Emerson Clubhouse Construction Begins

The rebuild and renovation of the Emerson Clubhouse will begin soon, with the parking lot fenced off beginning Wed., June 30, 2021. The construction trailer is already in place.

A second story will be added to the Clubhouse, creating usable space for the first time for large meetings and events, and also adding a small fitness center.

The pool pumping equipment was also evaluated during the pre-construction phase and it was discovered that the equipment would need to be repaired or replaced. Rather than perform this work in two phases the Emerson Board of Directors decided to close the pool entirely for 2021.

Originally slated to begin in Winter 2021, the project was delayed in getting permits and is now scheduled to be completed in early 2022.

During construction the Emerson Food Trucks (every Friday, and alternate Wednesdays) have located to the Enclave at Emerson parking lot at 8450 Upper Sky Way, Laurel, MD 20723.

Emerson HOA Board Meeting 3/26/18

Attendees:

1. Emerson Board: 

• Nancy Tucker (Howard Hughes Corp.)
• Erica Root-Cikanek
• Feleke Eshete
• Unable to attend: 
• Knott Realty Representative
• Narsimha Doma

2. CMC Management:

• Steffanie Felder Nollie
• Heather McGreevy

3. Residents: Approx. 7 in attendance

Summary:

• Resident Forum: dog waste stations, commercial vehicles
• Committees need volunteers, especially Safety
• Swimming Pool to open full-time May 26 (there will be no early opening dates)
• Clubhouse Renovation Update
• Emerson Finances very healthy, intend to lower assessment rate again
• Yoga Class approved for Clubhouse (10 weeks)
• Draft FY19 Budget to be prepared by 4/22/18, approved 5/21/18
• Emerson wants to revitalize Committees
• Possible Committee Night
• Also potentially seek an intern to update web site

Meeting Details:

Emerson Capital Improvements - Town Hall 10/24

Emerson will discuss the survey results and the Board's decisions for capital improvement projects at the next Emerson Town Hall Meeting on Mon., Oct. 24th at 7 PM in the Clubhouse.

As you will recall, the Board sent out a survey asking residents to provide feedback on possible improvements to Emerson facilities in order to enhance our quality of life, ranging from an expansion and renovation of the Clubhouse to an expansion of the pool.

48% of the almost 1000 households in Emerson filled out the survey, with many write-in suggestions as well.

National Electronics Museum (Linthicum Heights, MD)

In a nondescript building near BWI is the National Electronics Museum, incorporated in 1980 primarily as a way to display defense-related electronics from the former Westinghouse (now Northrop Grumman) facility nearby, including airborne radars and a radar for the BOMARC supersonic missile (the first long-range anti-aircraft missile).

By 1983 the museum had its first permanent facility staffed by volunteers, with the first full-time staff hired in 1989. Today it is in a 22,000 square foot facility with outdoor exhibits and meeting spaces.

Inside the Museum

CANCELLED: 2015 Lisbon (MD) Old-Fashioned Christmas Horse Parade

Update: This year's Lisbon Christmas Horse Parade in Lisbon, MD originally scheduled for Saturday, December 12, 2015, has been cancelled due to insurmountable logistical problems from the rapid growth of the parade. The organizers expect to bring the horses back in 2016.

Instead, there will be an alternate parade on December 12th of decorated tractors and farm equipment to continue the original goal of raising funds for local food banks.

The original post for those who were interested in the event:

Over 500 decorated horses, ponies, donkeys and mules are expected Tractors and farm equipment that have been decorated for the holidays will be featured in this annual Christmas Parade in Western Howard County.

The parade is free to spectators, and entry fees from the riders benefit Howard and Carroll County Food Banks and the Lisbon Volunteer Fire Department (40/40/20 split).

Tips from the organizers:

2015 Emerson Tennis Tournament

(Updated 9/30/15 with prizes and signup information.)

Calling all tennis players in Emerson! 

Emerson HOA has announced its first tennis tournament will be held October 9th to October 25th with matches scheduled in evening slots during the week, and in morning slots on weekends.

Both singles and doubles brackets are planned. The doubles bracket winner will receive a $200 giftcard and the singles winner will receive $100.

More information is posted on the Emerson HOA front page, including rules and a release form. Sign up on SignUpGenius.

As an aside, those are Aru and Ajay's tennis racket and tennis balls posing modestly on the Emerson courts in the pictures. :)

Emerson 2015 Tennis Tournament

Dates: October 9-25, 2015

Location: Emerson Tennis Courts

Complete Rules: Rules

Release Form: Release

Sign Up: 2015 Emerson Tennis Tournament on SignUpGenius

For More Information and to Submit Release Form: emerson.activities@gmail.com

Click image for larger version

Corn Mazes in Maryland

Multiple corn mazes and pumpkin patches open on a seasonal basis in the Fall on farms in Maryland and nearby sections of Pennsylvania.

Typically these venues start up in mid-September and run for about 6 weeks until around Halloween.

The mazes vary in size and complexity, and sometimes provide customers with a flag on a stick to raise in case they get lost and need to exit.

