We are back in
the vagabond groove today, with more adventures than we could possibly imagine
springing up at us from every direction.
And it all happens in Maryland.
We begin in LaVale,
with rain falling and mist clouds rising from the hollows of the mountains all
around us. This calls for coffee, and we
find the perfect spot, Mountain City
Coffee House and Creamery, clinging to the side of a mountain slope
crowding the town of Frostburg. The
place has a spiritual vibe--which jives with how we are feeling about java this
morning.
And, we must
have some kind of spiritual mojo going on, because the next thing you know,
here we are beside “God’s Ark of Safety,”
an authentic ark being built right here in Frostburg at the special request of
Jesus, as delivered in the 1970s to Pastor Richard Greene. Building progress has been slow over these
many years since, despite Pastor Greene’s travels all over the world to share
the plans and raise money to fulfill the promise. But, it appears that the project is not just
about the product, but the process, as well.
A visitor who viewed the ark was cured of bronchitis, a worker was
healed of a sun allergy. These are miracles
we can believe in! The one miracle we
are skeptical about is the miracle that this 450 foot long, 75 foot wide, 45
foot high vessel will ever be completed.
The crowning
jewel of the day, and the reason we are in the Frostburg area in the first
place, is our photo safari through the last remaining intact silk mill in
America--the Lonaconing Silk Mill. Established in 1907, the mill stopped
production in 1957, and it appears that at the end of the last day of work,
everyone just left all their tools and papers and work clothes behind and
walked out the door, then the owners locked up without bothering to clean up or
reclaim any excess inventory.
In the
intervening years, the paint has cracked and peeled, windows have cracked and
broken, the roof has sprung many a leak, and the hundreds and hundreds of spinning
and weaving machines have developed a deep layer of rust.
What a glorious
playground for photographers!
We will throw in
a few of our photos as we tell the story of its fate after the plant
closed.
On the recommendation of a politician friend
of his, Herb Crawford bought the 48,000 square foot mill thirty years ago with
the intention of renting it out as a sewing factory, but the plan fell through
when the politician “got caught with his hand in the cookie jar,” as Herb
says.
Herb has been trying ever since to
get some foundation or government agency to save this historically significant
building. The county is interested, but
has no money. Same story from Maryland
officials. Some guy wants to take the
place off his hands for $400,000, and then take the place apart, selling off
the pieces for scrap and reclaimed materials.
Herb is trying to hold off on selling to someone who will not preserve
it, but he is retired, and was counting on this building to be his retirement
fund.
And, trying to take care of the
building looks like it is a big job, too--he spent the whole time we were there
just going around the building emptying buckets that had filled with rainwater
that had leaked in from last night’s rain, and using a wet vac to clean up the
particularly big and deep puddles that missed a bucket. Water is still dripping and puddling as we leave,
although it stopped raining a couple hours ago.
Just a block
from the Silk Mill, a fifty foot chimney rises over a tidy little municipal park. We are curious, and stop to explore (of
course). We learn from a very detailed
historic marker that this is the Lonaconing
Iron Furnace, built in 1837, and in operation only until 1855. In its
heyday it employed 260 workers and produced sixty tons of pig iron per
week. It was historically significant
for being the first furnace to make iron from coal and coke, rather than
charcoal. Alas, it closed down in 1855 when easily available deposits of iron
ore were depleted around here, and Pennsylvania iron furnaces were nearer to coal
and railroads, giving them a significant product production and distribution advantage.
Down the road a ways,
near Cumberland, Dick uses his amazing restaurant radar to determine that this
divey place, Bunnie’s, is actually a restaurant. We enter with some hesitancy, especially when
the door spills us into a claustrophobic bar room with three guys you don’t
want to be close to drinking at the bar. They go quiet and look at us, and we at them,
until a hostess quickly jumps out from the shadows and shows us to a perfectly
lovely dining room in the back, where some more appealing local types are
dining. The lunch is the best we have
had on this trip.
We began the day
in the rainy mountains of western Maryland, and we end it watching a golden
sunset on the Chesapeake Bay. We are in
Kent Narrows, where crab houses (and working boats) line the shore--our dinner target
is clear. The first crab house we choose
has run out of crabs, but recommends their finest competitor, where we grab our
mallets and pound and pick our way through a shared tray of a dozen large crabs.
Our mouths are
tingling from Bay Seasoning as we finish, so we (like most other people here)
order the restaurant’s signature dessert--a Nutty Buddy made in-house. It looks like the Nutty Buddy of our
childhood has grown up and gone on steroids. But somehow we each manage to finish
one.
What a DAY!
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