Q: What do you get when a rock crosses with didymo?

A: Rock snot.

As I learned from covering the algae story in Monday’s paper, scientists came up with this clever nickname for the dribbles of goo that cover river rocks and bugs. And after seeing pictures of it, yeah, didymo looks like snot.

Apparently the stuff is most problematic for fishing lures and bait — it covers your line with foot-and-a-half long rat tails, said Jason DuPont, a guide on the Gunpowder River. So you can imagine that must do wonders for fishing.

But it starts to grow like peach fuzz in the fall, DuPont said, and practically doubles in size over the winter. Until spring, the goop will be at its fullest bloom, if you want to catch some pretty views of rock snot.

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We’re all quite atwitter here in The Daily Record newsroom. Sonic, the drive-in home of shakes, foot-long hot dogs and waitresses on roller skates, is coming to the Baltimore area.

The Oklahoma-based fast food chain has plans to open up its second Maryland location on Liberty Road just outside the Baltimore Beltway. (It also has a drive-in in Easton.)

According to a Baltimore County news release, Sonic plans to hire 120 employees for its new location, which will open Aug. 13. The County Department of Economic Development also assisted the local franchise owners with a $60,000 Building Investment Loan.

It’s noteworthy that Sonic’s first Baltimore-Washington location is outside of Charm City.

Read the rest of this entry »

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I guess when you think about it, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and New Jersey are pretty boardwalk-heavy compared with other U.S. shorelines … but we’ll take what we can get.

Especially when it means Maryland’s Ocean City boardwalk is rated by ShermansTravel as the fifth-best boardwalk in the country behind Atlantic City, N.J.; Coney Island, N.Y.; Kemah, Tex. and Mission Beach, Calif.

And Shermans is showing the love for the Del-Mar peninsula — right behind Ocean City is nearby Rehoboth Beach, Del.

Shermans cites Ocean City’s 2.5 miles of restaurants, night life, shops and amusements (especially Trimper’s Carousel, the country’s oldest continuously operating carousel) as its reason for the ranking.

In a statement, Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan said the boardwalk was one of the city’s most popular attractions and a “source of pride and heritage” for the town.

This is not the first time Ocean City has been nationally recognized for its boardwalk. In 2004, the Travel Channel recognized Ocean City as one of the “Best Boardwalks in America” and in 2005, USA Today placed Ocean City on its list of “One of the 10 Great Places to have Fun on the Boardwalk.”

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Environmentalists are livid over some remarks by state Sen. Richard Colburn, a Cambridge Republican. Now they’re calling for a formal and public apology.

It happened during a meeting on Feb. 15 between the Eastern Shore delegation and the secretaries of the departments of Agriculture and Environment, in which lawmakers complained that agency rules are slowing down or halting projects in their counties.

Sen. Colburn, one of those at the meeting, said he believes “river keepers,” environmentalists who watch over particular waterways, are dictating business on the Eastern Shore. He compared them to watermelons: “green on the outside and red or socialist on the inside.”

Members of the Waterkeeper Alliance are red-faced with anger.

“Characterizing any and every opposing group or elected official as unpatriotic or un-American is a political tactic and has no place in any form of reasonable discourse,” said Kathy Phillips of Assateague Coastkeeper, a Waterkeeper Alliance member. “We are hard-working Maryland residents, devoting our lives in many cases, to the protection of Maryland waterways from illegal and often toxic pollution. Our groups are comprised of concerned Americans who care very deeply about their country. Waterkeepers has more than a number of veterans working to restore clean waterways in our country. Senator Colburn is engaging here in a McCarthy-like slur and he owes us an apology.”

U.S. Marine Corps Colonel (Ret.) Richard Dove, registered Republican, and Neuse Riverkeeper Emeritus (April 1, 1993 through July 4, 2000) said: “This man [State Sen. Colburn] doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t know me or any of my colleagues, that’s for sure. Having served two tours of duty in Vietnam, I take it personally when someone calls me a Red, a socialist. I understand that Sen. Colburn aligns himself with big agriculture and the commercial farms that keep him in office, but the fact that our goals are not aligned doesn’t give him the right to blindly tag our members as socialists, implying somehow that we are un-American.”

Jeff Kelble of Shenandoah Riverkeeper said his family has been in America since the 1600s, homesteaded the Shenandoah Valley in the 1700s, and fought in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. “If anything, Riverkeepers are red-blooded Americans, not Red, socialists,” he said.

One wonders whether or not Sen. Colburn has a case of the “blues” over his remark.

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Last night was The Daily Record’s 14th annual Top 100 Women event, a program designed to honor those Maryland women who have had a positive impact in their communities.

Several weeks ago, I traveled to the Eastern Shore to a small town called Oxford to interview Judy Bixler, a ferry boat captain, who was honored with her second Top 100 award last night.

Oxford is a quaint little town in Talbot County with bed and breakfasts, biker friendly roads and cute country stores that make you feel like you’ve landed in Mayberry.

