Saturday Non-Beach Report

Yesterday morning, Alex, Kelly, Georgia and I went out on the boat to give Kelly the full "Chesapeake Experience." Unfortunately, the wind was up from the north, and after lumping up to Parkers Creek in a half hour, we ran home soaked.  Sorry, no pictures; it was unsafe for cameras.

To make up for that, we went wine tasting in the afternoon.  Our subject was Perigeaux Winery, over on Mackall Road, near St. Leonards Creek on the Patuxent River.

It has a very well kept vineyard, and a pleasant tasting room.  $5 each will buy you a sip of every wine they have.  We tried a good number, and settled on a bottle of desert wine.

Just a butterfly on some of their plantings.  I think it might be an American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis)

With some of the afternoon left to kill before the afternoon nap, we stopped in at the Battle Creek Cypress Swamp, a Calvert County park created to protect one of the the most northern stands of Bald Cypress in the United States. Bald Cypress are the classic swamp tree, with the large 'knees' that stuck out of the wet soil or water to help provide air for the roots.  They also shed their needles in winter, unusual for conifers.

The swamp itself was rather dry, so mostly the knees stuck out of mud and not water.  The Cypress are old growth, and so tall it difficult to see that they are conifers, all you see are the trunks and knees.  It was a pleasant shaded walk on the boardwalk on a sunny warm afternoon.  However, the displays in the visitors center were pretty sparse

Alex got a bit of a kick out of going back to where he'd visited many times on elementary and middle school field trips.