Lunch Rock

Above my old house about ½ mile is a rock that reaches 2/3 of the way across the river. We’ve always called it Lunch Rock, though we’ve only eaten lunch there once.

I’ve seen drunk teenagers tumble off it, pretty girls sitting strumming guitars and singing Bob Marley tunes, dogs leaping off to chase sticks, and many many Northern Watersnakes resting quietly in the shade. It's the only spot I can't ever attain past in my kayak heading upriver.

I’ve held my boys fingers as they lurch over the uneven surface. I’m sure many an Indian child was guided across this rock in the same way 500 years ago. We always take off our shoes and sit with feet in the water, feeling the powerful current and sometimes having black nose dace nibble our toes.

My oldest son knows the spot so well that when it's just barely in sight, he takes off running for the small path down to the water. We must, must stop and throw rocks. Long live Lunch Rock.

The Railroad- The Old Main Line

Spend time along the Patapsco river, and one constant will always be the railroad. The stretch of the "Old Main Line" carries coal from Western MD to Baltimore, and all kinds of freight from the port of Baltimore to points west. Near Daniels, visitors hear the train blow the "crossing whistle" at the Old Frederick Road crossing. According to this website, this gateless crossing is the oldest surviving railroad grade crossing in the world. This dates back to 1830, when the first railroads were snaking their way across the east.

To a river wanderer, the railroad tracks are sometimes the fastest way to get from point A to point B. The tracks provide rocks for my kids to throw, big sunny clearings for the wineberry and blackberry patches, shade under the bridges for sunny summer picnics, and a source for railroad spikes for home or garden projects (discarded spikes and metal debris litter the railroad bed). To a large degree, the reason the river valley is so nice and undeveloped is because the railroad companies have owned all the land along one side since the 1800's.

Three summers ago I was fishing in the river as a train chugged past. I heard the trains brakes, and it went slower, slower, slower and came to a complete stop. It sat that way for something like 15 minutes when I saw the conductor come walking down the tracks looking at each car. A few minutes later he came walking back up, and perhaps 15 minutes later the train slowly picked up speed and left. OK, that was an extraordinarily boring story, but I have always wondered what that was all about.