Love in Dark Settings

An update for those of you who don't read my regular Daily Life entries: I've settled that the Calvert Cliffs cove near Cove Point in Calvert County is a suitable home for my protagonist. I've written the Hoopers Island watermen chapter. I've rewritten the Solomons Island chapter. I still have to write the lighthouse chapter and the Calvert Cliffs chapters.

But meanwhile (or rather, before I wrote the Hoopers Island chapter), I went off to Dorchester County again, this time with spiralred.

CHESAPEAKE MARSHLANDS NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE COMPLEX (at Bishops Head Point)

"We came, we saw, we got muddy!" I announced to Doug at the end of the day, showing off to him my new, two-toned sneakers (previously my extra pair of white sneakers), which were now half covered in dried marshland mud.

I was very pleased. I'd been mourning the fact that I couldn't afford black sneakers this year. Now I have grey-and-white sneakers.

Spiralred and I started the day by discussed important topics as we crossed the Bay Bridge. ("Do you Twitter?") Then, once we'd reached Dorchester County, we stopped at the visitor center at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, because Spiralred remembered visiting an educational center south of Blackwater on previous trips. Turned out Chesapeake Marshlands National Wildlife Refuge Complex is way south of Blackwater, at the tip of the peninsula of Dorchester County that lies east of Hoopers Island, over the Honga River (just north of Hooper Strait on the map).

We stopped for lunch at Maple Dam Road, the road that cuts through Blackwater. There's a bridge halfway down the refuge that goes over Blackwater River, and just after the bridge is a parking lot. We sat on the grass next to the parking lot, right next to a couple of little buildings that we hoped did not house dangerous chemicals.

It was just Spiralred, me, and a few butterflies. It was too late in the year for most of the summer animals, too early in the year for the migrating ducks and geese. (The author of Prison City made careful note of that.) We ate Spiralred's idea of picnic food: pasta salad, gourmet pizza, and the sweetest grapes on the face of this planet. Then we headed toward Bishops Head Point.

Spiralred put me in charge of the map. Despite that, we got there.

Or rather, we got to the head of a one-lane path leading into the refuge. "Would you like to walk from here?" asked Spiralred. That was exactly what I wanted to do, but we were delayed momentarily by a local woman who drove into the parking lot and suggested that we move our car to the edge of the lot because "there are going to be a lot of cars here soon."

We glanced at the building we'd chosen to park next to on Sunday, October 11. A church.

In the refuge, it was me, Spiralred, some birds of prey, a few crabs, and butterflies. Lots of butterflies, competing for just a few flowers. Our hike turned out to be one and a half miles to reach the end of the peninsula; the weather was excellent, about seventy degrees with a light breeze and clear skies. At Bishops Head Point itself, there was an excellent view of Lower Hoopers Island, four miles over the water. Then we headed back. Spiralred showed me how to eat blackneedle rush, and we discussed important topics. ("What is that place the characters end up in at the end of Winnie-the-Pooh?")

We returned the church parking lot, which was now overflowing with vehicles. Thanks to the nice local, Spiralred's car was easily extracted.

HOOPERS ISLAND

Spiralred didn't have any other plans for the day, so I bullied persuaded her into visiting Hoopers Island, which she'd never been to. We stopped first at the store at the top of the upper island, to use the restroom. While there, I got up the courage to ask the store clerk - whom I'd now met three times - whether there was a path to Richland Point.

Richland Point is the place at the southwest end of the middle island where I'm planning to place my imaginary boarding school. Richland Point scarcely exists now, thanks to shore erosion, but in the 1910s it was a proper peninsula. It was marked on a 1908 U.S. government map as uninhabited marshland. I had no idea what it was today, but I wanted to find out.

Trouble is, Hoopers Island Road ends before Richland Point. Was there a path down to Richland? I put the question to the store clerk.

The clerk turned out not to live on Hoopers Island. She referred me over to a local man, wearing a baseball cap and down-home clothes, who was standing in line. He, hearing what she said, came over to me.

If I'd had my wits about me, I'd have introduced myself and explained about my interest in the island. I rarely have my wits about me when talking to strangers. I blurted out my question.

He, understandably startled at my abruptness, paused before saying, "Nope. There's just the canal."

"The canal?" I said, hoping he'd explain.

He nodded.

