Our Amazing Adventure at Smith Island, Md.

The amazing adventures of the Attaway girls, except we ain't girls anymore, we are all little old ladies, Sally, Susie and me, Frances.  Of course we are young old, Susie being only 61.

 September 9, 2010 we went on a cruise on the Chesapeake Bay, to Smith Island, Maryland.  We sailed aboard the great ship (boat) TWISTER.

The Captain charters groups of tourists and free wheelers like us (we all have to make reservations because they can only take so many passengers on the boat, they don't want to OVERLOAD)  to Smith Island, one of the first settlements in Maryland.

This is a picture of the young Captain, while the older Captain welcomed everyone aboard.

We caught the boat at Point Lookout State Park.  This was once a Union run Civil War camp housing Confederate prisoners.

When we boarded I asked the Captain if we could ride up front on the bow.  He said that it wouldn't be wise because we would get soaked.  So we went up to the top deck.  There was 20 plastic yard chairs, very light weight, lined up along the rail. We sat near the front.

There was a large group of senior citizens from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  Gosh, they sure got up early to get here in time to catch the boat. They all came on a charter bus.  I asked one of the gentlemen from that group to take a picture of Sally, Susie and me.  He did a good job, although I was almost sorry.  I didn't realize just how bad I looked, the wind had made a mess of my hair.

We held onto the rail once we got out into the bay.  The wind was brisk and the bay was full of rolling waves and white caps.  I stood up to take a picture and my chair took wings. It flew across the top deck.  One of the other passengers helped me get it back.  Everyone up top with us was laughing about this.  Needless to say, I didn't get up again until we got to Smith Island.

I took lots of pictures.  I got a fair shot of a supertanker going to Baltimore.  But the best picture I took was of the TARGET SHIP.  That's an old ship that our Armed forces use to practice shooting.

It wasn't very long after we passed the target ship that we came into the harbor at Smith Island.

Sally rented 2 golf carts and we proceeded to drive around the island.  Except the golf cart Sally and I were using had a flat, that's right a "flat tire"  We had only driven about a half block, and of course I told her it was flat.  She didn't believe me.  She stopped, got out and walked around to my side and looked for herself. Yep, it was FLAT! Susie stopped and waited for us to return it and get another.  That only took a few minutes.

Well, there wasn't any reverse shifter either, so we had to make wide turns in order to turn around.  Since I had been a truck driver for so many years I knew there had to be a reverse somewhere on that contraption.  We got down to the end of one road and there wasn't enough room to make a big wide turn.  So that's right, we got out and pushed it backward and turned it around.  She kept looking for a shifter stick.  Well, two times we pushed it backwards and straightened out, and of course we had to push Susie's cart too.  Then, I found it!  Right behind Sally's knee was a switch that looked like a light switch..  I flipped it.  That was reverse.  It started that beep, beep sound.  We showed Susie where the switch was.  We drove all over the island.

We saw historical homes, although I have my beliefs about how many times they have been  rebuilt due to catostrophic events like hurricanes, fire, blizzards, the regular stuff nature puts out.  There was a lot of beautiful pomegranate trees growing there.

We then ate lunch at their famous restaurant, The Bay Side Inn. Sally and Susie had crab cake sandwiches.  They were the largest crab cakes I have ever seen, over one inch thick.  I had my favorite, cream of crab soup, the best I ever ate.  It was without a doubt the very best.

After our lunch we went to the gift shop.  There I bought a cookbook, The Early American Cookbook.  It is full of historical receipts from the kitchens of George Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, Grant, even a receipt from Billy the Kid's mother.


Then it was time to return to the Mainland. So I took another picture of Sally and Susie standing on the dock.

We went back to the boat, got our seats up top and settled in for the rocking and rolling trip back across the Bay.  The waves splashed up to the top of the boat and we got an unexpected shower.  Everyone up top laughed and wiped the water off, because you can expect to get wet like this on boats. 

Sally got scared when she realized I had fallen ASLEEP!  I was so relaxed.  I wrapped my leg around the bottom rail and out I went like a light. She and Susie still held onto the rail. 

When we got back to Point Look Out, we decided to stop at the Civil War Memorial.  It has the names of some of the Confederate Soldiers who had died there.  There was an Attaway from South Carolina, several Carpenters and a Traywick from North Carolina (our cousins are Carpenters and Traywicks).  Sally took pictures of them and sent them to our family in North Carolina.

Sally's husband Jerry didn't go with us this time, seems he gets sea sick just looking at the water.  We did ask him to go, especially since he took us to the Old Time Train last year.