“Maryland”
8/4/17, “The Old Line State”
Edgewater, Maryland
About two and a half years ago, I
wrote an entry in this Travelogue with a dateline of Greenbelt, Maryland. It was written from my friend Raymond’s
brother's balcony, in his apartment in Greenbelt, where we were overnighting on a
spontaneous trip. I remarked with irony
that I was smoking the same pipe that I had smoked to datelines of such places
as Budapest, Hungary and London, England, and that Greenbelt, Maryland did not
seem to fit with that club. Reader, I
remember that entry as vividly as I remember the Budapest and London
entries. I remember that trip as well as
I remember those trips.
Here’s the thing
about this Travelogue, and it is a point I mentioned during my trip to
Virginia, sure it will have the entries written at Mount Everest or the Great
Wall or in Tehran or Havana, but it will also have the less assuming datelines,
even those as unassuming as Greeneblt, Maryland, or the dateline for tonight’s
entry of Edgewater, Maryland. When I set
out to see the world, I set out to see our country first and foremost, and
datelines of Edgewater, Maryland further that mission, to see all 420 units of
our National Park Service, to see all 50 state capitols, to truly see our
country from sea to shining sea.
Just
like that previous trip, the last night I spent in The Old Line State, this
trip involves a visit to Raymond’s family, his parents this time, and the free
place to stay for the weekend is certainly worth giving up the Annapolis,
Maryland dateline in exchange for the Edgewater, Maryland one. This establishing shot from their porch is
different than the one I would have had of the State House in Annapolis, but it
tells its own story, and that is what this Travelogue is about: telling a story. What story will this trip tell? I do not know, but I have set out to visit my
six remaining National Park Sites in The Old Line State, along with the State
House and the state’s “most iconic restaurant.”
I have no doubt that I will remember this night in Edgewater and this
trip as vividly as I remember Greenbelt.
Now, what story do I have to tell tonight? As any good Day 0 entry starts, it starts
with Night -1. With the K-Man out of
town, my old friend Mr. Zuber stood in for him, and we had an epic night
together. Like with the K-Man, my
outings with Mr. Zuber are typically marked by overindulgence in food, alcohol,
and tobacco, but I have been trying to limit my intake of two of those three
things, which allowed us to have a moderate amount of food and alcohol and as
much tobacco as we wanted. The evening
was no less epic in moderation. We met
at CPK, Mr. Zuber wanting to go to the place I always go with the K-Man. In contrast to the feast that I had with the
K-Man, we had no alcohol at dinner and shared a pizza, instead of each having our
own full pie, and I only had one piece of bread.
After dinner, we lit up Graycliffs before our
movie and then walked to the theatre to see “Dark Tower,” which had
disappointingly low reviews, but neither of us were disappointed. We both loved it. It was a cross between Western and Fantasy,
and we both agreed there was not a single dull moment. After the movie, we retrieved the cigars we
had left outside and finished them at my place.
We were not ready for the evening to end, so we went downstairs to The
Mason Jar, where we each had a glass of rye whiskey with a soda back, the only
alcohol we consumed all night. Again, in
moderation the evening was no less epic.
I got him a car back to Greenpoint, and we said our goodbyes.
I packed and woke up relatively early,
heading to the office for a rather adventurous day. After doing everything I needed to do at the
office, I left around 11:30 AM, as I would be going to our lab in The Bronx for
training on concrete sampling and testing.
I had a bag with a sandwich and my leftover Chinese food from earlier in
the week, which I knew would be my lunch and dinner, my computer/tobacco bag,
and my bag of clothes. I lit up a Graycliff
and headed to Nat Sherman’s to pick up my Nic Toro, but, as I was walking, I
saw that Grand Central was on fire. Not
an exaggeration. Smoke was coming out of
the building, and fire trucks were coming from every direction.
After a few minutes, I continued to Nat
Sherman’s to get my cigar. My plan was
to bike uptown to get my exercise in and then to take the train from 86th
Street to The Bronx. That worked quite
well, and I ate my sandwich on the train.
I had put my cigar in my cargo pants pocket, so I finished it as I
walked to the lab.
I trained with the
director and one of the inspectors for about an hour, but it was still only 3
PM, too early to call it quits for the day and too late to go back to the
office. I worked on some office work
from one of the stations, which are connected to our server, and had my Chinese
food before leaving around 4:30 PM. I
lit up a PDR and walked back to the train station. My plan was to take the 2 train to 96th
Street on the West Side and then bike to Hertz at 43rd and
Tenth. It was a great plan, and I would
meet Raymond and Elaine at 6 PM. One
glitch. Somehow the 2 train became a 5
train, and I wound up at 86th Street on the East Side. I wound up biking a lot more today than I
anticipated (about six miles).
I was
only fifteen minutes late, and we got the car right away. Even though we were right next to the Lincoln
Tunnel, it was still slow going to get to the tunnel. I lit up my Nic Toro and, once we were on
I-95, put on Taylor Swift’s album “Red.”
It was almost exactly what I did two weeks ago on my way to
Virginia. It was the same drive down
I-95, too, for most of the way. I
followed up with a Quesada and some Disney music.
I had hoped we could do the drive in one
shot, but I had no such luck. With an
hour to go, I was hungry, thirsty, and in need of caffeine and a bathroom. None of it could wait the hour to
Edgewater. It should have been a
ten-minute stop, but it took more than thirty.
Raymond ordered food from Wendy’s, which somehow took twenty minutes for
them to prepare. I was annoyed, but not
significantly. We would still be in
Edgewater well before midnight. I was
listening to Howard Stern at this point and lit up Julius Caesar.
We were at his parents’ house in Edgewater
soon enough. His sister greeted us, and,
due to my cat allergy, they said that I could stay in the converted detached
garage, which I called a cabin. It was
very nice, but it needed light and air.
When his father came home, he fixed the electrical circuits to get
everything up and running. His brother
also came home soon, and we all talked and chatted for about an hour. I had planned to go right to bed, but I
realized that I could actually get a relatively late start, so I stayed up for
a bit, and his mother said that she could make whole wheat waffles for me at 8
AM, so I realized I just needed to be asleep by 2 AM to get four full REM
cycles and be at my first site around 10 AM, which was perfect timing for the
day.
After a while, I excused myself to
write my entry. I lit went out front and
lit up my Ardor. I then opened my
computer bag and saw that a little water had gotten on my laptop. That’s when I started to worry. I pressed the power button, but nothing
happened. I was not entirely sure,
though, that I had any battery on the laptop, as I had forgotten to charge
it. I went to the porch, where I found
an outlet. I plugged it in, but
nothing. I asked if the outlet was
working. It was not. I must have tried four or five different
outlets, and nothing each time, but no one was sure if any of those outlets
worked. Finally, I found one that
everyone agreed work. My heart skipped a
beat as I plugged it in, but it worked.
They then told me that there was overhead outlet on the porch that
worked. I plugged my laptop in there,
relit my Ardor, and sat down in one of the rocking chairs, where I proceeded to
write this entry, which I will close so that I can publish and get some sleep.
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