Our neighbors last night were incredibly noisy. At one point, well after 11 pm, a guy came out of the room and proceeded to talk loudly on his phone. Then, the ones on the other side of us were up until after 3.
My husband K gave up trying to sleep around 7. The light creeping around the curtain was giving me trouble, so I just pulled his pillow on top of me and managed to sleep until 9. I'd brought bagels, strawberry cream cheese, OJ for me, mini bananas, and a couple of clementines from home to have for breakfast for today and the three following days. K tried to make coffee, only to find out the machine in our room was broken. He went downstairs to get some from the small restaurant in the lobby, but they were closed for Covid. He told the desk about the coffee maker and they sent a new one up.
When he'd checked in, they had offered him the option of having the maid stay out of the room while we are here. For the sake of health, he thought that was a good idea. Still, it felt a little odd leaving the room knowing no one would be in to make the bed or anything. I did have him take the food trash down to the trashcan by the ice machine. I didn't think it was a good idea to have the stuff stay in the room. Plus, it filled the small trash can.
We called for the car and it was there for us at 10:53. We picked up our daughter J outside of her apartment building and set off. At 11:16 (64,948), we crossed the Maryland line. I was surprised, when it was only a half hour later that K parked in Gott's Court Garage in Annapolis by the visitor center (64,948).
The courtyard next to the garage and behind the center was very pretty with the state flower, the black-eyed susan, and a nice sculpture of a blue heron. J had K and me pose with the flowers.
Inside, we found restrooms, maps, and brochures, including one for a winery that is now near the high school where K and I taught, when we first me. A very helpful man explained on a giant wall map where to find everything. He also made a lunch suggestion that appealed to us.
When we went out to the street on the other side of the visitors center, we saw some folks gathered. We soon learned it was for the Juneteenth parade, which was about to start. We decided to watch for a while. The parade was preceded by a town crier, who turned out to be the only white guy in it. He was followed by a police color guard. There were all kinds of cool cars, various groups, and at least one marching band.
J found out via Google that the parade was scheduled until 2. We didn't have that kind of time, so we went to the corner to the recommended restaurant, Reynolds Tavern, which dates to 1747. They didn't have a seat inside due to tea. So, they took us through the building to the backyard that was outfitted with a bar and tables. The table we were given had high seats, which made it a little tough for short me.
The weather was pleasant and it seemed that rain was holding off. Out here, we could take off our masks. The menu was a QR code again, but no paper menu means less contact. J and I both thought the $5 watermelon lemonade sounded intriguing. They didn't have crab cakes, but I could have crab and shrimp via the Quiche de la Mer for $13.50. J ordered an $11 Pub Burger. K ordered iced tea to go with his $20 Fried Oyster Platter. The drinks were brought first and I had to slow down my drinking, because the food took a while. However, we all found our meals delicious.
While looking over the menu before the meal, J and I had seen three desserts that we thought we could split amongst the three of us. However, when K finished eating, he said we didn't need three. We tried to convince him otherwise. So, we just ordered two: Maryland's state dessert, Smith Island Cake, and Chocolate Heaven Cake. Both were delicious. A friend pointed out that the Smith Island Cake is reminiscent of the German Prinzregentenkuchen.
We sat there for quite a while with dirty dishes, waiting for the waiter to come. We finally had to call him over to pay. We left at 2:05.
Our path took us past the historic St. Anne's Church, which is not Catholic, which seems odd since this was started as a Catholic colony. You'd think a Catholic church would be closer to the State House. The church sits in the middle of a circle and as we traversed the circle, we could look down the street to the Severn River.
We came upon the governor's mansion, which had big beautiful snowball (hydrangea) bushes. You just don't see them in Florida.
2:18 found us standing below the statue of the German General Baron DeKalb outside of the historic Maryland State House. DeKalb had fought and died in the American Revolution. This State House, which was finished in 1779, is the oldest in the country still in legislative use. Washington resigned his commission as general in the Revolution here. Congress was meeting here, when it ratified the Treaty of Paris. The dome is the largest wooden dome in the US and was built between 1785 and 1794. They think it may be modeled on the dome of the palace in Karlsruhe, Germany. I couldn't help but notice that the dome needed paint.
I probably stood in this spot at least 45 years ago, when I first came to see the State House for my Art in the Culture class at Towson University. Back then, I was there to look at the Georgian architecture and write it up for class. I never went inside. Thus it is that in my quest to visit all 50 state capitols, my home state's is number 32.
At the welcome center, the guy had told us to circle the building to the newer addition, which had the visitors' entrance. On the opposite side of the building from the DeKalb statue stands the Old Treasury Building, which dates to 1735-36 and is the oldest public building in town. They are planning to eventually reopen it as an exhibition space relating to the history of the building and 17th century Maryland.
