Jane and I are married.
Well, not completely, yet. Our ceremony is toward the end of May in California, where we'll be sealing the deal by celebrating with family and friends. But as of this Thursday, the license is signed and the deed is done. It doesn't feel any different than before, I suppose.
On a crisp March morning, we pack our bags and leave town for a overnight jaunt to the river valleys of western Maryland. On our way, we stop at the old stone courthouse on the hill overlooking the historic mill-town of Ellicott City. We accidentally pass through the metal detectors for the criminal court before a security guard ushers us to a small side chapel. Fifteen minutes later, we drop our documents in the car and walk down the hill to the riverbank, where we eat breakfast in a small café. Jane orders a café au lait, and I have a London Fog. We split a smoked salmon bagel and a BLT. The first meal of our marriage, I say to Jane with a nudge. She shrugs, chewing contentedly on her bagel. There is an air of finality about it that dissipates with the sunshine and the morning fog.
We are outbound on the I-70, heading westward past Frederick, and then shooting for the gap in the mountains towards Harpers Ferry and the border of West Virginia. On the highway, we leave the coastal floodplains and woodlands behind, climbing past the fall line and into the rolling hills and river valleys of the Piedmont. Jane points out the window at the idyllic landscape floating by. "Donkey." "That's clearly a horse," I tell her. "Donkey," she repeats, nonplussed. I briefly recall that I am now married to this woman.
Just outside of Harpers Ferry, we turn north and follow a small road through the hills above the Potomac River Valley, winding along the corrugated folds of the Blue Ridge. As we near our destination, we turn onto a private road, past a gate, and up a lane through a copse of pine trees, where I park the car beside a wooden lodge on a hilltop. Before us is a gorgeous westward panorama, down the valley to the town of Sharpsburg and the fields surrounding Antietam Creek, and from there to the Upper Potomac and the cliffs that mark the edge of Maryland. After unloading our bags from the car, we get acquainted with our home for the next day and night - the Antietam Overlook Farm.
The Antietam Overlook Farm is a charming little bed-and-breakfast lodge with several rooms, a kitchen and dining area, and a living room with full bookshelves, a gramophone, and a roaring fireplace. We are introduced to Amadeo, the African grey parrot who lives downstairs by the window looking into the front yard, spending his days climbing around the top of his birdcage and chatting with guests. We go upstairs and find our room, an impressive suite with a fireplace, a second-level balcony facing westward, a deep, wood-paneled bathtub, and a set of binoculars for bird-watching. Jane settles in for a late-morning nap while I sit downstairs with a book and a cup of hot chocolate. Amadeo hustles around the side of his cage to get a better look at me. "What'cha doing?" the bird asks me. "I'm reading," I say. "Fucker," says the bird. "Shit. Shit."
After Jane gets her beauty rest, we set out on a short drive down the mountain to the town of Sharpsburg, where we will be touring the fields surrounding Antietam Creek, which saw the bloodiest day of fighting in American military history. We spend the afternoon driving through the battlefield, pausing to gaze at monuments commemorating the deaths of entire towns' worth of young men in the span of minutes. Jane narrates from the visitor center guide as I drive. We pause to stare at the headstones in the Mumma Farm cemetery, take a walk down Bloody Lane, and climb the observation tower gazing over the main battlefield, a barren farmland now dotted with lone oak trees and crisscrossed by tall grass. We take a stroll to the Burnside Bridge crossing Antietam Creek before returning to town. At Nutter's Ice Cream, a post-Antietam tradition (for tourists, not infantrymen), Jane gets a cone with a massive scoop of cookie dough, and I devour a split scoop of fresh strawberry and peach ice cream.
We continue west, crossing a road bridge suspended high over the Potomac and entering Shepherdstown, West Virginia. On the main street of this little college town, Jane and I browse stores selling homemade crafts and used books. I pick up a copy of Marina Keegan's The Opposite of Loneliness from a back bookshelf. Somewhere in the distance, bells are pealing from a church tower, and students are rushing home from class on a golden Thursday afternoon. Jane and I sit down for dinner at the French bistro next door, and over scallops and steak, we reminisce about old times.
After dinner, we retreat from West Virginia with the sunset to our backs. Returning through Sharpsburg and past a battlefield aglow in dusk, we turn up the mountainside toward the Overlook Farm. I stop the car just below the hilltop to take a picture of the neighboring farmhouse at sunset (above). Back at the lodge, we are acquainted with Mr. Meowser, the farmyard cat who spends his days hunting vermin around the property. He climbs the fire escape up to our balcony, and after sitting in Jane's lap for a few minutes, spends the rest of the night gazing wistfully at us from outside our windowsill. To our west, the sun drops lower toward the horizon, bathing the land in lovely amber hues. I set up the tripod to shoot into the sunset, using a new technique I recently learned to reduce lens flare (above).
That night, Jane and I sit downstairs by the fireplace, Jane working on a grant for her labwork while I read. Amadeo clucks and whistles at us, but for the most part holds his profanity. We share a glass of white wine (which we promptly ditch for tea and hot cocoa), and I nearly burn the lodge down with a bag of microwave popcorn. We go to bed early, with the embers from a wood fire smoldering on the back lawn outside. Early the next morning, I leave Jane asleep while I throw on my walking clothes, grab my camera gear, and drive fifteen minutes south through the pitch dark to the bank of the Potomac River across from Harpers Ferry. Repeating a hike that Jane and I did together over 2 years ago now, I make the arduous climb through the trees up to Maryland Heights, a stony ridge overlooking the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. At of the end of my walk, gasping for breath, I set my tripod down on the cliff edge and take pictures of the lovely scene below, coated in the dark blue of early dawn. To my left, a pink sun rises in the direction of the ocean. The combined waters below me flow toward it, carving a mighty valley through earth and rock.
As I descend the mountain and return to the car, rain begins to fall. White-tailed deer scatter to the side of road as I leave the riverbank and wind back through the wet hills towards home. Back at the Overlook Farm, I dash inside as the rain comes down in earnest. Jane is just waking; we go downstairs and enjoy a hot breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausages, homemade pancakes, and poached pears. At the dining table, we meet a few fellow guests, including an elderly couple visiting from Baltimore between dialysis sessions. We talk about politics, health care, and a few of the doctors we mutually know at the Hopkins Bayview campus. They part with a few suggestions for other bed-and-breakfasts Jane and I should visit in the Chesapeake region (Smith Island, etc.). "We used to live in California," the wife tells me. "That was over forty years ago. We didn't think we'd stay out here, but we just couldn't leave the seasons behind."
We drive home in the rain, returning to Baltimore after lunch in Ellicott City.
