Dear Family, Friends, and Diary,
After Rocky Mountain National Park, our trip became light on pictures. We left Estes Park on June 6 and spent the day driving in one-hour chunks. First stop was shopping in Boulder where I added to my shoe collection with "Allbirds" soft shoes. Next was a drive to a Denver shopping center for Marianne's Allbirds. Very comfy.
To kill a bit more time, I decided to visit the Apple store to replace my "fitness" watch. The old Fitbit had died and I opted for a fancier Apple Watch. Marianne wanted a new band for her Apple Watch, but in this process the sales person said her seven-year-old model was about to become obsolete, so she added a new Watch to her new band. An expensive stop.
After another hour-long drive through Denver traffic, we met friends Sharron and her daughter and husband for dinner at Ted's Montana Grill out in Aurora. Sharron and Marianne had taught together decades before and it was fun to hear from Sharron and Dick again. And we remembered a few pictures!
After a poor night's sleep at a Home2 Suites out by the airport, we turned in the car, checked our bags, and passed through security with nary a problem. We even had time for a leisurely breakfast before going to Gate 25 for our United flight to Baltimore. Unfortunately, all this trouble-free travel was interrupted by a broken something-or-other that needed a small swarm of mechanics to huddle under the front of the plane. After a half-hour delay, we were herded on the chock-full plane, hoping it would work. It did.
The process at Baltimore Washington International was quick and easy. Bags showed up by the time we had walked to the carousel, the bus to rental cars was efficient, and Avis even had our car ready so we didn't see a line at all. Great.
Next, we visited son Geoff at his office, just a few miles away. He showed us all around Rampart Communications, mostly just empty cubicles since it was late on the summer Friday and folks were off having fun. Don't ask me what they do, just that it involves "the government". Photos inside definitely not allowed.
From there, we followed Geoff on his one-hour drive home to Frederick and decided that was much more of a daily drive than we could handle.
We arrived at Geoff's home and greeted Suzanne, Sean, and Ryan for the first time in person in a half-dozen years. Hugs all around (except Ryan. Not his style.) We toured their house and went to get barbecue dinner from a food truck parked a block away. This was apparently a neighborhood weekly event and it was at least as good as Ted Turner's Montana Grill had been the day before.
We have booked the Frederick Best Western for our four-day stay. It's is called "Historic", but "oldish" might be more honest. No matter, I slept like a log.
Saturday started at Nymeo Field At Harry Grove Stadium, home of the local Frederick Keys draft league baseball team. Suzanne's folks, Mary and Dan, joined us and we were given a tour, from box seats to the home team locker room and dugout. It was a fun chance to chat with everyone and learn a bit about local activities. And, we remembered to take "people pictures".
Our next local tour was at Carroll Creek Park where an art and craft show was on display. I think this was an art balance to baseball in honor of Marianne's interests, but almost everyone joined us as we wandered through the really quite extensive show. Our last walk, uptown to a gallery where Marianne chatted with the local artist about abstract art techniques, was a highlight, even though the walk had definitely been at our limit.
We picked up to-go dinner at Pretzel & Pizza Creations and drove over to Mary and Dan's for more baseball (televised), tour (house), and chatting. A fun evening.
On Sunday, we drove north for a safari. The drive was pleasant, the road seeming unchanged since I regularly drove this way in the 1970s and 1980s. Green hills to the west, past small farms, and through communities that seem little changed.
Our goal was the Catoctin Wildlife Preserve. This too has been here since Brian and Geoff really were "boys", not 50ish men, but I'm not sure we ever had time to visit before. Better late than never, and now we have sons/grandsons. The Preserve is both a walk-around zoo and, for a bit more, a truck-ride safari through a tiny recreation of wild forests and savannas. The bouncy ride was as authentic as one could expect and we stopped at four stops to get up close and personal with camels, cows, deer, elk, other exotic game. This may be the closest we get to the wilds of an African game preserves.
After the ride, it was an hour-and-a-half of wandering. Some animals were cute, others vaguely threatening (think snakes and bats), but everything contributed to an educational morning.