As we stood there reading the info sign about the treasury building, we could look ahead to a fantastic looking house. I don't know its style, but I did like it. Later, we saw, that it has been divided into two homes and at least one half is for sale.
It turned out that the house was across the street from the grand entrance in the annex. The guy had said nothing about stairs. So, we went around them, while noticing a protest across the street related to jobs. We found an entrance marked for handicapped folks, but had a tough time getting the door open. A guard inside saw us and pushed a button inside.
We went through the security procedures and I asked about getting my book stamp. One of the two guards suggested asking upstairs at the main entrance and pointed us to the elevator. The guard doing security up there saw my book and immediately pulled out the stamp. He also said there was one downstairs and that they just hadn't looked hard enough for it.
We split up as we usually do, but not before I took a photo of K with General Winfield Scott Schley, who served in a number of engagements from 1863-1898. K grew up on Schley Avenue in Frederick.
As one might expect, the Maryland House and Senate now meet in this annex. Their meeting rooms, topped with Tiffany stained glass, both show signs of protection against the coronavirus. However, the Senate is protecting each Senator, while the House only protects those at the front of the room.
Distributed across the two chambers are paintings of the four Maryland signers of the Declaration of Independence. There was a helpful sign outside identifying the men as Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Samuel Chase, William Paca, and Thomas Stone. Of the four, Carroll is my favorite. This is not just because he was the only Catholic to sign. It is also due to the story of why he signed it "of Carrollton" and not just his name. He was the richest man in the country and had much to lose by signing, but John Hancock said that his name was so common, that he could just claim a case of mistaken identity. Carroll immediately added "of Carrollton" putting an awful lot on the line for a cause he believed in.
Heading toward the old section of the state house, I came across portraits of the Calverts, who founded Maryland. The Lords Baltimore owned the colony, which was meant to be haven for Catholics, but wound up with a lot of Protestants among the initial settlers. Here are the first few to hold the title of Lord Baltimore. We got four county names and one city out of just these three.
Up on the landing on the stairs leading to the next floor, which was off limits, hung a painting of Washington resigning his commission in this building. Under the dome, in a glass case, was the resignation itself in Washington's own handwriting. That's pretty cool.
The brick-floored Archives was on the left side of the building. It now houses exhibits about the building, including furnishings and an explanation of how the dome is built. That was really interesting. There is an interior dome that is decorative inside of the framed exterior dome. There are no nails, but rather it was built with mortise-and-tenon joinery, which uses wooden pins to pin each joint. Each beam is numbered and held in place by large iron braces. On top of the dome is an acorn with a lightning rod that met Benjamin Franklin's specifications.
Across the hall was the Caucus Room, which is still used as a legislative meeting room. It also has plates and silver from the USS Maryland.
In contrast to the darkness of the Caucus Room, the Rotunda was really rather bright. That didn't mean you could read Washington's resignation, however.
On the right side of the Rotunda was the old House of Delegates chamber. There were paintings of famous Maryland events on the walls. This room was attracting attention from other visitors due to the two great Maryland heroes, whose statues are in this room. Ironically, in a place founded for one type of freedom, they represent the fight for basic freedom. They are the formerly enslaved Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas. What really struck me was how petite Ms. Tubman was. Never underestimate a short person.
After taking a break on a bench against the wall of the chamber, I headed across the hall to the old Senate. That was set up to illustrate what it looked like, when Washington resigned his commission. They even put a statue up in the gallery to show where the common folk would have been.
Next door was a small room with swords from the 18th c that had belonged to Tench Tilghman. There's a Tilghman Island in Maryland, but I'd never heard of a person with that name. There were also portraits of important Marylanders of that time period, including Anne Catherine Hoof Green, who became printer to the colony after her husband's death, and John Hanson, the first president of Congress under the Articles of Confederation.
The founding of the colony was covered on a large board. There was also an explanation of the state flag, which, of course, is the most interesting state flag in the country. The flag is a combination of the coats of arms of the Calvert and Crossland families. I've seen that fact before, and I understood why the black and gold of the Calvert family was there, since they are the Lords Baltimore. The new piece of info was the Crossland red and white botany is there because Crossland was the maiden name of the mother of the first Lord Baltimore, George Calvert. That's a nice honor. It wasn't George, who came up with this version of the flag, though. It wasn't flown until October 11, 1880 in a Baltimore parade to mark the 150th anniversary of the founding of the city. It was adopted as the state flag in 1904. Seriously great flag. The post office even used it in its ads, when they had a sheet of the 50 state flags.
