After fun with beer tasting on Friday, Curtis and I drove to Catonsville, Maryland, to visit our fellow ex-South Carolinians, Mich and Eric. It was really good--and somewhat disorienting--to see people we knew from our other life. It served to increase my idea that I'm just on vacation, and will be returning to Columbia in a week or so.
We traveled up 66, then 495, then 95, then 695 to meet Mich and Eric at their new house, which is absolutely adorable. I have total house envy. I like our townhouse fine; it's in good shape, it has a lot of room, it has a huge amount of closet space . . . but I'm not crazy about it. It just doesn't have any character. But M&E's house? Character out the yang. It's a free-standing house, for one thing, which I really like; and, for another, it has beautiful hardwood floors, pretty bathrooms, great kitchen, and so many interesting architectural details. I would love to live in a neighborhood like this, and it was interesting to see; I'd really been under the impression that all the areas up here are on the cookie-cutter side. However, Catonsville is an hour from our house. I'll come back to this subject later; for now, our trip.
From Catonsville, we headed to Ellicott City, which is extremely close by. Catonsville alone was adorable, with charming little buildings and businesses, but I was wholly unprepared for Ellicott City. It was literally like something out of a dream.
It is weirdly reminiscent of Welch, West Virginia; maybe even more so Kimball or Keystone or Northfork. Driving there, I commented to Curtis that it looked like the road between Bluefield and Welch, Route 52. As soon as we saw Ellicott City's downtown, I gasped; it really did look exactly like Welch: steep, bare mountainsides, houses crawling up the rock faces, houses clinging to the edges of the cliffs, businesses pressed close against the streets, apartments above the businesses.
The similarities, however, did not extend themselves to the financial success that Ellicott City appears to be enjoying; whereas Welch has been dying a slow, painful death since the 80s, maybe even the 70s, Ellicott City is thriving--a charming, touristy mountain town. It makes me sad to think about where my hometown, and its nearby towns, is headed, and I wonder if there's anything to be done. I heard, once, that the success of America was built on the back of Appalachia, leaving the state and its citizens with very little capital in return.
But that's another blog, for another day.
Curtis, Mich, Eric, and I made our way down the steep sidewalk, wandering in and out of wine shops, antique stores, furniture stores, and a truly inspiring vintage clothing store. We debated restaurants for a while before deciding on Cacao Lane. While they screwed up Mich's bacon, and our waitress seemed less than interested in serving us, everything else was fantastic. Curtis got a roast beef sandwich; Eric had a portobello sandwich; and I had quiche. Mich stuck with water, but Curtis had his standby, Sierra Nevada, and Eric and I split a bottle of pinot grigio. And Mich and Eric very kindly treated us, which we greatly appreciated.
Afterward, I pondered checking out a tea room, Tea on the Tiber, but decided to head to the Pure Wine Cafe instead. We each had a glass of wine, then headed back to Mich & Eric's for a fudge tasting. The fudge came from a really interesting store: Southwest Connection & Silver Arrow Fudge. Where else can you get dreamcatchers and fudge all at the same place?
We sampled five different kinds: chocolate, peanut butter, chocolate explosion (which was chocolate fudge with three kinds of nuts), tiger fudge (which was vanilla fudge with stripes of chocolate and peanut butter), and cappuccino. The chocolate explosion was my least favorite, mostly because I just don't like nuts. The chocolate was delicious, and always an excellent standby. But the surprise winner for me that day was the tiger fudge; really quite tasty.
Attending us at our tasting that day was Mich and Eric's sweet baby pit bull Roxie, who stared mournfully at us while we tortured her with our delicious fudge.
We hugged goodbye, and as we got in the car, I was handed an extra treat: a man was out walking his pomeranian, who was a sweet fluffy blond baby who looked at me excitedly as we got into the car. Had I had my wits about me, I would have had Curtis knock said man out while I tossed our new pet into the car, but that idea didn't occur to me until we were already in the car and they'd gotten away.
We came home that night and passed out, as apparently a major ingredient in the fudge is Nyquil.
As I said before, though, there's a subject that I've been pondering, that was driven home especially hard when we visited Mich and Eric. It's something I've thought about since we first learned we'd be moving here: where to live. The potential commute. Areas. I was spoiled by the ability to drive about 7 minutes each way for my job in Columbia. The longest commute I had was about 20 minutes, from Broad River Rd. to Middleburg Office Park, off of Forest Dr. Now I drive about 15 minutes each way to George Mason, and I know how very lucky I am.
But I know for a fact we won't live in this townhouse forever; like I said, it's fine. There's nothing wrong with it. But it's not where I want to live while we're here. We're going to start looking for a house somewhere around August or September, and until then, we're going to be looking at neighborhoods and thinking very seriously about where we'd like to be, and what we're willing to put up with re: commutes and re: mortgage.
Well, enough about real estate and driving about for now; in my next installment, we'll be meeting Sherri and Julie in yet another newly visited area.
Geaux Tigers Fudge!
ReplyDelete