Our Day in Cambridge

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's) 

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 49 - May 19, 2017

Today was our day to tour Cambridge! We went to the Dorchester County Building right above "The Wall" looking for tourist information, and we were directed to the County Council Office. We started asking the receptionist about tourist information, and the Council President came out and gave us a handful of brochures! The most useful brochure was "A Walking Tour of Cambridge," which identifies most of the historic structures.

Folding bikes AKA "Clown bikes"!

We finally took the folding bikes down and rode them downtown instead of walking. The bikes are a little disappointing. Patty calls them "Clown bikes" because the seat post on one of them always slides down to its lowest position, and I look silly riding it even with the seat post up! We need to figure out how to keep the seat post up. When I tried to tighten the lever, I bent it, and now I suspect it will break off if I try to bend it back. I am thinking as a temporary fix, a big hose clamp around the seat tube would keep it from going down into the down tube!

Window sign, sorry for reflections!

We went first to the Harriet Tubman Museum and Education Center. Harriet Tubman was an extraordinary person, who escaped from slavery to the North, and then went back to the Eastern Shore in Maryland many times as a "conductor" on the "Underground Railroad."  She brought more than 300 slaves to freedom, and she never lost a "passenger." We read all the wall display panels and watched a video on her life and accomplishments. Maryland was a slave state, and although it never joined the Confederacy, the Chesapeake Bay ports did a large business in tobacco from the South. Sentiments in the Chesapeake area tended to side with the Confederacy, so it was extremely hazardous for Tubman to return to the Eastern Shore. There were reward posters in the Museum with a $40,000 reward for her capture. 

RAR Brewpub

After the Museum, we went to the RAR brewpub (my keyboard does not have a backward "R") across the street. We thought we might eat there, but the menu did not have anything Patty would like, so I had a beer and we went back across the street to the Wine Bar, where we had a prosciutto and cheese platter and we both had wine! The platter was really very good! Then we rode about a mile each way to a hardware store to buy a bike lock!  I should have bought a big hose clamp to put around the seat tube, but this potential solution had not yet occurred to me!

Josiah Bayly Law Office Built in 1800

Christ Church Cemetery

Cambridge was founded in 1684, and there are many buildings that date from the 17th and 18th centuries. Per Russ Portner, I do not need to photograph any of them, since "Toni has them all"! That plus there were way too many! I did get some photos today though. One looks like a little cottage, but actually was the first law office in Cambridge built in 1800. Lawyers were prevented from practicing from their homes, and so Josiah Bayly built this structure, which is right next door to Christ Church Episcopal Church and cemetery. It is right across the street from the Dorchester County Circuit Courthouse.

J.M. Clayton Seafood Company

J.M. Clayton Seafood Company is right around the corner from "The Wall," and it is the oldest continuously operating crab processing plant on the Eastern Shore, established in 1890.  This is a large crab processing plant, but they sell fresh shelled crab meat at retail. It is still owned by the Clayton family. We bought a pound of "Gourmet lump" which is mixed small and large pieces, half for a Crab Louie for tonight, and the other half for open face toasted crab and cheese sandwiches tomorrow! There is no store pe se, you just go into the office, pay for what you want, get a receipt, and take it into the warehouse where an employee brings your crab out to you in a plastic container.

I got in a kayak paddle to the far end of Cambridge Creek as well in the afternoon. We also enjoyed seeing a stern wheeler coming into Cambridge Creek. We probably saw this a couple of times during the day!

The last thing we did was to check the Marine Weather app, which confirmed we are going to be hunkered down here for tomorrow as well, so it still looks like Sunday will be the day for our departure from Cambridge.