I've decided that as long as I'm living in Baltimore, I need to explore the surrounding area a bit. So far, I've been down in the Shenandoah (before moving here, last October), down to DC (to watch the Kentucky Derby with family) and that's about it for getting out of town.
So I've resolved to do something about this woeful inadequacy and headed out to Antietam today. It has the sorry distinction of being the site of the single bloodiest day of American history - something like 23,000 men killed or wounded on that single day in 1862.
Antietam, named for the nearest body of water (a Northern habit where the south named their battlefields for the closest town), is near Frederick in the upper west-most corner of the State of Maryland. Distances being so much smaller here in the East, this means its about 70 miles from where I live in B-City.
Of course, I took the scenic route, and it took me something like 3 hours to finally find the battlefield. Along the way, I stopped in what I think was Burkittsville and went into a period general store. The proprietor, Paul, is running for delegate for that region in the fall elections, and over the next hour or so we smoked cigars, talked about small town politics and energy policy and he told me about the battle of South Mountain (which I will detail another time).
The general store has been one since 1821 and he bought it and refurbished it, selling period artifacts/replicas, a couple of years ago.
Seems like quite nice motorcycling country and an easy ride so I propose to take my new Ducati up there - as soon as I buy one. Pity that we will be subsumed in snow in another eight or nine weeks. I just realized that it's only about eight weeks to Thanksgiving.
Wow.. time passes quickly.
Posted by artandscience at September 24, 2006 06:56 PM