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One Fine Day“On Maryland’s Eastern Shore”By Janet DavisWhether your passion is water, history, shopping, food or nature, you’ll find yourself falling in love with Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The region between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean is the perfect place for finding one fine day.
A poem by Sara Teasdale ends with the words, “For one white singing hour of peace, count many a year of strife well lost.” Before the day gets started, you can easily find that one white singing hour of peace as the waves roll, the birds fly, and the sun rises over the horizon. And with many a year of strife well lost, you’ll be ready to go out and see what the Eastern Shore has to offer. My favorite place to start exploring the Eastern Shore is in Talbot County, where you find yourself immersed history. St. Michaels is known as “The Town That Fooled the British.” During the war of 1812, the townspeople hung their lanterns in the trees at night, causing the British cannons to overshoot the homes. Today, St. Michaels is the site of the Chesapeake Bay maritime Museum, with its many buildings housing exhibits on boat building, decoy carving, and oyster farming. Located on the museum grounds is the Hooper Straight Lighthouse, built more like a short squat cabana on stilts than an ordinary lighthouse and open for tours year round. You can take an informative and enlightening tour with one of the museum guides, or just stroll through the ships, the shanty and the exhibits at your own pace. Any ship builders on-site will be happy to talk to you, show you their work, and make you feel all the warmth and hospitality this lovely town has to offer. The main thoroughfare through St. Michaels is lined with shops that sell everything from clothing to modern art, from Christmas decorations to model boats, and from real estate to ice cream. Whether you want antiques or the latest cutting edge designs, you can find it here. Want to see the best of charming St. Michaels while giving yourself a real treat? Arrange for a horse-drawn carriage ride tour with the Chesapeake Carriage Company. Your driver will make sure that your ride is as enchanting, romantic or educational as you’d like it to be. When you’re in the mood for food, try Tilghman Island, just minutes from St. Michaels. Here, at the Bridge Restaurant, you’ll find what could arguably be called the best crab cakes in the world. The Bridge Restaurant, with year-round service and an outstanding menu prepared by owner-chef David Clark, is the perfect place to while away some time and indulge your senses with excellent food and fine drink. Situated on the water, with a bird’s eye view of a working drawbridge, you find yourself enthralled with waiving to the passing boaters – many of whom tie up right at the dock and stop to eat the soft shell crabs that are raised on-site, or the Maryland Cream of Crab Soup that I promise you is to-die-for. If you get too comfortable to drive on to more shopping (Delaware is close by, has some great outlet mall opportunities and does not have a state sales tax), consider spending the night at the Island’s Lazyjack Inn on Dogwood Harbor. Carol and Mike Richards are innkeepers to this 1855 bed and breakfast situated on the waterfront, where they ply you with their own blend of “unpretentious luxury” in a stunning setting that will leave you feeling at peace with the world. After a fabulous breakfast at the Lazyjack, and after promising that you’ll be back every chance you get, the hardest thing you’ll have to do is decide where to go next. Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia are all just an easy drive away. Or you may want to stay right on the Eastern Shore. After all, you’ve only been to one county… and there might be a better crab cake across the next bridge over … and seeing just one more sunrise at the beach would be wonderful… and isn’t there a ferry somewhere nearby? You’ve already had more than one white singing hour of peace – far more than the poets thought possible. It was one fine day, and you really will want to come back again!
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sunrise walk on the beach – alone with yourself or with someone you love –
is the ideal way to start your morning. Collect shells, save a starfish,
tiptoe through the water, or just sit in awe enjoying the splendor that
unfolds before you.