Cousins in Maryland

We left Aiken on Wednesday, Jun 12, and I think we had another first – we were stopped by a train on the way out of town. Popoki waited patiently for the train to go by.

We were headed to Elkton, MD to the home of my cousin Earlin and his wife Gay. We had one night on the road in North Carolina, so we arrived on Friday – traffic around Washington, DC was terrible, but we did finally make it. When we arrived at 6 pm Gay had dinner ready to go. Gay’s brother and her three cousins were also there for dinner. They have a summer cabin near by and were in town from Alaska and Washington state. Fun listening to other families stories. This is Earlin’s Oldmobile 442 from the late 60’s – he recently had it totally restored and it looks beautiful! And that’s our RV in the background.

Saturday morning we took a walk down to the Elk River – this field looked like someone had made crop circles, but we decided that the straw had been knocked down by some recent heavy rain storms.

After lunch back at the house, Gay’s cousins took off – they were borrowing her brother’s spare car – which was held together with Bondo and duct tape. He did a great job matching the colors, but it is quite different than Earlin’s 442.

We then went for a walk in the little town of North East. The whole town wasn’t closed for July 4th, it was just the town hall. They have a 2nd Friday celebration, so many of the shops were open late, there were street musicians playing, and some interesting characters that Earlin had his picture taken with and even a pony available for petting. After our walk we went for appetizers at Steak and Main (we had won a $10 gift card at one booth on the road) and then we went to Woody’s Crab House – and guess what, we had crab cakes.

On Saturday morning we headed to the Elk Head State Park to walk the trail to the Turkey Point Lighthouse. On the way we drove by Gay and Earlin’s church – the Hart’s United Methodist Church. This is a picture of the 600-seat amphitheater that they have – the seats are from Memorial Stadium – the old baseball stadium in Baltimore. They were installed here and now there are concerts during the summer, as well as outdoor services as the weather allows. They told us it has a wonderful east view, so the Easter sunrise services are amazing.

There was one problem with our planned walk – the access area and the trail were closed for renovation. So after driving around the park and checking out the beach and the campground, we decided to go to Chesapeake City – this is where the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal starts. It links the top of Chesapeake Bay to the Delaware River – thus drastically reducing the shipping time between Baltimore and Philadelphia. Our first stop was the canal museum. The only big ship we saw going by was this one tanker – looks like it would be a wild ride if you had to go out in that life boat!

We also saw this Coast Guard cutter on the canal – we couldn’t figure out what they were doing or why they needed hardhats to do it.

This replica lighthouse was at the museum as well as this eagle soaring overhead.

When originally completed in 1829, the canal was 14 miles long, had 5 locks, and was 10 feet deep and 66 feet wide. The museum was in the building that originally held the engines, pumps and water wheels that made the locks work. This lift wheel moved 20,000 gallons a minute to fill up the lock is the mid 1850’s.

Besides information about the working of the canal, there were these boat models. The one on the left is the William L. Guthrie, which was a dredge that worked on the expansion of the canal in the 1950’s. In the 1920’s the canal and been redesigned to eliminate the locks and in the 50’s it was widened to 450 feet and deepened to 35 feet. The other is a model of the James Adams, which was a floating theater that had performances in the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays in the summer and that wintered in North Carolina.

One of the things we noticed in the harbor in Chesapeake City was this boat – you probably can’t tell but there is a pennant on the bow that designates it is cruising the Great Loop. A few years ago we met Bruce and Susan near Chicago and again near St Louis when they were on their year long adventure doing the Loop, so we recognized the pennant.

We then went to the other side of the canal to walk a bit on the Canal Trail. As it was a Saturday there were lots of boats and jet skis on the canal – including this black one that didn’t appear to have markings on it – just the name Contraband on the stern.

There was a little public art, and then we walked over to Schaffers for drinks and an appetizer for lunch (it’s right at the start of the canal trail.)

You know what we did on the way back to the house for a quick rest – 7th inning stretch anyone?

Our last adventure in Maryland was a boat ride on the North East River with Earlin and Gay.

This osprey nest was near the boat slip and they weren’t only in the nest but flying and landing in nearby trees.

This is the Turtle Point Lighthouse – so even though we couldn’t walk there in the morning, we at least got to see it. And the other photo is looking out to the Chesapeake Bay from where the Elk River and North East River join.

There were several eagles soaring overhead – I took a lot of photos – these are the best I got from from a rocking boat.

We were motoring by this structure, trying to decide what it was. With the help of Google maps, we thought it might be part of the Rodney Boy Scout Reservation, and decided the structure was probably part of a ropes course. Then we saw the tents up on the bluff and at least knew we were right about the boy scouts.

On the last stretch back to the slip, we saw these two osprey playing with each other. Earlin battened down the hatches and then it was back to the house for a little four way Mexican Train dominoes.