I got a late start but, since I did not plan to go very far, I was not too bothered. My aim was to do an Underground Railroad tour by car that started at a park in Ridgely and wind my way through it to spend the night somewhere near Black Water on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. I put Ridgely into Waze, my primary navigation app, and it failed to locate it. So I turned to Google. It gave me an arrival time that surprised me for its length so I got moving. I was heading into the Baltimore suburbs before I got suspicious, and was at the northern end of the city on the interstate when I realized that Google was routing me around the Bay Bridge to avoid the toll, because my settings there are designed to prevent me from driving in EZPass lanes during my regular commute. So, instead of heading directly to the southern part of the Eastern Shore, I was heading to the very top of Maryland and moving from the northern end, then down through the peninsula. I had not prepared for it, so the day was full of beauty and many lost opportunities.
I broke off the interstate and was routed over the Conowingo Dam, which is beautiful, probably an engineering marvel, and a great spot for seeing bald eagles. But I was too caught off to take advantage of that. The beauty was clear, but I was more concerned about finding my way and not falling in the water to look for birds even if I knew what to look for. Once I was over it, Waze sent me down the Susquehanna River Scenic Highway. The beauty of it calmed me and I regrouped. It was already late afternoon, so when I stopped in beautiful Port Deposit, everything was closed. It was too early to stop, but I found myself hoping to come back for a leisurely weekend there. I took a walk up and down this very charming river town, stopped to snap a picture of the historic Carriage House, and discovered, as I pulled my camera from my face, that I had snapped a picture of an Amish buggy–which I believe is very rude. It was turning into this kind of day.
I kept moving forward and missing things well worth stopping for, like great fresh crab. But after these hours of extra driving, I finally arrived in Ridgely. Since I wanted to take on the Undergound Railroad Trail, I went directly to Adkins Arboretum. I had the place nearly to myself, and I wandered among the quilt signs reading about the Underground Railroad. I had found a Maryland website that would direct me through it, but it was very slow to load. I arrived in Denton, where a lot of sites were clustered. It was early evening and nearly everything was closed as I walked along the town square. I encountered a local who gave me advice on where to eat and wandered from historic marker to historic marker. I had about an hour of daylight left, so I gave up the trail and headed to Cambridge to find a place to sleep for the night.
It was still light when I arrived, so I drove around Cambridge to get my bearings. It sits on the Choptank River as it opens into the Chesapeake Bay and seemed much more touristy than the small towns of the upper part of the Eastern Shore, but I would save my exploration the next day. I was starting to realize that I would not be able to catch a ferry to Smith Island during this trip to the Eastern Shore and was developing an alternate plan for the coming day or two. It was a day of figuring things out and, despite the frustrations of it, I was glad I broke away from home to see it all.