Hungry, we left the preserve for lunch. At random, Geoff had picked the 10Tavern, mostly because the "standard" traveler stop they had tried last time was an unimaginative museum-piece of a restaurant. Some parts of "quaint" need to be retired. Anyway, the 10Tavern turned out to be a hit and we all enjoyed generous sandwiches and fish and chips for Sean. Maybe too much food for some of us, but I justified it by all the safari walking we'd done.
Back home, Suzanne's brother Jon came by and introduced Marianne and me to his three-year-old Clare; Cute little girl, with lots of energy. Once again, I forgot to take pictures, but I was able to borrow one from the proud father's Facebook posting this morning.
The rest of the evening was spent chatting. Geoff, Suzanne, Marianne, and I have years of disconnection by distance and it was good to hear a few stories filling in what we have missed. After all, that is the main purpose of this trip.
On Monday, we drove downtown early for a better-than-Best (Western) breakfast. I had chosen Cafe Nola because the New Orleans food sounded interesting, and it was. Marianne had a fancy avocado toast and I had a bowl filled with more meat, potatoes, and spices than I could handle. It took discipline, but I managed to leave behind almost half the calories.
Properly fed, we walked six blocks north to a medical supply store to replace something we had left behind. The 73F morning was a perfect temperature and Market Street was lined with quaint buildings. The old row houses probably predate the Civil War, but virtually all have been restored and well-mainitained.
We also watched a painter on his ladder put the final touches on a wall mural. You see him, of course, but can you see his coffee cup too?
After our successful walk, we returned to our four-days' home and caught up on bookkeeping, reading, news, and YouTube - the same things we do at our full-time home. This is one of the reasons our travel takes so long.
In the early afternoon, we contacted Geoff and Suzanne and arranged for them to come over and join us for a museum visit. Frederick is home to the National Museum of Civil War Medicine and we figured it was time for some more education. The visit started with a ten-minute docent presentation explaining the grim medical situation of the war. The biggest killer was disease, with two-thirds of the 750,000 war deaths coming from sickness, not bullets and cannons. Initially, the battlefields were unbelievably deadly as well, but progress in the ambulance service, field hospitals, freshly-trained surgeons, and organized nursing service reduced casualty rates to simply brutal. Our visit through the two-dozen dioramas and displays was soberingly educational.
Educated, we strolled over to Brewer's Alley for a patio drink and to plan dinner. After a half-hour of phone-scrolling, we ended up deciding to stay in place. Suzanne called her folks and asked them to stop by and pick up the boys and meet us at the restaurant. All assembled, we had a good meal of sandwiches and salads. And more conversation.
Another successful day.
Our last day in Frederick was a little of this and a little of that. After a few morning hours of "homework" (diary, tracking bills, reading, news update), we returned downtown to see the galleries that had been closed on Monday. Only one was open and it held just a few pieces, but walking the quiet streets was pleasant enough.
We continued our downtown stroll, stopping for chocolate-dipped orange peels at The Candy Kitchen. We've sampled this treat wherever we find it and these were among the best we've found. Better than in Paris!
Further along, we visited a huge antique consignment hall with room after room of grandmothers' hand-me-downs. There was a time when these would have been treasures for our turn-of-the-century flat in Kyiv, our even-older Bavarian farm house, or even our "modern" Craftsman home in Los Gatos. Now, the collection reminded us of all the things we have accumulated that we too will need to pass along. Anyone interested?
For lunch/dinner, we opted for creekside dining at The Wine Kitchen. The patio setting was nice enough that we started with appetizers and a flight of wine samplers, nonalcoholic of course. One, a Riesling from our old home vineyards in Germany, was good enough to order a whole bottle, but unfortunately the restaurant had run out of full bottles, so we settled for our less-celebratory water and ice tea. Food was excellent, so we consider this a recommendation nonetheless.
From our meal, it was back to the Best Western for a short rest and then a drive over to visit with Geoff and Suzanne. Again, it was nice to catch up on stories we had missed over the years-at-a-distance. Ryan was out at his new summer job as a parking attendant at Keys Stadium, but when he came home, we ordered "skillet cookies" at a local sweets shop. The dessert even drew Sean out of his hiding, so it was a fun family event just before we gave our goodbye hugs.
All in all, this has been a very satisfying visit, but now we are off to other visits and to tourism.
Stay tuned,
John and Marianne