Some of these operations have become fairly sophisticated, with GPS-equipped tractors cutting the corn maze and additional activities such as hayrides, play areas, and pumpkin cannons.

External Web Links:

Since we haven't visited any of these locations, these are just some examples to give you an idea of what's available in the area!

• Corn Mazes America - external web site with links to multiple corn mazes
• Pumpkin Patches and More - external web site with links to pumpkin patches
• Summers Farm (Frederick, MD) - 2015 season Sept. 26 - Nov. 1
• Lawyers Farm (Thurmont, MD) - 2015 season Sept. 19 - Nov. 1

Lawyers Farm (2014 Video):

Farmers Turn to Professionals to Cut Corn Mazes (nj.com):

Final Emerson Movie Night on Aug. 14

The final Emerson Movie Night at the Pool will be next Friday, August 14, 2015.

• 7:30 PM: Doors open
• 8:30 PM: Movie begins

No RSVP is required but an Emerson ID or Pool Pass is required to attend. Guests will not be admitted in the Pool after 6 PM that night.

The movie will be Disney's "Maleficent" and volunteers are sought to assist with staffing the event, to include set up, handing out refreshments, and clean up.

The Beach at The National Building Museum (DC)

The National Building Museum is a private museum in downtown Washington, DC dedicated to architecture, engineering and urban design.

Housed in the 1887 US Pension Building, it's free to walk through the Great Hall and building, but admission to exhibits requires an entry fee.

This year for its annual "Summer Block Party" the museum decided to create an unusual attraction to draw attention and visitors: an artificial 10,000 square foot "beach" in the central Great Hall filled with 1 million recyclable anti-microbial plastic balls through which visitors can surf.

The BEACH will only be open from July 4 to September 7, 2015. After that date it will be torn down and the materials recycled, with a different exhibit next summer.

About the National Building Museum

Autumn Walk Picnic Changed to August 30th

(Update: The After Picnic Report was posted on 9/1/15)

Due to a scheduling conflict, the proposed date for the Autumn Walk 2015 Picnic has been moved up to Sunday, August 30th from 3 PM to 6 PM. (There will be no rain date.)

In addition to hamburgers and hot dogs supplied by Autumn Walk, several fun activities are planned and the rest of the food, drinks and supplies will be potluck.

(Update 8/9/15): Activities I've heard rumored are:

• Face Painting
• Cake Walk
• Water Balloon Toss
• Cornhole
• Mystery activities?

Hopefully all of you will be back from your summer vacations by that date!

Location
The Picnic will be held at the end of the cul-de-sac again this year (the same location as the first picnic in 2012).

RSVP and Sign Up
You can RSVP and also sign up to help or bring supplies on SignUpGenius:

• Autumn Walk 2015 Picnic

We request:

• Please include a house number or otherwise let us know who you are
• Tell us the number of adults and children expected
• Please view the list of items as only suggestions - it is all of you who make this a success!

Although Autumn Walk HOA is providing a very small amount of funding for hamburgers and hot dogs, this event as always is a joint effort of a small group of volunteers among your neighbors, and all of you for your potluck contributions.

Thanks go out to Bindu, Kelly, Allie, Daphna, Jenny, Adrienne, Jamie, and Pam for organizing this year's Picnic!

Please mark your calendars and plan to attend. This is a great way to meet your neighbors and continue to make this community a wonderful place to live!

Riversdale Mansion (College Park, MD)

Just 9 miles down the road from the College Park Airport is Riversdale Mansion, built between 1801 and 1806 by Belgian businessman Henri Joseph Stier.

The estate became the home of Stier's daughter Rosalie and her husband George Calvert, the grandson of Charles Calvert (Fifth Lord Baltimore).

Rosalie was given title to the house by her father, as well as placed in charge of his American business interests, and her extensive correspondence with her family provides a well-documented look at life in the period up to her early death in 1821 at age 43.

Rosalie and George's son Charles Benedict Calvert would donate land from the estate in 1858 to found the Maryland Agricultural College, today known as the University of Maryland.

Cradle of Aviation: College Park, MD

College Park Airport (CGS), about half an hour away from us and established in 1909 for Wilbur Wright to train the very first military aviators, is the oldest continually operated airport in the world.

The historic airport is called "The Cradle of Aviation" because it was the site of many aviation "firsts," including the first mile-high flight in a powered airplane, the first controlled helicopter flight, and the first scheduled US airmail service.

The 2600-foot runway still supports general aviation needs today although pilots must undergo enhanced vetting procedures to fly into restricted airspace near Washington DC.

A very small Smithsonian-affiliated aviation museum is also at the airport with historical exhibits and both original and replica historical aircraft. It takes about an hour to go through the exhibit space, which has a long window looking out on the runway.

First Successful Powered Flight
Following their first short flights of several hundred feet at Kitty Hawk, NC on December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright spent the next few years working to build powered aircraft that could sustain controlled flight, and then trying to sell their invention to various skeptical governments.