But the town’s biggest attraction is the Oxford-Bellevue Ferry—a boat that can support nine vehicles, including cars, bikes and motorcycles—which is believed to be the oldest privately-operated ferry in the country (established 1683).

As captain, Bixler steers the ferry with ease and makes each passenger that comes on board feel right at home. I spent the day with her on the ferry and captured the video below.

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Anybody got a really big truck?

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources is offering (.pdf) a 5,000-square-foot house outside of Cambridge for free, to the first shmoe who comes along willing and able to move it from the site. Known as the Linthicum House for its builders and owners (full disclosure: Daily Record editor Tom Linthicum says he does not think he’s related, but that you never know…), it was erected in 1914 and looks like your typical Eastern Shore plantation mansion.

The house, it seems, is in the way of a 17-acre Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park, now being designed by the state. The project, which is scheduled to be started in summer 2010, will include a visitor’s center, a memorial garden, trails and picnic pavilions.

Jordan Loran, director of engineering and construction for the DNR, said Wednesday that since his agency posted the offering Tuesday, they’ve received one call from an interested buyer.

“You can’t move it too far,” he said. “If you can’t get it on a barge and move it by water, you’re limited to a small radius.”

So how in the heck do you move a house this big, anyway?

Loran explained that for about $35,000, you can separate the structure from its foundations, jack it up on steel beams, and put it on the back of a really big truck, which then can drive it a few miles an hour somewhere close-by.

If no one shows interest, he said, the state will offer what’s left inside of it to a nonprofit salvage company, and consider knocking it down.

“The house is old, and it’s locally significant, but it’s not eligible for the historic register,” he said. “It is a fairly substantial structure. We don’t consider it to have a lot of dollar value at this time, but instead of tearing it down, if someone local or non-profit could take care of it, perhaps.”

So there you have it. Who wants a wraparound porch?

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The 35th Annual White Marlin Open in Ocean City kicked off Monday and runs through the final weigh-in this afternoon.

High gas prices and the shaky economy nipped participation in the popular fishing tournament, with 300 boats registered for this year’s event compared to nearly 400 last year.

Registered boats paid either $950 or $1,050, depending on whether they registered early, for the chance to compete for the $2.2 million in cash prizes up for grabs.

Daily Record Photographer Rich Dennison spent the week on the water aboard boats competing for the big prize. Watch in a larger window by clicking here.

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When I’m out hiking or enjoying the great outdoors in some form, I tend to scoff when I see people out in nature yacking on their cell phones. But at Assateague Island National Seashore, the park is making your cell phone part of the whole nature experience.

The park announced Thursday that visitors can now use their cell phones to take a guided audio tour of the seashore and learn more about the island’s famous wild horses. Users will sacrifice their own cell minutes for the call, but there’s no charge for the tour.

The pilot program is provided by OnCell Audio and listeners will have the option to provide feedback on their experience. The program has improved “proved fairly popular and effective” at least for some organizations.

On the surface it seems like a neat idea, but I can think of a few hitches. Like, what if you don’t get cell service out on the beach? Or your call breaks up and you have to keep redialing? Last time I was at Assateague I didn’t have any service problems but I didn’t try to use my phone once I was inside the park gates.

What do you think about this new offer? Is it a modern move for a national park or something that could potentially exclude some visitors’ access?

LIZ FARMER, Business Writer

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While doing the reporting for today’s story on Ocean City’s summer tourism expectations, I learned about — and experienced — something I’ve come to call the “ahhhh” phenomenon.

It’s that feeling you get when you cross the Bay Bridge and get to the Eastern Shore. (That is, unless you are sitting in beach traffic, in which case you are probably experiencing a different phenomenon I can’t repeat here.)

Maybe it’s the thrill of knowing you can top off for at least 10 cents a gallon cheaper in Easton or Cambridge. Maybe it’s the sprawl of farmland and low, unassuming buildings. Or the quiet produce stands that come to life during the summer weekends with smells of berries, fresh produce and the occasional fresh baked apple pie.

Or maybe it’s just the fact that I grew up about an hour’s drive from a beach (albeit a cold one), and it makes me think of being a kid.

Whatever the reason, there’s a sense of peace and ease that’s unique to that part of our state. People make eye contact with you as you pass by on the street, drivers on the roads suddenly keep an appropriate distance from one another other and remember to use their turn signals, and the odds of getting a tan by mid-May are pretty good.

But I’m wondering with the economic climate the way it is today, will the “ahhhh” phenomenon still be enough to draw people out this summer to let off some steam? Or will the squeeze at the pump — and at home — convince people that staying put is less stressful?

Where are you getting your “ahhhhs” this summer?

LIZ FARMER, Business Writer

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Smith Island layer cake got a sweet deal from the Maryland Senate on Monday; the body voted 44-1 to make the Eastern Shore’s creation our official state dessert.

The only senator to vote against the cake was Republican Sen. Alex Mooney, who told the AP he voted in jest because his county, Frederick, grows apples and he prefers the fruit pie.

Now, on to the House…

JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor

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