Tom was very sad to see us leave the B&B today, though I got the distinct impression that it was less because he liked us as people and more because he wanted to make as much money as possible. I discerned this from the fact that he kept telling us that. I'm most perceptive.
We were joined at breakfast by one of the only other couples staying at Black Walnut Point Inn and I was very proud that we chatted to them, as I'm usually not very good at being friendly to fellow guests. I ended up kind of regretting it, because we got into a discussion with the lady about race - she was insisting that there is no black or white and that it's just a state of mind, so you can decide what ethnicity you want to be. Even her boyfriend thought her a little loony and removed her from us, for which we were quite grateful.
We spent the morning by the pool (welt woman staying in the shade this time, firmly on mozzie watch), then headed into St Michaels for lunch. St Michaels is a twee and slightly more fancy town than Tilghman Island. Though just as unwelcoming. I am really enjoying exploring America, though. It's really nice to spend our weekends driving along these pretty roads in the sunny sunshine, seeing cornfields and little towns with funny signs and pretty churches and stuff.
It was just insanely hot in St Michaels, such that even Maxy was seeking shade. It's known as the Town that Fooled the British, because they got a tipoff that the British were coming during the war of 1812 and sent lots of ships out to sea, with lights on them. This fooled the British into thinking that St Michaels was much closer than it really was, so when they fired their canons, the attack fell very short of the mainland. Apparently one canonball did make it to the town and fell through the roof of a house which still exists, but we couldn't find it.
After a gruelling afternoon sauntering around the port and boutiques, we had some sherbet ice cream in an old school parlour and then headed back towards DC, as there was far less to see in St Michaels than we'd expected.
As we made our way back across the bay over the long bridge which yesterday had been wrapped in the thick cotton wool of fog, we got to see what we'd missed. Especially as the traffic was pretty bad, so we were kind of crawling along. It's a huge bridge spanning the bay, but shunning the usual straight-from-A-to-B quality that kind of characterises your average bridge - this one meanders all over the bay, sweeping round in a big loop.
Because we were running so early, we stopped off for dinner in Annapolis. Annapolis is much more built up than St Michaels - a little like Poole in Dorset - and is centred on the navy academy. We saw the capitol building, which is in 'The Wire' when Carcetti goes to see the governor, and wandered along little backstreets of pretty houses. Maxy said it reminded him of Cambridge.
We welcomed the a/c in a second hand bookshop we dived into as we were just dripping with sweat. We got chatting to the owner of the shop, who invited Maxy to a discussion group about the election that she's holding in a few weeks. I don't think he'll go, but her shop was lovely and dark and old and it was interesting to hear that she's going to vote for Obama, but her twentysomething daughter is voting for McCain. Most irregular.
We had supper in a restaurant called Pussers which topped off the trio of bad meals this weekend (the clue was in the name). Ugh. Then headed back to DC to collapse exhausted after what felt like a very long weekend. On our way back into the city I genuinely nearly killed us in an attempt to pull up behind a car with a Kansas license plate in the middle of speeding traffic, but hey we got it!
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