Doug was equally burned out with his job, if you recall my post from the other day about how burned out I am. He knew he couldn't take off Friday for a long weekend, but both of us could be free on Thursday. So we took off. We took off running. Just one day. We'll take it. I arranged to have one of my co-workers take care of a site launch, Doug finished up something that would have to be done before Friday. We were poised and ready. After work on Wednesday, we packed up and drove to Solomon's Island. On paper it is 90 minutes but it took over two hours.
I miss the part of Covid when we had less traffic.
We got to town just in time to catch the remnants of the sunset, which was beautiful to see. We gazed out at the bridge and the Patuxent River.
The kitchen at the restaurant where Doug wanted to eat was going to be closed in about 15 minutes, but right across the street was a perfect spot called the Bugeye Grill where the kitchen was open for another hour. Score.
The Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge was looking pretty as the day wound down.
Relaxed. Happy. A lovely dinner and a couple drinks later, we headed to the hotel, which was right next to a marina. It was kind of cool that there were people there who look like they either live on their boats or at least love hanging out on their boats at night there. We saw lots of pretty lights and festooned masts, and TVs glowing through the windows.
For the last day of September, that's a nice life. Maryland, you in September, you make me happy.
Up early the next morning, we didn't have a nice sit down brekkie but hit a BK drive through for some croissanwich and coffee action, and headed towards our morning's destination, Calvert Cliffs State Park.
"It's a short hike in, mostly flat, down to the beach," says Doug.
It was not a short hike, it was 1.8 miles on the shortest trail. And it was mostly flat yes. So we did it. Today is Sunday and I am still sore even though I've tried to not be idle and I've walked each day since.
Way out of shape over here, kids.
We saw this boardwalk out into the wetlands, which obviously appears to need some help. We made some jokes about my job lately like:
"Thank you for your feature request it... is.... uh. On our roadmap?"
"There's a problem with your CMS implementation..."
"Where my tech support dev requests go to die."
The temptation to take that above picture and make it a meme is very very strong.
The hike was lovely. Really lovely. And the beach was absolutely lovely too.
We walked in the Chesapeake Bay, the water was warm enough that I regretted not having my bathing suit and towel to just dip in.
We realized it was getting to be after lunch time, and we still needed to walk out. So we headed back. The hike out was more challenging for me, but the benches along the way were very appreciated, I'll tell you that!
I was very happy to see my water bottle.
Because we didn't have a 4 day weekend to really dig in to enjoying the area one section at a time, Doug had decided there were just a few must-do things on this trip with the weather being as gorgeous as it was.
His next item on the want-to-do list was to check out Point Lookout. We crossed the gorgeous bridge and turned left in St. Mary's County, and headed down to the, as Doug described it, "the little spit of land that sticks out where the Potomac and Chesapeake meet."
At the side of the road, we first stopped at a Confederate Memorial. The privately owned park next door is is "closed for renovations" so we didn't get in to check it out. But the roadside monuments nearby, dedicated by the US Government and the state of Maryland, were open and available to walk around.
Doug had done some reading about the POW camp the US government ran there, and how horrible the conditions were for the Confederate soldiers, and he was kind of curious to walk these grounds.
It's a beautiful spot, hard to imagine thousands upon thousands of people housed there, badly, and the over 3000 dead who suffered so. Especially on such a gorgeous day. Weather and time have reduced the amount of land here. Where there were probably buildings once upon a time, there is now water. The campsites are not in restoration, except for a couple example tents at Camp Hoffman. Right now they have a lot of fishermen who hang out on the road in, and the possibility to do some really nice camping if that's your jam.
After checking out the end, and the lighthouse, I noticed on the Pokemon app that there was a gym right on the water if we turned left. Doug was getting a little cranky, but I said "c'mon man. Let's go beat those jerks up and take the Gym!"
Glad we did.
To our right, we noticed some pickup trucks and a small John Deere tractor, and an open gate with some interpretive signs. We heard hammering, and one of the men working waved at us. The signs indicated this was Fort Lincoln, a recreation/restoration of one of the Redoubts in the park. We met three volunteers from Friends Of Point Lookout who were working on restoration and upkeep of the buildings.
They shared their knowledge of the history, had the blueprints for the original camp, with the hospital and all the tents and everything. They were a lot of fun to chat with and we really had a nice visit with them.
We talked about how the space would be an amazing spot for Scout troops. One of them told us about his son's troop would stay there, and that his son did his Eagle project where the hospital used to be, and he did trail markings down by the lighthouse. It was obvious they love this place, and they were looking poised to camp and spend a great weekend there working on things.
There was a brief attempt to try and go to the Civil War museum at the park but there was a gate that required a pass code, and we didn't know how to get in, and we bailed.
Good thing too because we're starting to get hungry. It had been a long time since that stop at BK for a brekkie sammitch.
We drove up to "Historic St. Mary's City," where we thought there would be a restaurant or something. Instead it was like we were on a college campus, and there were a million kids there walking around. Turns out we were - basically this is St. Mary's College of Maryland, so we felt we were better off getting out of there.
Leonardtown was the next obvious destination, and turned out to be the town with all the things we needed and wanted. Like beer. And food. There were several choices for dinner. The place we picked was packed full, which I thought was weird it being 4pm. So we turned the corner, and found a place called ble The Rex, and really enjoyed our meal and wished we didn't have to go.
But we did.
Geoff's work schedule has him leaving the house at 5:45am every day, except Thursday. And then after November 15th, it is every day of the week. So I'm hoping we can grab another Thursday Adventure before too long.
So this was a good adventure for us taken at a good time, weather and schedule-wise. We know we'll want to go back to St. Mary's and Calvert County and look at more things. Leonardtown looks like a good place to land and then explore from. Solomon's is super nice, especially when it isn't full season insanity. I'd like to stay there, rent a kayak, toodle aboot, relax.
Relax. Relax. Relax.
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