This is what a state capitol should do- tell you about the state and its place in US history. Granted there is nothing here past the Civil War, but there isn't room for more either. We really need to go to the Maryland Center for History and Culture in Baltimore.
When we came out at 3:22, the protest over in Lawyers Mall was finished. We had to cross the street anyway, so I ducked over to get a photo of the Thurgood Marshall Memorial. (The Supreme Court Justice was from Baltimore.) It's cool that the memorial has a couple of children, because it reminds us that he argued Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka.
Not long after that cool house we'd noticed, there was a lovely garden. However, there was a sign near the gate saying it was private. It reminded me of the gated gardens in the movie Notting Hill.
As we walked along the street toward our next destination, I found the architecture of the houses to be quite fascinating. Many had symbols on them that matched a guide I picked up. Later, I'll be able to tell their architectural style based on that. Our destination was the William Paca House and Garden, which we reached at 3:40. This Georgian-style mansion has been restored to be as close as possible to what it would have been like for the signer of the Declaration and 3-term governor of the state.
We had to climb steps just to get to the level of the bottom of those white steps. I was glad we were there just for the gardens. I know that there would be a lot of stairs on a tour of the house.
J paid the $5 entry fee for each of us and we went through the shop to the back yard. We had a map to follow that actually had arrows to show what to visit and in what order in this grand garden. They actually had some fruits, vegetables, and herbs growing, too. There were some stairs to navigate and it was quite warm. However, it was still a wonderful visit. And to think it is just tucked here in town.
When we left at 4:17, we continued to see some truly cool houses. We made our way to Main Street and did a bit of shopping, before cutting over to Duke of Gloucester. We got to St. Mary's at about 4:50. We'd researched and knew they had a 5 pm Mass. We saw cars going down the drive as we went inside.
We were surprised to find it empty, except for the couple who entered before us. A man came in from the sacristy and asked if they had decided to have Mass inside after all. It turned out that due to Covid, they'd been having Saturday Mass at least in the garden. If it rained, they'd come in, although during the height of the pandemic, they'd just cancel. He told us to follow the priest who'd happened to come in.
So, we headed out the side door and through a small garden and down to the parking lot. Turning left, we saw a large house that turned out to have been where Charles Carroll of Carrollton was born, married, and lived during the Revolution. He donated the land where the church now stands. Mass was to be held in his garden, reminiscent of his inviting Catholics to his home for Mass all those years ago.
The only problem- besides the heat and possible rain- was that there were no chairs. Oh, parishioners knew to bring lawn chairs or blankets, but, of course, we didn't. Even the tent that was erected over the altar and somewhat in front of it had no chairs. We saw stairs leading down to a lower level of the garden. There was a retaining wall next to them and J and I sat on it. K stood. Luckily, the Mass lasted only 35 minutes. We wore our masks to go to communion, as did most of the other people.
After Mass, it was time for dinner. For several years, we've ordered crab cakes from Chick and Ruth's Delly here in Annapolis for our Christmas Eve dinner. (We actually order two extra for K and me to have on Easter. ) We felt we had to eat at the actual place, which is on Main Street.
There was seating outside, but we didn't want to deal with the heat. So, we went inside and were given the table just to the left of the door and in front of the window. A note with the menus said that there was a crab shortage and the prices would be higher than in the menu. I decided to get the simplest crab cake dish, which was in the menu as $19.99, but was actually $31.99. I commented to K that this year's mail order was going to be very expensive. I also decided to get a mint chocolate shake for $6.49. There was so much of it, that the metal container refilled the glass three times. I wound up sharing with J. She ordered a Pepsi and a crab cake, as well. K got a Yuengling to drink and the single crab cake platter with broccoli, mac and cheese for $34.99. It was an expensive meal, but delicious.
Servers were a bit harried and we wound up with two different ones stopping by. The one guy had trouble remembering they'd already taken our order. He also was not sufficiently impressed that we order them every year.
To get to the rest room, J and I had to go past the counter with the cooking stations behind it. Then, there were several stairs to get up to the next level, where there were two restrooms, along with more tables. Just one table was occupied and one of the women there was rather loud. The walls up there were covered with photos, some of which I recognized. I snapped a photo back toward where our table was.
We shopped a bit on our way up the street and reached the car at 7:45. It was hard to find the pay station, but when we did it cost $15, not the $5 we were expecting. We were out of the garage at 7:50. The drive back to D.C. was uneventful.
We dropped J at her side door at 8:34 (64979) and reached the hotel at 8:46 (64980). It never did rain, even though it was predicted.
My phone registered 9,211 steps for 3.8 miles. It felt like more.
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