It starts the way it always does. In December, I check the Penn State schedule for spring break. Given that our daughter, and now our son have been students there over the last 6 years; that week will be our family ski trip, generally the first full week of March. We will spend it in Lake Placid.

I have had almost no regrets over the years. The Adirondacks in early March typically feature abundant snow cover, and moderate temperatures, and we generally we have a wonderful winter vacation.

2016, however, broke the mold, Last year in March, Lake Placid for the first time in 25 years was snowless. Though Whiteface, the downhill resort was open, given my deteriorating knee, it was of little use to me. My wife and son skied when it wasn’t raining. I did a little hiking, but a lot of eating and drinking. At the end, it didn’t seem like a good entertainment value for the long drive required to get there and return. Not to worry I thought; this year is clearly a fluke.

 

Winter 2017 seemed different. Though in Pennsylvania, the winter had been mild with minimal snow, the Adirondacks were far enough north for most of the precipitation to be white. I sat at my desk at work, scanning Facebook posts by my Lake Placid friends describing their latest winter adventures. In mid-February with my vacation weeks away, the backcountry ski conditions report was positively giddy with the wonderful snowpack that had accumulated. And, I had a brand new knee.

Then came the warmth, and several strong rain events. By late February, the giddy was gone, along with the snow. Our vacation loomed.

We tried to remain optimistic. But when the Friday Lake Placid forecast was in (we were set to leave Saturday) it called for a bitterly cold weekend, followed by three days of fifty-degree weather with rain. Our weather in Pa, though similar would be 5-10 degrees warmer, and with less precipitation.

After consulting with my wife, we threw in the towel, and unpacked.

My kid (and several friends) however, had purchased advance ski tickets that were nonrefundable. Twenty-two-year-olds have no issue with driving 6 hours for 2 days of frigid skiing. So we gave them the keys.

Now I don’t really have a problem with staying home. It gives me time to work around the house when the weather was bad, and at least hike when the weather is good. It did feel like we needed to do go somewhere. Given the 50-60 degree temps in the middle of the week (3/5-7), it occurred to me that we ought to go south, to where we might find even more spring-like conditions.

We decided to travel during the balmy mid-week weather, first to the inner harbor at Baltimore for a night and then drive up US 95 to stay at a 1780s hotel in our old neighborhood in Center City Philadelphia.

Baltimore was lovely, but quiet, given the time of year. I had brought along both my X Pro 2 (with the 18-55mm zoom in the bag, but with the 56mm f1.2 mounted). I also brought along my X100t with the 2 lens converters.  For some reason, I ended up shooting only the X100, mainly with the native lens or the teleconverter. This is not an uncommon circumstance, and the reason my X100f is on order. I shot in raw/ monochrome jpeg, and I really liked the images I was seeing in the LCD.

We had drinks at Fells Point, and seafood at the Rusty Scupper, a restaurant I had in the past generally avoided as a tourist trap but found was quite good. The evening and night images I acquired looked really promising. The following day we took in the highly recommended National Aquarium, before loading up for the 2-hour drive northeast to “Philly”.

My wife Cathy and I went to medical school there and later did our respective fellowships in the city.  For a time we lived at Tenth and Spruce, 4-5 blocks from the lovely Morris Hotel where we stayed. This location is central to much of Philly’s interesting neighborhoods, including Jeweler’s Row, the Independence Mall area, the Italian Market, and the “Old City” area near to the river. I wandered past my medical school. Formerly, it was named for the author of the Declaration of Independence. It now bears the name of a clothier (a very rich clothier). I ate a cheesesteak (onions, cheese whiz, mushrooms). And I shot a fair number of images. In the morning we had a lovely spring breakfast at an outdoor café on Washington Square.

Sometime on Thursday morning I filled the SD card I had been shooting, and changed it out. As is my practice over many years, I place it upside down in its case to indicate that it is full, and then placed it (along with spent batteries) at the bottom of my camera bag where I will notice them later. I shot a few more images on the new card before starting the trip for home.

Some of you may be noticing at this point the relative paucity of images from Baltimore and Philly in this article. Where are they? Well, I wish I knew. For when I returned home, I could not find the spent card with all of my files. Perhaps it fell out of my bag at some point later in the morning when I walked around town. Maybe it fell out in our room.

This is the first time this has happened to me and it is quite disturbing. I am hoping that perhaps the hotel cleaning staff will come upon it, but I am not hopeful.

Back in the mountains, as I write this it is 12 degrees. Roughly 8 inches of snow fell here yesterday, with the promise of a significant Nor’easter later this week. My road is again snow-covered and undoubtedly re-freezing. Damn. Maybe by next weekend, we will be skiing again. Oh well, such is March on the Pocono plateau.

 

Addendum: We did indeed have a nor’easter.  On March 14 and 15th, my little community in the mountains saw accumulations of 32 inches of new snow, breaking a previous 24-hour snow total, that was originally set in 1993.  The Valley cities had nearly as much.  It remained cold after the storm.

Needless to say, there is once again cross-country skiing on the Pocono plateau.

 

I gotta admit, I’m ready for spring.

