So Deep It Puts Your Ass To Sleep

A few weeks ago, Jeannie asked me if we could have a day where we took off someplace fun and had a day-trip-fun-day and agreed to not feel any guilt about not working on the house. Although I'd really like to be getting some shit done on the house right about now, I know the Jeanners has been working her behind off and needed a bit of stress-free maxin' and relaxin' with Doctor Me. So I picked August 8th, a Sunday that we both had off work, to be our guilt-free fun day. Then we just had to figure out what to do, where to go, and neither of us had any great ideas. Then a few days later I remembered that we've been meaning to go to Deep Creek Lake (how deep?), and a few days after that, the Jeanners came up with the ideas of going to someplace that I can't remember the name of and some place in Virginia called Lumas Caverns or something like that. She left it up to me, so I picked Deep Creek Lake, which is about 3 hours west of Baltimore in Western Virginia, and is kind of like, for all you Missourophiles out there, a half-sized Lake of the Ozarks.

We left yesterday morning, and I was feeling blank and expressionless and didn't have much to say, but after a little bit of driving and some McDonalds breakfast food I warmed up to the day. We got to the park ar around 12:30 and spent most of the afternoon on a 5 mile hike up in the hills that was relatively unexciting but not too bad. Then I took a nap by the lake while Jeannie did some people watching and we decided to head back towards Baltimore and stop at anyplace we thought might be interesting. The Jeanners wanted to stop at Sideling Hill, which is this monster pass that's cut through the mountains for highway 70 to go through. There's a little museum and an overlook. It was fairly lame. Then we drove a little bit more and decided to stop in Frederick, Maryland for dinner. Frederick is a town that we've driven by on the highway a million times but never stopped and got out and looked around. Turns out that there's a super-cute older downtown area that's very walkable with lots of shops and restaurants. I was very surprised by this, because from the highway Frederick looks pretty terrible. Anyway, we found a little Spanish/Mexican restaurant and proceeded to have a real tasty dinner and conversation, and it was just very nice. The meal was probably the best Mexican food I've had in my life (no offense, Chuy Arzola) and not too expensive. And it was just a nice atmosphere and a good time. Our friend Katie (the North American Traveler) is thinking about moving to Frederick at some point in the future, so perhaps we will have future opportunities for visiting and dining in good ol' Frederick.



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