Holiday Weekend

Maryland travelers flooded airports, train stations and local roads yesterday, putting authorities on the alert but causing few problems on what was expected to be the busiest travel day of the holiday weekend. The number of people leaving home over the Christmas weekend was expected to be slightly up from last year, despite rising gasoline prices and airfares. "Because Christmas is falling on a Tuesday, it's sort of viewed as a four-day weekend for most people," said Ragina C. Averella, public and government affairs manager for AAA. "That encourages people to travel."

Beginning today, state police in Westminster and across the state will be working overtime to patrol highways, looking for speeders and drunken drivers during the Labor Day holiday weekend, said 1st Sgt. Dean Richardson, a barracks spokesman."

The Honsbergers wanted a nontraditional holiday, so instead of traveling through the woods to grandma's, they boarded the train yesterday with grandma -- bound for New York City to see Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade."

AT THE END of a busy week, we can take comfort in this phrase: long holiday weekend.Those fortunate among us will be getting away for the weekend. The rest will be catching up on long-overdue chores, cruising the stores for holiday bargains or charring burgers on the backyard grill.For those vacationing in Pasadena over Labor Day, Downs Park presents music by the Chesapeake Bay.The Annapolis Symphony Orchestra will perform works of Strauss, Gershwin, Rossini and Bizet at 5: 30 p.m. tomorrow.

Howard County police, concerned about a spate of burglaries that occurred during Thanksgiving weekend, are asking residents to take extra precautions during the coming holidays."

Howard County police will be out in force this holiday weekend as part of a grant from the State Highway Administration to reduce drunken driving and accidents.About 30 extra officers will be using radar, laser and VASCAR speed calculators to enforce speed limits along heavily traveled roads over the three-day Labor Day weekend, said Sgt. Steven Keller, a Howard County police spokesman. Officers also will target seat belt use and set up sobriety checkpoints."By making people slow down, wear their seat belts and getting drunk drivers off the roads, we can reduce the number of accidents," Keller said.

No fatalities or serious accidents were reported during the long holiday weekend on rural Maryland interstates where the speed limit was raised on Saturday to 65 mph.But state troopers handed out 828 tickets to drivers who wanted to go even faster.State Police spokesman Mike McKelvin called it "a very successful beginning" to the higher speed limits, "especially when you look at the serious and fatal accidents. We didn't have any" on the interstate highways. Six people died in noninterstate holiday accidents -- three of them on motorcycles, Mr. McKelvin said.

OCEAN CITY -- Maryland's beach resort came to life for this holiday weekend that commemorates America's war dead, playing host to an estimated 280,000 visitors."

OCEAN CITY -- Fall came early to the beach over the Labor Day weekend, pushing summer 1994 out the door with gusty winds and rough seas."It's a dry nor'easter -- waves breaking 6 to 7 feet," Beach Patrol Captain George Schoepf said yesterday. "It's a hellacious surf. If you're not a swimmer, you shouldn't be out there. We're not letting them in above the waist."Few of the visitors who crowded Ocean City for a last bit of summer's last holiday weekend ventured to the beach yesterday afternoon, and fewer still got wet. Instead, they bundled up and strolled the Boardwalk, buying funnel cakes, fries and pizza.

ELMONT, N.Y. -- After an unprecedented three-day break in the racing schedule, New York's best non-striking athletes returned to Belmont Park today for the 40-day fall meet and its slew of stakes races that lead to the Nov. 5 Breeders' Cup.Until football season starts in earnest, thoroughred racing remains the only game in town. So for baseball-starved fans, NYRA has added an incentive to come to the track for the first three days. Anyone wearing a Mets or Yankees cap was to be admitted free today through Sunday.

Marylanders may be bucking a holiday travel trend. Despite predictions that July 4th travel will be down nearly 2 percent nationwide, the number of Marylanders expected to travel this holiday weekend will dip - but only by about half of 1 percent, according to AAA Mid-Atlantic. About 709,000 Maryland residents will travel 50 miles or more round trip this holiday weekend, with the majority - 633,000 - doing so by car. Still, that number is about 1 percent lower than last year. Air travel appears to be making up the difference, with an increase of 7.7 percent in holiday fliers.