 

I have just returned from a trip to Baltimore, Maryland.

Often in June, depending where it is held, I attend the American Academy Of Sleep Medicine meetings.  This year they were scheduled for Baltimore, which is a surprisingly short drive from my Northern Pennsylvania home.

I’ve had many pleasant trips to the city in the past.  Though I initially hoped that my wife would accompany me on the trip, her work schedule prevented her from joining me, and I was forced to go alone. Thus I would need something to do with my free time.

Early June is a pretty good time to visit the Chesapeake region, as often the temperatures and humidity have not risen to uncomfortable levels.  Such was the case on my trip.  I arrived Sunday, shortly before a cold front came through, which on the back side yielded bright blue skies and temperatures in the seventies.  It was cool enough, at least on the water, for a light jacket.

Though this was not purely a photographic trip, I knew that I would want some gear along to occupy my off hours.  I decided on the Fuji X Pro 1 with multiple lenses for more deliberative photography, and the Fujifilm X100s, as my companion for street shooting.

I pretty much carried the X100s everywhere, including into the conference.  I took a lot of images even in the product exhibition hall, before discovering there was a strict rule against this, to the point where they would threaten to eject you, and confiscate your “film”.  The problem with enforcing this is that everyone had a camera in the form of their cell phone, and I saw many people photographing new products, that perhaps they wanted to remember, or even included a presentation.  Hell, one of the exhibitors had a Nikon DSLR in hand, and appeared to be shooting a lot of images.  The X100s was wonderful in this setting because of its stealth and its low light capabilities.

I have noticed, that compared to its predecessor the X 100, the X100s appears to have a decreased battery life.  This had been annoying to me before the trip, but I learned that if you keep the camera off (and not rely on the auto shut off feature), that the battery life was quite tolerable.  I did not need to change a battery over the three days of the trip (probably shooting 150 frames).

Anyone remotely interested photography who sees the Fuji X cameras, is fascinated by them.  They often assume that I am shooting film.

I took the opportunity to travel about.  Part of this was in search of meals, as the locals I encountered would generally send me out of the “Inner Harbor” neighborhood for the best restaurants.  Perhaps they are “seafood snobs” as I did have several good meals in restaurants overlooking the Harbor, including perhaps the best mussels I’ve eaten my life.  I don’t believe I’ve never had a bad seafood meal in the Chesapeake region.

It was a modest walk from my hotel, to the Federal Hill neighborhood of the city.  There, a large park occupies a flat-topped hill overlooking the Harbor, once used as a vantage point for cannons, which would have been the final defense for the city from the British in 1812.  The neighborhood features brick row homes, of an early 19th century vintage, quite similar to my old neighborhood in the Society Hill section of Philadelphia.

The neighborhood was positively festooned with quaint cafes and public houses (which is never a bad thing). Having stopped in a restaurant in the neighborhood,  I was reminded by my server  that in the Chesapeake region, they were having a particularly good soft-shell crab season.  She served me an appetizer that deliciously proved her point.

The above image was shot inadvertently at ISO 1250 which required a shutter speed of 1/10th with the lens at f2.8.  This points out some good and bad features of the X Pro 1.  The good: that the combination of lens stabilization, and the lack of a mirror, allowed me to shoot a sharp image, at relatively slow shutter speeds.  The bad: the lack of an effective auto iso control on the X Pro 1 (as opposed to the feature on the X100s) means that I have to pay attention when switching cameras, remembering to alter the iso setting manually on the X Pro 1 as the lighting changes.

On another day, I made use of the water taxi service, both to gain another photographic vantage on the harbor, but also to visit Fort McHenry, which is preserved by the National Park System, for its role in the war of 1812.  As you may well remember, the fort served as the primary, outer perimeter defense of Baltimore Harbor.  It was the sight of the American flag being raised over the fort, after the British Fleet was sent packing that inspired Francis Scott Key, to write the Star Spangled Banner.  The fort served many purposes since that battle, including as a hospital for wounded in World War One.  Sometime in the early part of the 20^th century, it was restored to a condition near to that, when the famous battle occurred.

In order to get to the fort, you have to stop to change boats at Fells Point, a neighborhood of Baltimore famous in the early 1800’s for privateers: civilian ships and crews, who were sanctioned by our government to raid British shipping. This is another quaint historic neighborhood that if anything, looks a little older than that at Federal Hill.

It was also quite gentrified, again with bars, B+B’s art galleries, and quite honestly more bars.  Your water taxi ticket gives you two-for-one beer coupons for many of the establishments.  This makes it extremely important to remember that there are no “facilities” on the boat for the ride home.

As a whole , this city is a wonderful location for photography.  It is obvious that it has been developed in such a way that it is pleasant to view from the water, in a much more intimate way than for instance, New York.  There is a varied architectural themes throughout the city, all of which makes it visually stimulating, and quite interesting to photograph.  And the people are very friendly and proud of where they live.

Baltimore is a lovely place to visit.  I think the best months for a trip, might be mid to late May, and for September/October, all months when the schools are still in session, the crowds reasonable, and the temperatures moderate.

And, best of all, it’s soft-shell season.