June 26, 2021

June 26, 2021

As I was loading our luggage into the car, I felt a stab of pain in my back. Ouch! I think all this driving and sitting in beds has caught up to me. I am now walking like an old man. And we are a long way from home!

From the panhandle of Maryland we continued east on I-70. Outside Frederick, we exited and made our way through rolling farmland and then uphill to Catoctin Mountain Park. The NPS website said the Visitor Center was closed but we found it open. You can always count on the government to be disorganized. During the depression, the US bought this marginally productive land and put Civilian Conservation Corps laborers to work making a demonstration park. Similar sites eventually became state parks. FDR liked coming here to relax. His presidential retreat (Camp David) needed a buffer, so this one became a National Park Site instead.

The park is a very popular hiking destination for Easterners. Since I am walking in pain, we chose a short historical hike called the Blue Blazes Whiskey Still trail. It follows a very buggy but scenic stream to the location of an infamous bootleg distillery that revenuers discovered during Prohibition.

Back in the car we popped north across the border to Gettysburg, PA stopping at Eisenhower National Historic Site. After retiring from the military, Ike bought this farm adjacent to the Gettysburg battlefield. During WW1 he commanded a tank training operation here and fell in love with the area. Ike's main house is still closed due to the pandemic. We tried to do the Cellphone Tour advertised on storyboards and the Internet but it didn’t work. Once again our disorganized government decided to unplug the phone because they are implementing a smart phone app instead. We walked around the farm, looked in his garage, and talked to a ranger very knowledgeable about Eisenhower. I liked the putting green this avid golfer built outside the main house.

We returned south and outside Frederick, MD found the Monocacy National Battlefield. The government paid park rangers haven’t opened the Visitor Center yet. Fortunately there were plenty of volunteer rangers available in the parking lot to get us oriented. Near the end of the Civil War, General  Grant deployed into battle most of the troops defending Washington. Robert E. Lee, sensing an opportunity, tried to take advantage. He sent Jubal Early and a small army up the Shenandoah Valley, across the Potomac to try and capture DC. Some hastily gathered troops met the advancing Confederate Army here. They lost the battle but delayed Jubal Early long enough to strengthen DC defenses and save the city. Losing Washington would have been a disaster for Lincoln’s reelection effort.

We spent a couple hours doing the driving tour of the battlefield. The union troops initially delayed the Confederate advance by blocking the two bridges across the Monocacy River. After that the battle went back and forth between two nice farm houses. The unlucky residents hid in the cellars while both armies shelled the buildings above.

We still have a few hours left, so we drove east to Baltimore to visit Hampton National Historic Site. Hampton is the site of a vast antebellum plantation. At one time this estate had an astounding 25,000 acres. The owner got rich running an iron works and built a manor house and gardens that would rival some European royal residences. We walked around the main house and then viewed the ornamental gardens. The family was obviously rich as we saw an orangery and an ice house, two very expensive rural luxuries.

We then drove downhill to view the servants and slave quarters. I am astonished to see such a large slave plantation in the North. I always thought that was a southern phenomenon. We forget that Maryland was a slave state. It was only by force that Lincoln kept Maryland in the Union. Slavery kept the South from developing economically. Free people work harder, more productively and with ingenuity. If only Democrats would learn this lesson.

We finished the day driving to the south side of Baltimore and spending the night near the BWI airport. We find a nearby restaurant that serves a great crabcake dinner. It was delicious and the size of a softball!