In the thick of a gray morning just days ago, fat snowflakes began to fall on the city, dusting the bricks like powdered sugar and swirling in the air like confetti. Office workers ran to their windows. People hurrying along on the sidewalk stopped in their tracks. And moments later, as suddenly as it appeared, the life-sized snow globe settled. Workers turned back to their desks and city streets were just streets. A holiday weekend is just like that. You've got to make sure to look for the magic.

June Jordan usually flies when she goes to visit family in South Carolina. But when she saw how high air fares have climbed, she decided - for the first time - to take the train from Baltimore's Penn Station to Columbia. True, her Amtrak train would take 10 hours, getting her in at a sleepy 1:47 this morning. But Jordan, 66, had snacks, water and a Danielle Steel romance to keep her company. With a senior discount, she saved more than $200 by taking the train. "Airfare is too expensive," said Jordan's daughter, Sandy Scheuerman, who bought the $140 train ticket for her mother and was dropping her off at the station.

Violet Quick would probably have gone to Ocean City for the Memorial Day weekend, but with the price of regular gasoline closing in on $4 a gallon, she decided to stay home and have a cookout. Quick - whose Suzuki Swift sports an "I am from Pigtown. Washington Village Does Not Exist" bumper sticker - hopes to get to the Shore this summer, but she isn't sure she'll be able to if fuel costs remain high. She was paying $3.89 a gallon yesterday to fill the Suzuki at the Royal Farms store in Lansdowne.

Maryland travelers flooded airports, train stations and local roads yesterday, putting authorities on the alert but causing few problems on what was expected to be the busiest travel day of the holiday weekend. The number of people leaving home over the Christmas weekend was expected to be slightly up from last year, despite rising gasoline prices and airfares. "Because Christmas is falling on a Tuesday, it's sort of viewed as a four-day weekend for most people," said Ragina C. Averella, public and government affairs manager for AAA. "That encourages people to travel."

BEACH NEWS A WAVE OF HOLIDAY VISITORS If you're going to Ocean City for a weekend getaway, be sure to get there early to claim your stake in the sand. According to the city's Department of Tourism, an estimated 259,823 tourists visited the resort town during Memorial Day weekend, marking the best unofficial start to the summer season since 1994. Town officials pointed to the weather, with highs near 80, as the reason for the increase in the number of visitors. "Much of the talk leading up to the holiday weekend was about gas prices topping $3, but the weather decided to steal the show," said Mayor Rick Meehan.

A 19-year-old East Baltimore man was shot to death as he sat in a minivan in Baltimore's Cedonia neighborhood, the latest victim during a violent holiday weekend that added four victims to the city's homicide toll. Davon Williams, whose last known address was in the 3600 block of Dudley Ave., was shot in the head about 5:15 a.m. Saturday in the 5800 block of Waycross Road, Baltimore police said. He was pronounced dead at Good Samaritan Hospital hours later. Police had made no arrests in the case.

Two months of exceptionally hot and dry summer weather have come splashing to an end in just five days. September has already dumped more rain on Baltimore than all of July and August combined. More than 1.78 inches fell yesterday at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, gurgling down the hatch as a chaser to the 3.63 inches that fell during two days of rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Ernesto last week. By Thursday, moderate drought conditions had developed in much of the state.

HOLLYWOOD -- Warner Bros. Pictures hopes Superman Returns will be able to leap an extremely long weekend in a single bound. The studio has decided to move up the release of the film to June 28, getting a two-day jump on what for many people will be a four-day weekend, with July 4 falling on a Tuesday. It had been set to open June 30. The decision was made with an eye toward the past successes of competitors' films, when Sony's 2004 Spider-Man 2 and Paramount's 2005 War of the Worlds opened early ahead of long July 4 weekends and did well in the weekend box office.

Sail with Pride II Sail aboard Maryland's tall ship Pride of Baltimore II during the holiday weekend. On Saturday, Sunday or Memorial Day Monday, you can take a three-hour tour aboard the boat. Trips leave the Inner Harbor at 9 a.m. and cost $45 per person. Call 410-539-1151 or 888-55-PRIDE for reservations. Make a bark basket Learn how to make an Appalachian basket from tulip tree bark Sunday at Oregon Ridge Nature Center. Participants must be at least 16 years old for this class, which costs $10 per person in advance and runs 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Oregon Ridge Nature Center is at 13555 Beaver Dam Road, Cockeysville.