautiful white sycamore tree. I plan on photographing a series of these while winter is still here...

...and the crossroads on Rte 55 which Old Bust Head Brewery was named after, an area once noted for it's own local home brews and a sense of humor.
Now where's that sofa...