Another year, another off-season visit to Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. For a much-needed weekend getaway, we return to the Inn at Osprey Point, whose third-floor, round-windowed Shamrock room has been a favorite of Jane’s ever since we first stayed there in December 2016. We leave Baltimore in the dark, heading north on the I-95 before circling south along the Delaware Bay; we arrive at Bombay Hook National Refuge around sunrise for a fine morning of bird-watching. The refuge ponds are filled with tundra swans and all kinds of ducks - pintails, buffleheads, and green-winged teals - along with dowitchers and sandpipers wading along the marsh edge, and the occasional bald eagle roosting above in the trees. Offshore in the tidal wetlands, a gargatuan flock of snow geese is encamped in the mouth of the estuary. Once in awhile they startle - probably on account of a passing propeller plane or a raptor’s shadow - and the entire group takes to the skies in a mass of beating wings, undulating and iridescent under the morning sun. I take some landscape shots from the road, but make a note to return another day with a proper kit for wildlife photography: telephoto lens and big-boy camera body.
Around mid-morning, we depart the coast and the refuge. Jane naps in the passenger seat as we drive west to the other end of the Delmarva Peninsula, passing through marshes, cornfields, and small towns on our way to the fishing village of Rock Hall beyond the Chester River. In town, we park in the same small gravel lot (and, in fact, the same parking spot) where we stopped 2 years earlier, and browse the only open shop - a clothing and gifts store called Hickory on a Stick - before grabbing drinks and brunch at the Java Rock Café. Jane orders a latte and a toasted onion bialy with cream cheese, while I have a ham, swiss, and egg croissant with a piña colada smoothie. Afterward, we check in at Osprey Point and settle in upstairs for a mid-day nap - again, seemingly the only guests in the entire house.
In the afternoon, we drive south out of town to the wildlife refuge on Eastern Neck Island, where we take a brief walk (1 mile round-trip) through loblolly pine forest to Boxes Point, which overlooks the main channel of the Chester River where it meets the Chesapeake. On way out to the road, we pick up a beautiful, spiral-carven walking stick left leaning at the gate. Just south of that trailhead, we stroll down the boardwalk to the picturesque stand of loblollies at Tubby Cove, which quickly became one of my favorite photographic locations in the state after our visit in 2016. There on the observation deck, I take some portraits of Jane and I together, as well as some images of sunset over the marsh, its waves of saltgrass shimmering in the fading light. Heading back to Rock Hall, we eat dinner in the restaurant below our room at the inn - fried oysters with garlic-lemon aioli to share, crab-crusted grilled scallops for Jane, and a sirloin steak and crabcake for me. The day ends with a TV marathon (we watch the entirety of Titanic in about 5 hours), chocolates, and tea and coffee from the Keurig machine outside of our room. We sleep in the next morning, and return to Baltimore after breakfast.
