Lake Needwood is a 75-acre reservoir in Derwood, Maryland, created in 1965 by damming Rock Creek to help with flood control and soil erosion. Nestled just east of Rockville, in Montgomery County, the lake is also the starting point of the Rock Creek Trail, which winds its way down to the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Today, it’s a favorite spot for walking, biking, and running.
I often walk at Lake Needwood. It’s a calming refuge in a busy suburban county, and I enjoy it in every season — especially in the fall, when the trees blaze with color and the light turns golden.
The George Peabody Library in Baltimore is one of the most beautiful libraries I’ve ever stepped into. Walking through its doors feels like entering a cathedral of books — the kind of place that instantly slows you down and makes you look up.
It wasn’t always part of Johns Hopkins University. The library began as the library of the Peabody Institute of the City of Baltimore, founded in 1857 when Massachusetts-born philanthropist George Peabody dedicated the institute to the people of Baltimore in gratitude for their “kindness and hospitality.” Today, it’s part of the Special Collections Department of the Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins, still serving the public as Peabody intended.
The building, which opened in 1878, was designed by Baltimore architect Edmund G. Lind, working with the Peabody Institute’s first provost, Dr. Nathaniel H. Morison. The moment you enter the stack room, your eyes are drawn upward to five tiers of intricate cast-iron balconies, all leading to a skylight 61 feet above. The ironwork, crafted by the Bartlett-Robbins Company, has the kind of fine detail you don’t see much anymore.
The library holds 300,000 volumes, mostly from the 19th century, covering everything from religion and British art to American history, literature, the history of science, and tales of exploration and travel. It’s easy to imagine 19th-century scholars hunched over these very books.
Between 2002 and 2004, the library underwent a $1 million restoration, and it still feels lovingly cared for. Best of all, it’s free and open to the public. If you find yourself in Baltimore, make time for it. It’s not just a place to see books — it’s a place to feel them, to stand in the quiet and be surrounded by the beauty of knowledge made visible.
Menelaus blue morpho (Morpho menelaus) at the Butterfly Experience.
Brookside Gardens in Montgomery County, Maryland is an award-winning 50-acre public display garden within Wheaton Regional Park. Included in the gardens are several distinct areas: Aquatic Garden, Azalea Garden, Butterfly Garden, Children’s Garden, Rose Garden, Japanese Style Garden, Trial Garden, Rain Garden, and the Woodland Walk. The Formal Gardens areas include a Perennial Garden, Yew Garden, the Maple Terrace, and Fragrance Garden. Brookside Gardens also features two conservatories for year-round enjoyment. Admission to the gardens is free.
The Butterfly Experience at Brookside Gardens is a seasonal exhibit with a modest fee. Visitors get an intimate, up-close look at hundreds of brilliant live butterflies from North America, Central America, South America, Africa, and Asia as they flutter among colorful flowers throughout Brookside Gardens’ South Conservatory. The exhibit started on April 10, 2025, and runs through September 21, 2025. The Experience is located inside a conservatory glasshouse, which is usually ten degrees warmer than the outside temperature and more humid.
Zebra Longwing Butterfly (Heliconius charithonia)
The exhibit, which had been offered annually beginning in 1997, was last held in 2019 when it was suspended due to the Covid pandemic. This was my first time seeing the exhibit. I’m glad it’s back. It’s quite an undertaking. Every week during the exhibition, Brookside receives between 200 and 300 butterflies from around the world.
The butterflies are beautiful and challenging to photograph, I made these images with a Macro lens but a telephoto lens would probably have been easier. In any event, seeing these wonderful creatures is a treat.
In 1954, Giovanni Mineo came to Pittsburgh from Sicily where he had worked as a baker. Riding a street car down Murray Avenue, he found a rental space for his pizzeria at the original location of 2130 Murray Avenue. On September 13, 1958, he introduced pizza to the primarily Jewish Squirrel Hill neighborhood. In the 1970’s, Mineo’s moved next door to the current location of 2128 Murray Avenue and his teenage sons Dominic and Giovanni Jr (“John”) began working with their father. Although Giovanni died in 1996, sons Dominic, John, and manager Gary Robinson hold true to his traditions and recipes.
Now that I live in Washington, I go as often as I can to Giuseppi’s Pizza in Rockville, Maryland for a similar Pittsburgh experience, including lots of Pittsburgh Steelers paraphernalia on the walls.
