The coastal forests are barren here in Maryland, and in the city, the Christmas festivities have come and gone in a flash. With a short vacation at the end of the month, Jane and I drive out of Baltimore on a Thursday morning in a rainstorm, crossing over the Bay Bridge. It is only our third trip out on the Delmarva Peninsula, and after two previous sojourns to the Atlantic beach towns, this time we have elected to explore something a little closer to home. Heading northeast across the peninsula, we double back west along Route 213, bound for the little fishing village of Rock Hall on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The rain begins to let up as we pass the little town of Centreville and cross the Chester River. The clouds are grey, but the air is crisp and clean, the highway free of traffic, as we zoom past cornfields and farmsteads, through church-filled hamlets and village commons that predate the founding of the country. It is a lovely, liberating drive.
We arrive at the fishing wharf in Rock Hall just past 11 o' clock. The rainclouds are scattering out over the bay, and the pier is deserted; a great blue heron is fishing alone at the end of the jetty. We knock on the doors at Waterman's Crab House, where the proprietor is just opening the kitchen. We have caught the restaurant at a strange time - brunch on a Thursday, their third-to-last business day of the season. The proprietor lets us in out of the rain, as amused by our timing as we are. After showing us to our window booth overlooking the water, he makes us promise to return in the summer, when a concert stage will be blaring in the back lot, and all of Rock Hall will be picking crabs and drinking beer by the bucket along the waterfront. This late in the year, there are no crabs to be had at the Crab House, only oysters freshly tonged from the Bay. Our waiter brings us heaping bowls of oyster stew with crackers, and platters of breaded and fried oysters, scallops, and shrimp. While we eat, the cashier is packing away the shirts and mugs in the gift shop, and the waiters are tidying up the buffet tables across the room from our booth . Preparations are underway for the annual New Year's Eve feast in two days' time - a last hurrah for the restaurant, and for Rock Hall, before the long slumber of winter. Jane and I reminisce, rather fondly, about another quiet fishing town in Maine, as we eat our seafood and gaze out silently over the fog-strewn bay.
After lunch, we explore the Main Street of Rock Hall, where exactly two stores are open for business on the Thursday between Christmas and the New Year. We stop at the Java Rock Cafe, where Jane buys a cup of tea, gifts for friends, and a tuxedo cat door hanger. For my part, 40-degree weather and light drizzle cannot deter me from a strawberry banana smoothie with whipped cream and ice. After walking down the deserted street and through the town's brightly colorful but empty shopping village, we retreat back to the car and drive south to the tip of the peninsula. Driving over a small wooden bridge, we cross a tidal channel where the Chester River empties into the Chesapeake Bay, arriving at the wildlife refuge on Eastern Neck Island. I park the car so that we can take a closer look through our binoculars at the enormous estuary before us, a land of brackish silt and mud and marsh grass. The sky is clearing away to the west, and the flocks of geese and tundra swans (and the odd, precariously balanced heron) are loudly celebrating the good turn in weather.
After a short drive and a gravel track, we arrive at the refuge visitor center, where we are greeted by an elderly volunteer. At her request, we sign the guestbook and take a look around the gift shop, where we purchase our traditional magnet. She, too, is befuddled by the timing of our vacation. "The place is more lively in the summer, I promise," she says, echoing our friend at the crabhouse. We are quite content to see the wintering waterfowl, we tell her. Behind the visitor center, we take a short walk to a wildlife hide that looks out west across the tidal marsh and the bay. The storm clouds have blown past, giving way to a brilliant pink sky under the setting winter sun. The Bay Bridge, which we crossed just hours earlier in the morning, is a faint silver line on the horizon. Through the binoculars, Jane watches a marsh hawk (northern harrier) hover over the grass, diving again and again between the reeds, its white tail spot flashing. I take a westward photo of the marsh through the viewing window of the wooden shelter.
Back in the car, Jane and I return to the road and detour to the west. Parking beside a gazebo containing a summertime butterfly garden, we take a short stroll through the grassland to another viewing platform overlooking the bay. On our way back to the main road, we startle a field full of redwing blackbirds. They fly over our car in a dense swarm, several hundred birds passing overhead and beyond the trees to the south.
At our final stop of the day, Jane and I walk across a marsh boardwalk to an island of loblolly pines between Tubby Cove and Calfpasture Cove. The sun is setting now, its dappled golden light breaking intermittently between the cumulus clouds. I spend some time finding compositions with the boardwalk, the marsh reeds, and the stand of trees beyond them, all bathed in the afternoon light. Jane walks to the island with her binoculars out, spotting the mergansers and eider ducks as they lounge in the calm waters of the cove. A turkey vulture circles overhead, then ranges away toward the trees. A flock of geese pass overhead in tight formation, honking and squawking on their southbound journey. Work finished, I heft the tripod over my shoulder and join Jane at the end of path, where we watch the wind blow a steady chop across the bay toward the sunset.
Returning north to Rock Hall as the light disappears, we arrive at the Inn at Osprey Point to find our room keys waiting for us in a drop box. We are one of only two couples staying at the inn this night, and the office staff has already gone for the day. We carry our shared suitcase to the top floor, where we find a loft with board games and bookshelves, microwave and fridge, a candy basket, and an assortment of teas and coffees. Our room at the end of the hall, The Shamrock, is a lovely, warm, green-accented bedroom with a slanted ceilings, a view over the marina at Osprey Point, and a quarter-moon, wood-paneled window that Jane, who has always wanted to live in a hobbit hole, is quite fond of. I toss off my socks and settle in for a nap before dinner, glad to have had the foresight to book a room above the only establishment serving food in town tonight.
Downstairs that evening, we find our table set beside the Christmas tree. Our waitress presents us with the menu and advertises the Locals' Night specials ("Even for non-locals, of course," she says with a smile). Jane orders crab cake on a bed of creamed corn and smoked ham, while I have a broiled rockfish filet on a bed of rice and bacon. We share a dish of mussels in white wine broth, and homemade bread with olive oil. My dish is flavored too strongly with apple cider vinegar (Jane stifles a laugh at the face I make with every bite), but the fare is rustic and almost charming in its simplicity. After dinner, we retreat upstairs - it feels like the whole house is ours, really - and wind down for the night. Jane makes herself a cup of hot cocoa while I munch on chocolates and watch TV. All in all, we have ourselves a lovely getaway across the bay, and are back in Baltimore by noon the next day.
