It has been a fascinating journey to this historic place where my daughter and her husband Pat live. I had never heard about Harve de Grace before.
My daughter lives here but works as a park ranger at Elks Park in Maryland. She convinced me to come at this time because of the beauty of the town and that she is free for the time being to show me around.
Summer season is almost over and the cool weather is just starting which allows a perfect time for sightseeing and being outdoors.
The town is situated off the coast of Chesapeake bay and has a history of colonial life, 1812 war, civil war and their share of 1920 prohibition era gangsters. For example, George Washington stayed here and so did Al Capone at the same building. (Not at the same time). The town was first explored by John Smith of Pocahontas fame and later named by Lafayette who thought the town resembled Havre de Grace in France. According to its history, it came one vote shy of being our nations capitol.
The first thing we did was to visit the promenade and an old lighthouse. It was quite a walk that let me see bald eagles and ducks. This was and is a place for duck hunting. There’s even a decoy duck museum. The decoy duck museum houses carved decoys which were made by individuals.
Marie’s house is a two story brick house with steep stairwell which We had to be careful using. Breakfast was always a little late in the morning and supper the same due to our late touring the local establishments. We did go out to a diner for eating out. Great menu at each one we visited.
We went to a first Friday festival which brought out local vendors in the evening hours. They had a marching band and other types of entertainment plus local wares and services. It seems that the whole town was there.
On Sunday we went to meet Pats family whom we met at restaurant halfway between Avondale and Havre De Grace. All of our former friends were there whom we haven’t seen in years. Pats mother and her daughter’s Cari’s family came along and Jamie with his son Christopher, a new addition to the family. Afterward we watched an Eagles game at Jamie’s house where we met Paola, his wife, waiting for us with game snacks. Did I mention that they’re fanatic Eagles fans?
One of the things I learned about Maryland was that all freight was hauled up to the other towns by the use of canals at the beginning before any other kind of transportation was available. We visited one of the canals which was built up by granite stones without any type of mortar. It was part of the Locke Museum which explains more fully how the canals worked.
Lastly, we visited Washington D.C. to see the Bible Museum. It was located a few blocks away from Ft. McNair where I stayed when I was stationed in 1976. I had forgotten how hard it was to find a parking space back then. Time did not allow us to visit the other museums but we did ride around to see the sights. I had forgotten also that it would take longer than a day to visit all the museums.
One of the last things we did was to ride in a boat to see the evening sunset across the Chesapeake Bay. It was mostly a romantic ride with cocktails being served. There were other couples on board.
We enjoyed the town and hope to be back next year to see the Fall foliage.