You must do the things you think you cannot do.
~
Eleanor Roosevelt

Friday, June 24, 2011

Broomes Island Vacay

The first of several posts...

Broomes Island is a gorgeous, peaceful little stretch of land along the lower Patuxent River about 20 miles north of Solomons Island. [Neither is an island though.] We *love* going down there, but as the family grows our turns for space in the house get farther apart.

Bill's great grandfather (or maybe great, great) bought a bunch of marsh land to use for hunting and fishing. Then they built a little cottage and later added indoor plumbing and even a kitchen. Then more family built houses on the land and Machen Point was born. I think most everyone who still lives there/has a house down there is still related at least by marriage, save one or two houses.  Pretty cool.

walking up the drive to the mailbox

We're not far from the Chesapeake Bay so the river is wide; the water is brackish (salt and fresh), and it has mild high and low tides. We also get sea nettles/jelly fish...but they don't arrive until July so we didn't have to contend with them on our visit, happiness!

looking down-creek towards the river
there are sea walls and jettys to help slow the erosion caused by the tide

The house is almost at the end of the road so there's very little traffic. I originally planned to take the kids' bikes, but Shane's back breaking adventure x-nayed that. We'll try again when we go in August.

I'm pretty sure the land on the other side is St Mary's county.

Some folks like to kayak to the other side where they find all sorts of cool shells, fossils and shark's teeth. I didn't feel comfortable having Hank paddle himself that far, but in retrospect, I really think he could do it. We would just need to take it slow. We did kayak to the other side of the creek (about 100 yards or so) to a nearby beach so Ella could 'treasure hunt.' That particular beach is a magnet for sea glass which made her little heart very happy.


One of the days we were there was a little chilly for swimming so we went to the Cypress Swamp nature center. It's very cool because there's a boardwalk through the swamp and you can see the trees up close. The trees are very cool because they have 'knees'...their roots come above the surface and bend back down underground and they look like knees sticking up.

You'll notice I didn't take a lot of pictures and the ones I did take are only so-so. Being the only grown up, chasing 3 little kids - with a painful foot to boot - I felt like I was barely keeping up the whole time we were there!
They're rehabbing a red-tailed hawk

The boardwalk...Hank was very good about making sure they hadn't completely left me in their dust.

We left Cypress Swamps for AnnMarie Sculpture Garden where they have a fairy house exhibit....

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