A Day In Frederick County

After an amazing 9 hours of sleeping, I woke up at 6am and made myself some coffee in my kitchen, before heading down for breakfast. It was continental, so I could eat like a normal person and not like an American. Then we started our day of touring around Frederick County with driving to the Cunningham Falls State Park. It's situated right next to the Catoctin Mountain Park and creates a huge Recreational Area for the citizens of Frederick. We hiked the Falls Trail with a Ranger explaining a bit about the nature of the park until we reached the Cunningham Falls that give the State Park its name. Loads of the stones there have a greenish tint and that comes from metabasalt which "burns" at much lower temperatures than jade, so that it doesn't get a glassy look but stays stone-ish. The water of the Cunningham Falls isn't drinkable and there are actually pretty toxic algae in the lake at the moment that also kills the wildlife living in the State Park that drinks from it. There are white-tailed deer, black bears, turtles, many birds and insects in the park. Then we made our way down towards the men-made lake and its beach, which felt rather natural and not at all artificially created. The birds and crickets there were so freaking loud, you really felt the surrounding nature. We left the State Park behind us and drove to the Catoctin Furnace Museum which showed off the history and makings of the furnace. There was an actual Blacksmith working outside in his workshop, who we could watch working for a while. Then we looked at some old houses from the 1820s which could also be rented as an apartment and had original furniture of the time when Catoctin used to produce iron. There was also an old shop which was the only opportunity for the citizens of Catoctin to get groceries without half a day trip to the next town back in the day. We also saw the last remaining furnace called Isabella (named after the owners wife) where the African American slaves have worked really hard to produce iron. When they died, they were buried next to a busy street, which gave them no peace, even in their deaths.
We took off to the Roddy Road where the first stop of a Covered Bridges trail is. The Covered Bridges are covered to prevent the snow and rain from destroying the bridges. Apparently, they are used in the Beetlejuice movie, old and new. So, fans of these movies would like it, I guess. The Roddy Road Bridge is the shortest Covered Bridge in Maryland, there are two others that are much longer.
Lunchtime brought us to the Catoctin Breeze Vineyard where we could see the harvest taking place. At harvesting time, they have to pluck the grapes and pick out all remaining greens manually, before they can become wine. The Catoctin wine is only available regionally at the moment, however the family owned business plans to expand someday to national and maybe even international. We got to test the red Adagio and the white Symphony of 2022. As the big wine-drinker I am, I could say that I liked the white one better than the red one. Other people in my group, who actually understand something about wine, said that both were pretty good wines, very light, fruity and tasty. What I did find very tasty was the catering, though. They had a lemon cheese that was to die for and amazingly delicious chocolates as dessert that reminded me of German Dominosteine that we eat during the winter season quite a lot.
After lunch, we went outside to enjoy the sun a bit. However, there were loads of moth-like bugs that kept flying around us and we kept trying to kill them, as Emily explained to us that they are invasive and eat the trees and the government actually asks people to kill them. Only following the rules there.
The live music began and we had to drive to our next stop: The Monocacy National Battlefield Museum. The Monocacy Battle actually saved Washington D.C. from being taken over by the Confederates during the Civil War. The Union (people against slavery) hasn't won the battle, however they postponed the Confederate troops to get to Washington D.C. for 24 hours, which was just enough time for more troops to come from Petersburg to defend the capital against Earlys troops. Basically, the men fell in Monocacy to save lives in Washington D.C.
But the Monocacy Battlefield has more layers of history to it, as there is a whole other story about the farm and its black slaves on the battlefield documented as well.
Leaving all the history behind us, we drove back to our hotel to rest for a bit, before driving downtown to join the "In the Streets" Festival. There was lots of good music, beer and wine to enjoy. Carroll Creek Park is actually the biggest water-based park in the US, and has hundreds of different water lilies in the creek during the summer time. During winter, handcrafted boats are put into the water instead of the plants. Each boat comes from another local company-charity cooperation. You can scan the QR code on the boats and vote for your favourite boat. Each vote is one dollar that then goes to the charity the boat represents. This fundraiser takes place each year from around Thanksgiving until March. I'd actually love to see the boats with their lights in the middle of winter in Frederick. Next to being a beautiful park, the Carroll Creek is also home to lots of nice art displays like murals, sculptures and historic milestones. For example, there is a memorial of the tavern where George Washington and Benjamin Franklin met for the first time, discussing their battle strategies before being the famous people they eventually became.
We ended the day with a very loud but atmospheric dinner at the hip new restaurant of Bentztown.Okumaya devam et