July 5-12, 2022

Josef’s Cache

The oldest geocache in Maryland is located in Patapsco Valley State Park so Jane confidently set the truck’s GPS to the park. . .and went to a section of Patapsco Valley State Park that was about 20 miles from the section where the cache was located. We had seen before where a park or forest will have non-contiguous sections, but didn’t give that possibility a thought until we arrived at the very busy park and didn’t see a way to get to the cache. A drive corrected the problem and there might even have been a cold beverage along the way.

Yusef’s Cache was put out in February 2001. The walk to the cache was along a steep hiking path with lots of roots and rocks (but no scrambling) that took us near an old railroad grade.
The cache itself was hard to find but Dave soon signed the log and we headed uphill about three quarters of a mile back to the truck.

Northwest Branch

Northwest Branch is a tributary of the Anacostia River.

President Theodore Roosevelt and his wife Edith scrambled around in the gorge in 1904, according to a letter to their son. Roosevelt said the Northwest Branch was one of the prettiest sites in the area.
The creek scours potholes in rocks as it passes over them.
Dam on the Northwest Branch.

Thomas Viaduct

The B & O Railroad needed a bridge over the Patapsco River between Relay and Elkridge, Maryland. Benjamin Latrobe, Jr. surveyed and planned the route. Although he had studied bridge construction, he was not an engineer, and critics thought the bridge would not be able to carry its own weight.

The critics were wrong: The bridge supports not only itself but freight trains.
The bridge has eight elliptical arches and is 704 feet long and 66 feet high.
The bridge was the largest bridge in the U.S. when it was completed in 1835. It contains 63,000 tons of granite.
The underside of the bridge shows some deterioration.
Once there was a walking path beside the tracks.
Dave in front of the Thomas Viaduct named for Philip E. Thomas, President of the B & O Railroad

Towson University

A search for a webcam took us to Towson University in Towson, Maryland.

Towson University was founded in 1866 as a training school for teachers and now has over 20,000 students.
To claim this webcam geocache, we had to take a screenshot of ourselves in the camera’s live feed.
The mascot chose not to feed on Dave’s arm.

Categories: Travel

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