This weekend was Carole's birthday, so first we went up to Woodberry Kitchen in Baltimore and had a great meal. They asked if it was a special occasion and I, of course, said yes - so when they brought out Carole's dessert they had written "Happy Birthday Carole" in drizzled chocolate on the plate (the pumpkin baklava briefly occupied the blank space you see below that in the picture above...) From there we drove to Canton and spent the night at the Inn at 2920, a great B&B in the eclectic waterfront Canton area.
After an breakfast of fruit/yogurt/granola and cranberry walnut bread, followed by a pumpkin pancake deal, we went over to the Canton Club to work out - probably burning about as many calories as in the fruit we ate. The Canton Club is an odd health club, located above the Bo Brooks seafood restaurant. The health club is nothing special - but all the walls are glass, with Baltimore harbor views looking over multi-million dollar yachts and across to Ft. McHenry.
From there it was off to Carole's favorite Baltimore chocolate shop, Rhebs. The chocolate shop is basically in a tiny little house that was jammed with Bawlmer women waiting in line - we took number 50, when they were serving number 21. You could just grab some pre-made boxes right away, but nooooooooooooooooooooo - a big part of the fun for chocoholics apparently is sloowly choosing each individual piece of chocolate from the hundreds of different choices. During the hour and 15 minute wait, I tried to speed things up by helping the staff walk a 90 year old woman to her car with her bags of chocolate - I could have really sped things up by just stealing her bag, but Carole ixnayed that.
From there we headed into Pennsylvania and the picturesque town of Kennett Square, where to wash down the chocolate we had a fine lunch at the Half Moon Restaurant and Saloon in the roof-top atrium. Then off to Longwood Gardens, which is some huge-ass ex-Dupont estate with an enormous conservatory with miles of greenhouses with everything done up for Christmas and even more miles of trees and gardens all lit up for the holidays. Several hours of walking around and I figured I had earned the maximum possible SNAG points just before causing complete and permanent loss to my testicles. So, we hopped in the car, drove the 100 miles back home where I drank orange juice from the carton, left the toilet seat up and did my nails burped and spit a lot.
On the drive up up MD Rt. 1 to Kennett Square I had noticed trail heads for trails along the Big and Little Gunpowder Falls areas that I had never seen before. So, the next day Carl and I did the Little Gunpowder Fall trail, which entailed a manly stream crossing that I masculinely trod across quickly, while Carl analyzed it for several hours, getting in touch with his feelings about different potential crossing points before daintily making his way to the other side.
After about a 3 mile hike we came to the olde towne of Jerusalem Mill which was apparently the site of lots of macho battles during the Revolutionary War and had a big mill that aggressively ground corn and stuff into flour that women would bake with and men would use to polish their muskets and probably polish cue sticks or boxing gloves.
We added a 1 mile loop through the woods to the cutest little a solidly constructed covered bridge. On the way back we tried the Blue Trail which diverted from the river to follow an old logging road up the hills and through the dales until it joined back with the Little Gunpowder River Trail. After chopping down some trees with axes, killing some deer with our bare hands and planting apple seeds along the way for future generations of manly hikers, we got back into my Subaru HumVee and drove back home.
Hi Carole )waving high & have big smiles I want you to know I potesd yesterday but it's in the wrong place, it's under Hello Everyone if you'd like to take a peek at it,I heard from my angle while I slept last night & she told me there are many angles all around you sweetness so you stay strong,I'd like to say hi to Jimmie too, this is hard on you as well so staying strong is much more needed by you,I am praying for you all, Carole you are in my thoughts all the time, please know that, I'll be back )Much LoveAngie
Posted by: Jihaddun | 11 May 2012 at 01:02 AM