Montpelier Mansion (Laurel, MD) Photo Album

The historic 1785 Montpelier Mansion in Laurel, MD of Major Thomas and Anne Ridgely Snowden is only about 10 miles away from Emerson, and was one of the large plantations that once occupied this part of Maryland. But the real wealth of the property came from mining for iron ore and rock.

Over the years the mansion has had many famous visitors, including George and Martha Washington, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Today the home has been preserved as a museum.

The property also hosts the Montepelier Arts Center, with both artists-in-residence and a regular schedule of performances.

Montpelier Mansion

Dinosaur Park (Laurel, MD)

Did you know that many of the dinosaur fossils discovered in the US east of the Mississippi were found in Maryland?

A tiny park in Laurel called "Dinosaur Park" commemorates the first fossil finds in the 1850's but is also an active 41-acre paleontological site, open on Saturday mornings twice a month for fossil searches.

Dinosaur Alley
"Dinosaur Alley" is a region filled with dinosaur and plant fossils that roughly corresponds to the Route 1 corridor in Maryland, DC and Northern Virginia.

During the final dinosaur era, the Cretaceous period roughly 145M to 66M years ago, Maryland was a flat coastal plain with winding rivers, comparable to southern Louisiana today.

Emerson Pool Party RSVPs due Wed. 5/13

RSVPs for the 2015 Emerson Pool Party are due this Wednesday, May 13th. Send a response to the Emerson Community Manager with your name, property address, and the number of adults and the number of children attending.

If you miss this deadline you will have to wait until 2:30 PM for admission on the day of the event!

Date: Saturday, June 13, 2015
Time: 1 PM - 4 PM
Location: Clubhouse Parking Lot

RSVPs due Wednesday, May 13, otherwise you will have to wait till 2:30 PM for admission on the day of the event

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The announcement from Emerson:

Community Pool Party

Wine in the Woods on May 16-17 (Columbia, MD)

Each year Howard County Recreation and Parks hosts Wine in the Woods, an outdoor wine festival in Columbia's Symphony Woods next to Merriweather Post Pavilion. This year the event will be on May 16-17, 2015.

Started in 1991, Wine in the Woods now welcomes over 25,000 attendees each year with over 30 wineries from across Maryland participating.

Wine education seminars are included with the admission fee, and there are also Wine Check locations where patrons can leave purchased bottles of wine so they don't have to carry them around.

The festival also includes artisans and crafters, live bands on two stages, and food vendors.

There will also be a Wine in the Woods 5K Run in Centennial Park a week prior to the festival, on Saturday, May 9th.

Tickets

Revolutionary War Encampment at Mount Vernon (May 2-3)

One of the advantages of living halfway between Baltimore and Washington, DC is the wealth of things to do, some of them fairly unique to the area. 

On the weekend of May 2-3, 2015 George Washington's home Mount Vernon will host a Revolutionary War Encampment with hundreds of re-enactors demonstrating battle skills and "General Washington" overseeing the action.

Mount Vernon
Many of you know that George Washington used his surveyor skills to personally help map out the District of Columbia.

But it's easy to forget that Mount Vernon lies just 15 miles south of Alexandria, VA and the bustling DC Beltway, at the end of the George Washington Memorial Parkway.

2015 Emerson Pool Hours

You should have received your application for your 2015 Pool Pass, along with the Pool Rules, in the mail last week.

For your convenience, the 2015 Emerson Pool Hours are reposted here:

Season Opening: 10 AM to 8 PM (May 9-10, May 16-17)
Normal Hours: 10 AM to 8 PM (May 23 - June 30, Aug. 15 - Sept. 5)
Mid-Summer Extended Hours: 10 AM to 9 PM (July 1 - Aug. 14)
Season's End (After Labor Day): 10 AM to 8 PM (Sept. 12-13, Sept. 19-20)

The Pool typically closes shortly after Labor Day depending on the weather.

This year, the Pool Tot Lot will also be fenced so that it can remain open year-round.

Cherry Blossoms in HoCo and DC

Washington, DC is famous for the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin, given to the city as a gift of friendship from the Japanese government over 100 years ago, and the 2015 National Cherry Blossom Festival will run from March 20 to April 12.

But Howard County has started its own cherry tree tradition via its Blossoms of Hope program, combining charitable giving with beautification of the County's parks and roads.

Howard County's cherry trees typically bloom a couple of weeks after the ones in Washington, ideally through the month of April.


Washington's Cherry Trees

BWI Observation Park

On the south side of BWI Airport about 25 minutes from us is a quirky little pocket park on the BWI Trail that sits practically underneath the approach path for the southeast runway of the airport.

As incoming planes descend to cross MD-176 (Dorsey Road) they pass within about 100 feet of the Thomas A. Dixon Observation area, a small parking lot with some benches under a wooden trellis as well as a playground.

The other function of the location is parking for the trail, though the main attraction is plane-spotting.

Many people simply park their cars facing east toward the flight path and watch the planes coming in from their vehicles.

The facility is only open from sunrise to sunset, but the area is too dark and isolated at night to remain in any event.

The BWI and B&A Trails