How far would you drive for a quart of ice cream and some local oysters?
Let me add some detail to that question. How far would you drive for some award-winning small-batch cinnamon ice cream and a quart of freshly-shucked oysters from a local trawler?
Yeah, I thought so. You would throw all thoughts of gas prices to the wind.
The weekend before Thanksgiving, I was as fried as a slab of Virginia ham. Mr. J had ordered some ice cream from the Scottish Highland Creamery in Oxford, Maryland, and we agreed to drive down to get it. Oxford used to be too far for a day trip, but Delaware (yes, it does exist) just opened a nice highway to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and now scenic Oxford is less than a two-hour drive.
But you know what happens when a place is quicker to get to, and you've been there 10,000 times? You go farther afield. Last summer we rented a place in Cambridge, Maryland. It's not far from Oxford, but it's not touristy. Less crowded, less posh, more genuine. We loved it immediately.
In Cambridge last summer we found the local fish store. And you just know what a fish store on the Chesapeake Bay has in abundance in November, right? Lovely big snotty oysters!
But you know what happens when you just found a new fun place last summer and you're fried like a ham? You wind up way the Hell out on an island in the Chesapeake, sea-glassing your fried little eyeballs out.
EXHIBIT A: LOOK AT THAT SHIT-EATING GRIN!
It wasn't Halloween, but it felt like Halloween. It felt like vacation. It felt like I was 180 miles from all my troubles. Damn, I do so love Maryland.
All that driving, and we still got home by 7:00. And don't try to pry the location out of me, but I got five goddamn pounds of sea glass. A quart of oysters. Three quarts of cinnamon ice cream.
And for a few days, I wasn't fried. More like soothingly marinated in a beach glass bath.
6 comments:
Five POUNDS of sea glass? Holy moly! And along with everything else you got, that certainly made the trip worthwhile! Glad you're no longer fried too.
That moment when you find the beach where an entire community dumped its trash for decades...
I would drive for oysters.
the Ol'Buzzard
I pick up beach glass also though have never found that much in one walk. The beach walk is the best way to smooth out all the fried edges and the ice cream just lagniappe. I'd pass on the big snotty oysters though.
Maybe not ice cream, but I've certainly driven for oysters! A town called - truly - Oysterville in southwest Washington State on the Long Beach peninsula. And, while there also picking up smoked salmon and smoked tuna. So, so good!
damn, thats a lot of seaglass..glad you are getting back into the word.
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