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On the long weekend, we finally made our way east to Calvert County to visit a state park that had been on our list for quite some time. We stayed in Solomons, MD, and on Saturday we went to Calvert Cliffs State Park on the Chesapeake Bay. The cliffs and nearby beaches are known for an abundance of fossils. The beach and cliffs are accessed by hiking trails through woods and marshland. We assumed that the trail would be easy enough for me to walk at this point in my knee replacement recovery. The trail was marked as being 1.8 miles but according to my step counter I walked well over five miles, and we did not take side trips or do any backtracking, so I don't know where the extra came from! The good news is that I was able to do that amount of walking.
Sights along the way:
At last - the beach! The tide was quite high, so not a good time to hunt fossils. The beach and trails closer to the cliffs have been off limits recently due to slide activity.
The hubster was asked to help with some digging operation by this young fossil hunter.
No fossils, shells, or shark teeth came home with us, but we enjoyed the hike and the sand and waves.
On Sunday we stopped at the Calvert County Marine Museum. This wonderful little museum has exhibits featuring the history of the area, history and information about ships and boats, fossils and paleontology, and marine biology and ecosystems. I didn't expect to be learning about skates and rays, but it was interesting! And the small aquarium had some interesting fish and other animals, including river otters!
The draw for me was the Drum Point Lighthouse, and climbing up into it provided another challenge for my knee, but again, I made it!
You might be able to see what looks like a ladder in the center underneath the cottage. After climbing the stairs to the platform, that very steep open "staircase" is how one gets into the lighthouse cottage, through a small trap door. I took three steps up and down again to make sure I could get out before I headed all the way up!
Here's the view from the porch or gallery around the cottage.
Most keepers had a family living with them. Can you picture doing schoolwork here? I guess the children would have had a difficult time getting to any local schoolhouse, as they would have had to go by boat!
Here's a pretty washstand, but guess where the privy is? There's an outhouse out on that gallery, just suspended over the water!
A spiral staircase goes up to the next floor where there is another bedroom and a bell striker room. The bell striker could be wound up rather like a grandfather clock, so it could strike the bell for about two hours. This was used during very foggy weather to provide an extra signal of caution for boats. And continuing up the spiral staircase, here is the light and Fresnel lens.
If you find yourself in the Chesapeake Bay area of Maryland, pay a visit to Calvert Cliffs and to the museum, and I'm sure there are many more interesting sites in the area that we didn't have time for on this visit. Just across the river, for instance, is Historic St. Mary's City, which we used to visit for homeschool trips when my kids were young.
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