You’re Welcome!

We’ve always loved taking bike trips on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. It’s scenic, relatively flat, full of bird life, and packed with interesting culture and history. We’ve been on rides out that way quite a bit–including Blackwater Refuge, Chincoteague, and a fun circuit around Easton–but we are always eager to check out new spots.

This Easter weekend we decided to go somewhere new, to Taylors Island near Cambridge. We’d not heard of Taylors Island before, but it seemed to set up well for a ride. It’s pretty rural, has some public land, and has a fair amount of shoreline. It’s not a huge geography–just four square miles–but there were enough roads for a 15-20 mile circuit. Perhaps best of all, it was a chance to explore. We didn’t know a thing about it except what we’d seen on the map.

We parked in a small gravel lot adjacent to Blackwater Refuge, just a few miles away. As we rolled across Slaughter Creek Bridge and onto the island, the first things we encountered were interpretive historical markers–literally signs of things to come. Taylors Island is a community of only about a hundred people, but there’s a rich history (as we soon learned). We also saw bald eagles, osprey, gulls, mallards, and great blue herons–and we’d only been on the island for five minutes. It was clear that there was more to see here than we were expecting.

One of the first historical markers we passed was for Taylors Island School (built in 1917). We stopped to explored the grounds, and Souzz spotted an unusual bird, a Muscovy Duck. These ducks are relatively rare in Maryland, sometimes domesticated, but still beautiful to see.

While we were stopped, a pickup truck pulled over and rolled down the window to talk to us. We always try to be good visitors, but we wondered if we were doing something wrong (hopefully not trespassing!). Not to worry; our new friends were with the local historical society, the Grace Foundation of Taylors Island. They had seen us looking at the schoolhouse and they wanted to make sure we knew about the other sites on the island. They told us about churches, cemeteries, another schoolhouse, and several historic homes. They were obviously proud of their community, and for very good reason!

That roadside chat made us feel totally welcomed, and it changed our whole mindset. Now we were on a historical tour instead of a bike ride, pretty cool. Old photos tell some of the story of this place, which is steeped in history. As recently as a hundred years ago (in the 1920s), the island was a center for lumbering and fish processing.

We stopped at every church we passed (there were at least five on our route), wandered the cemeteries, admired the houses (from afar), and checked out the schoolhouse (the oldest in Maryland, dating to 1785). There is a lot packed into this little island, including a cannon from 1815, an African Methodist Episcopal Church, and an African American cemetery dating to the 1850s. Most of the churches are open to visitors and they are like little museums, pretty amazing.

It took us almost four hours to ride 16 miles, but we felt like we accomplished plenty. Our last stop was lunch at the local restaurant, Boats and Hose at Chapel Cove. Even the restaurant had some meaningful history; it’s in a 1916 building that was formerly the general store. The food was great and the servers were super-friendly. We told them we’d be back again. We love new places, but we love old places, too.

Content with our new discoveries, we started biking back towards the car…but we were interrupted by a group of local kids yelling to us from a neighboring field. We couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. Were they teasing us about our bright yellow jackets? Were they just saying hi? Something else?

Honestly, so much about a visit to a new place just seems random: how you are feeling, the weather, the wildlife, who you encounter, maybe even what you order at a restaurant. We try to embrace it all—taking the good with the bad.

The kids yelled again, and this time we heard them loud and clear. We called back to them, “Happy Easter to you, too!” which added one last fun memory to our day. As we headed towards the bridge, we looked back over our shoulders–waving, happy, and smiling–secure in the thought that some things really aren’t random at all.