Western Maryland Scenic Railroad

[dawn_felagund]

Yesterday, Bobby and I drove the slightly over two hours out west to Cumberland to take a trip on the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad. We've been wanting to do this for a few years now, but it's just far enough away that it requires setting aside a full day more or less, which we very often don't have for setting aside. Cumberland is a small city

Comments

[heartofoshun]

I love those pics! I spent a week with an aunt of mine when I was a teenager in Cumberland! It's beautiful countryside.

You look terrific in your red jacket, long skirt, and little hat!

I adored the book Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy--it was my favorite ever spy book (a genre I had a passion for in the 1980s and John Le Carre in particular)--and I could not wait to see the movie. But it took me three attempts to get through it. I fell asleep also and I liked it. But it was just slow and complicated and with actors I love as well and I always decided I was too tired when I tried to watch it. I never thought I would ever find a movie too slow for me (or a book for that matter!). I like slow and detailed as a general rule.

[dawn_felagund]

Thank you! The little hat was obtained in one of the Atlantic City Boardwalk junk shops for about three bucks. We were putting funky-looking hats on my dad, and my parents decided it looked good on me. It's finally cold enough to wear it!

I'll have to check out the book. I loved A Most Wanted Man (the movie; haven't read the book), and the whole spy-suspense-action genre is so not my usual cup of tea. But I wanted to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman's last movie, and it was being reviewed well, and I'm glad I saw it because I loved it. TTSS seemed to suffer from too many characters--almost all middle-aged to older British white guys--that were hard to keep straight. And I was tired, so it probably wasn't the best movie to watch when tired and unable to make the copious mental notes I need to follow anything with a complex plot. I probably need to rewatch it. It has good reviews on every site I've looked at.

[heartofoshun]

It really helped to have read the book and the guy Smiley is a big character in a trilogy which starts with TTSS and includes The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People. All three of them wonderful books in their own right. I think I want to re-read them! I think John Le Carre is by far the best of the spy novelists and one of those who transcends genre absolutely. One does not have to like spy novels to love John Le Carre.

They also had a lot of context for me at the time, because I was doing some research which involved a few trips to the Latin American section of the famous Cold War era collection at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives at Stanford University. The old ladies working as librarians of the collection there reminded me very much of some of Smiley's semi-retired British spies working in the archives. It was like they had come in from the cold and went to work at the Hoover Institution.

[huinare]

Ooh that looks like fun, nice pics! (And is it just me, or are those wind turbines frickin' huge?)

[indy1776]

Not just you. I've seen the blades go by on the highway; each one requires its own flat-bed semitruck.

[huinare]

Neat! Wind turbines are badasses. =D

[dawn_felagund]

They're frickin' huge. When we go to Deep Creek Lake, a row of them runs along Backbone Mountain, and we drive under them going into West Virginia.

The perspective is a little weird, but the blades clear the power tower and trees by a good bit!

[dawn_felagund]

Now now. Our mountains are the oldest in the world, were once more akin to the Rockies, and have more than earned their repose. When your mountains reach 480 million years, we'll see how they look. ;)

[huinare]

The power of erosion over time = awesome.
(Your mountains are also the Pelori in my version of the Tolkienverse, because I disregard the awesome power of Eru and the Valar and presuppose that natural geological processes were always functioning as they currently do per geological principle of uniformitarianism >=D )

[tiathyme]

Great photos! Looks like you had a fantastic day out.

I'm quite a train fan myself. I live next to rural railway line that's very quiet, but most weekends a steam train choofs by on its way out to an even small country town than the one I live in. It always makes me smile when I hear it go past. :)

[dawn_felagund]

Thank you! And yes we did. :)

We have a lot of rail lines in our area (none as close as yours!) but we can hear them, especially in the winter, when we hear not only the whistles but the clatter of the wheels on the track. What is it about that sound that is at once lonesome and comforting? :)

[just_ann_now]

That looks like a great trip! I'll have to make note of it. You were lucky with the weather - it was grey and dreary down here in the lowlands of Frederick all day. Hard to believe you took those pictures not all that far away!

[dawn_felagund]

That's incredible! It was sunny with nary a cloud in the sky for the whole of the trip out 70 West.

I definitely recommend the railroad, though! I think it will be even lovelier in the spring/summer (or the autumn if you catch the leaves at the right time).