Blog post 3,330!!

I just had Sean help me with the title of my post. He said that the Ocean City area is on the eastern shores.

Saturday we went downstairs at the inn to a nice quiche, fresh fruit and strained tea (I had to pick out tea and use a tea strainer-they sell a lot of it there at the inn) breakfast and headed to the town of Elkton. There wasn’t much going on, but we found a cute wedding chapel there to admire from the outside. Elkton was famous for being the place on the east coast where you could get married without a waiting period. My maternal grandparents Alan and Ruth got married there in 1921 at the ages of 20 and 18. My sister-in-law’s mom and dad got married there. I thought for sure we had found the chapel were my grandparents got married. When I got home I read the historic marker in my photo and the entire Main Street was dotted with chapels! So if they got married here, it was a hit or miss thing.

I would have liked to see the Cecil County Historic Society, but we found out they are open only one Saturday a month and we missed it. There were ‘corner stones’ in the side yard, so I’m thinking they were just saved from demolitions and put here.

I’m not surprised by this:

This was interesting too:

I bought a lovely handmade purple beaded necklace with an ‘silver’ loop that had an Irish saying on it from a shop in Elkton to remember that I visited here and that I just found out how Irish I was with my DNA test!

“May you always have walls for the winds, a roof for the rain, tea beside the fire, laughter to cheer you, those you love near you, and all your heart might desire.”
– Irish Blessing

Our next stop was Chesapeake City where we grabbed a bite in a place called The Bohemia Cafe. The area use to be called that and I’m pretty sure my Mom-mom Ruth’s 1st cousin had a house in the general area. I loved this little area! The homes were so quaint. The vision of the steel bridge over their roof mixed old with new.

This was a gift shop, but they kept the original store’s wording.

This use to be the town bank-another gift shop! The boats can dock and come to town and shop a bit.

Easter is near!

The lady in the above ‘bank’ shop said North East was a nice little town, so we headed down to there. I didn’t take photos here. We went in a few shops and a really neat antique place-it sold other things too, like some Phillies baseball t-shirts that I had picked out of a case and the lady forgot to ring them up! I got a clear glass Easter egg that is etched with violets for mom, a trio of Snowbaby Bunnies and a water pitcher. We’ll have to ride down in a few weeks to actually buy the shirts.
Our next stop was Port Deposit, a little town right up smack up to the Susquehanna River. We didn’t see the restaurant we were looking for, but again, it’s not that far and we can drive down some other time. The restaurant was a Colonial style one.
It was raining, but I at least got a shot of the town clock!

They had terrible flooding there last summer and you can tell that they are still recovering. We did notice some newer townhouses right on the river. Guess they were built to withstand flooding.
We headed down the road, less than a mile to the Hollywood Casino. We had driven by here several times and we thought we’d try our luck with $20 and leave. There were 1 and 2 cent machines-you put $1 in and it gave you 90 bids with one push of the button. We never came close to winning, so we left, true to our promise, about 1/2 hour later.
I had a $20 postcard gift card I had gotten in the mail for a place in Newark, DE. You had to go on your birthday, so we went there and I guess we broke even doing that! We had pasta dishes and I had their trademark gelato. You know when things ‘bug’ you about a place and you just need to complain? Well they had coarse pepper in a shaker with little holes-we unscrewed the lid to get to the pepper. I told the waitress. Then at the end of the meal, I used the restroom and there was a squooshed roach on the floor. Our waitress happen to be going by and I pointed it out. She went in and got it up with a piece of tissue!  Hope she washed her hands. I guess she was told to watch for them? She was a bit snooty with me saying we’ll take care of that and the pepper shaker. She had just gotten a good tip on the full cost of the meal, not with the $20 taken off! It was a pretty place and the manager ran out and put more quarters in the meter for us. Too bad I had to see the last thing.  We walked around this town. Sean goes here to a few bars once in a while. I found a bookstore and got a few good reads for $5. We headed back to the hotel and they had a small wedding reception going on in the conservatory. They were singing a bit and having fun, but not enough to really bother us.
On Sunday we headed home a little before 11 am and went to church. It was great to go away with the birthday boy. I love to learn about towns and see their historic homes and museums. I hope to keep venturing further away in all directions in the future.