"So there isn't any path to Richland Point?" I pressed.

"Nope," he replied firmly.

That seemed to be the end of the conversation. It reminded me of the conversation that was said to have taken place after President Calvin Coolidge - from taciturn New England - was asked whether a sermon he'd attended was good.

"Yes."

"What was it about?"

"Sin."

"What did the minister say?"

"He was against it."

Out in the car, I told Spiralred, "It doesn't sound as though there's any way to get to Richland Point, but I'd still like to drive down as far as we can get. . . . How brave are you?"

She is fearless, as I had already determined, so she was game to driving along that thin little causeway from the upper island to the middle island. You know the one: it's about the width of a toothpick, the road has no shoulders, on one side is the Honga River, and on the other side is the Chesapeake Bay.

Actually, when we got there, I felt as though I'd played up the dangers too much; it wasn't that bad a drive. Thing is, though, the last time I'd been there, with Doug, it had been a dark, wet, windy day. The causeway looks considerably different when the barely-visible road is slick, waves are splashing up toward the road, and the wind is threatening to push your car into the Bay.

We reached the end of Hoopers Island Road. It just ends, with only a left turn onto a private road. And just before it ends - lo and behold - there's a gravel path going south.

I now wasn't sure what had been going on in that conversation with the local. Did I misunderstand him? Did he misunderstand me? Did he dislike the idea of strangers tramping their blithe way over his island? Or was he just worried that the dumb tourists would end up getting sucked into marshland mud?

With a map firmly clutched in my hand, we started forward. There was just me, Spiralred, and the butterflies. ("You're going to have to put butterflies in your novel," Spiralred said. I told her, "I was just plotting that scene in my head.)

And mosquitoes. They'd been absent all day, but suddenly they appeared, with all the fanatic energy of suicide bombers. I put on my sweater (I'd forgotten my long-sleeved shirt in the car). The mosquitoes simply moved their target range to my neck.

We reached a muddy path leading southwest. The gravel path veered southeast. I doublechecked the map; Richland Point was indeed southwest. Somewhat dubiously, we started down the path.

That's the point at which I go mud on my shoes. So did Spiralred. The "path" was simply flattened marsh grass where some vehicle had driven. Underneath the grass was marsh mud. The mud was making sucking sounds on our shoes. I began to think that the local had been right about those dumb tourists.

"It's awfully muddy here," noted the fearless Spiralred, which allowed me (the quivering coward) to propose that we head back to the dullness of the gravel path.

The gravel path turned out to be more interesting than we'd expected. The thin marshland plant here - darned if I know what the name was for it - grew above our heads. Every now and then we'd hear rustling in the marsh, but trying to see through the plant was like trying to see through a jungle. It felt like we were walking between two living walls.

We reached the end of the path. We reached the pond.

It was a relatively small pond, but it was filled with ducks - mallards, Spiralred declared, with her better eyesight. They were all quacking energetically. Next to the pond was an enormous spread of bare earth. What was it? The beginnings of an industrial project? We walked across it, looking for any sign that the path continued on the other side. Then I noticed that there were plants sticking out of the earth.

"I'll bet this is the pond bottom," I said. "I'll bet that the water spreads this far sometimes."

Spiralred and I immediately began worrying that we were crushing hibernating pond animals. We practically tiptoed our way back.

We headed back up to the upper island, while I tried to determine how far we'd walked. (I still won't know till I check a satellite map.) As we drove northward, I looked to the northwest, and I'll swear that, over the Bay, I could see Cove Point.

We stopped at Old Salty's Restaurant - the motorbikers who had been parked out front before were gone - and we had supper while discussing important topics ("I can't imagine what will happen next in Life Prison") and yet more important topics ("Have you seen Rocky Horror?").

Old Salty's crab cakes, I can testify, are as good off-season as they are in season. The bread pudding is to die for.

Thanks to Spiralred and her willingness to tramp through uncharted marshland, this trip gave me the material I needed to write the Hoopers Island watermen chapter - not to mention a new scene featuring a marshland pond - though I'm still struggling with nature terminology. I'd really like to get someone from Hoopers Island to look over the manuscript - though how the heck I'd find that someone, I don't know. Maybe I can stand in the island store again, holding my manuscript and looking like a pathetic tourist till someone takes pity on me.