Ever just wander in some place with heavy college vibes and look around nodding, “This makes no sense but I love it.” That was what Pretzel and Pizza Creations was. It was a tiny booth eatery that served not just pretzels and pizza but also ice cream and one “adult shake” because why not?? This place was the chaotic fever dream of tired tourists, stoned college kids, and the otherwise hungry.
I was talked into trying the ice cream… And it was great. Tasted like Nutella. Shame I was already full to the gills… Still, we sat for a while and enjoyed the place all the same. It’d been a long and happy trip. No one really wanted to leave.
It’s hard to pass up tacos. They’re delicious and cheap and make for a great food to enjoy at the end of a vacation. So that’s what we did. We went to Taco Daddys which the locals all seemed to speak favorably about. It seemed like a popular place. We sat down at the booth and were served tacos in swift order. Except me. I ordered quesadillas. And they were the best quesadillas I’ve ever had! Crazy tasty!
Yup. Should we ever go back to Frederick Taco Daddys will likely be on the list of preferred eateries.
What’s a vacation without a stroll through a local cemetery? Boring, that’s what. Long before we packed the car we had our hearts set on checking out this cemetery. My travel companion was interested in it’s history (it is the mass burial grounds for a great deal of Civil War soldiers who died in the area during four separate battles – over 400 of which remain unidentified.) For me it was less about history and more about seeing what cemeteries look like in a different part of the country and this one looked big and old with some stones going back to the 1700’s.
We’d been flirting with this cemetery for days. Our first glimpse of it was at night when the gates were closed. We decided to walk around the fenceline aside the road and see how big it was to determine how long we’d need to explore it the next day. It went on and on and on and on…. and strange things kept happening. My camera refused to snap any photos, my travel companion was complaining of the smell of pipe smoke… It was time to hang this one up for the night.
The next day we once again didn’t make it there before dark. However there was still an hour or two before it closed so we drove in to check it out all the same. We noticed that there was a large monument at the beginning of it memorializing Francis Scott Key, the writer of our national anthem who was buried under the aforementioned monument. We would find his parents in the cemetery later on – protected by a little iron fence.
Also buried here were Barbara Hauer Fritchie who became famous when at the age of 95 she refused to surrender to the Confederate troops marching through her property. I guess at ninety-five you have very little to lose but it’s still a great story about a fiery old woman. And somewhere nearby there is the grave of the US’s first unofficial president and his wife who served before George Washington. I’m sorry I have already forgotten their names. Luckily I took photos that read John and Jane Hanson. So there, I don’t have to remember. Also of note was the first fireman to die in the line of duty, a bunch of soldiers from every war, and a memorial to the children who fought and died in the Civil War. Yes, children. And of course there are congressmen galore sprinkled throughout like confetti. And for the more gruesome there is a whole section for infants nicknamed “babyland” and a mass burial of Civil War soldiers who died in battle. This was more than enough to make me wonder if anyone was still lingering here after their demise. If so I didn’t feel any of them on this particular night.
On our last day in Frederick we took a huge chunk of time to go see the cemetery during daylight hours. It’s so big that it’s split up into sections – each named after a letter in the alphabet. I was drawn to the more ornate monuments, many of which had imagery on them I was completely unfamiliar with, others which I had seen before (like the cross and crown) but not often back home.
This cemetery was completely engrossing. Every time I thought we were done someone would find something else interesting. And we never did find the children of the Civil War monument but we did visit Confederate row where I learned that many of the confederates were poor whites… essentially fighting against their own interests (you can’t tell me an economy that favors slaves would have any higher opinion of exploiting those only one tier higher than them in class.) A lot of them were fighting for weird subtext kind of things like pride for their community or because that’s who their brother was fighting for or because of a convoluted misinterpretation of “states rights” – which I hear even today and it’s completely asinine. Freedom of the States does not mean freedom of the individual to do whatever the fuck they please – even the first pilgrims toppling off the Mayflower had a system of laws they had to abide by. Plus freedom of the individual should never extend to freedom of that individual to take the freedom of another individual. That’s just not workable in any way shape or form.
I got depressed thinking about all this. Because those Confederate soldiers who were so callously misled by the powers that be… they’re still very much alive in the bodies of their grand children. And still fighting against their own economic interests. And the idea that we never learn from history became very tiring to me.
My travel companion was struggling with all this too because at some point someone had torn down and defaced the Confederate memorial… which was placed by the Union to honor those they fought. I can understand the distress of this but I also understand there are A TON of Confederate statues erected in the 1960’s in direct response to the Civil Rights movement to basically scare people of color into accepting the status quo. And those statues… should absolutely be torn down. But this is America. We’re not good at nuance so maybe it’s for the better this statue has been lost. And maybe in the future, when we can all agree racism and all it’s various institutions are bad, can we look respectfully back at our own turbulent past.
This cemetery gave me a lot of food for thought. I learned things I didn’t expect and came home a humbler person for it.
When I went down to Maryland I was hoping to get one last taste of warm Autumn air but the three days we were there was exactly during a cold wave so the weather was no different than the chilly North we had come from. BOO. Perhaps some tea would warm our frosty little mitts.
I think we ended up here just because it looked inviting. And it was! There were all sorts of teas and spices lining the walls with various related products smattered about. There was even a smelling station to check out the different flavors they had. We spent quite a while just taking a good whiff of each before deciding on which we wanted to try. Towards the back of the shop was an actual tea station where you could order either cold or hot tea in any of the flavors they had in the smelling station. I know I was cold but I’m also filled with too much pride to order a hot beverage before snowfall so I ended up with an iced Berry White. It was delicious! And embarrassingly punderful. My travel companions went for more normal options. I think a dragon was involved. They also bought little packets of tea to bring home… I did not. I’ve fallen down that rabbit hole before back when I had a nice house, a relaxed atmosphere, and neighbors to invite in to casually sip it with me as we looked over the farm. My life feels too chaotic for that now. I’m so on the go all the time that I don’t think I’d have time for that sort of soulful lazing about. Maybe someday if I am ever lucky enough to be able to afford a home of my own I can return to this. For now I was just enjoying my one mugful. And it was gooooood.
On our first evening walking down Market Street I looked up and noticed a two-headed calf in one of the windows. The business that it was drawing attention to was closed but I had to know more. What kind of place would used a two-headed cow to draw in customers?? As it turns out it was a tattoo parlor and curiosity shop. We vowed to come back in daylight which we did.
We all walked in to poke at the curiosities and although this was a small shop it had some weird things… mostly well done taxidermy dressed up in Victorian clothing. Odd but lovable. There was also a few steam punky things, some jewelry, and a reproduction of a two headed baby skeleton. It had a very freak show kind of feel to the place but in a good way. Like celebrating the weird and eccentric.
Sadly they didn’t have any flash on the wall that I could see so I have no idea what kind of tattoos this shop specialized in, if any. None of us got a tattoo soooo this will remain a mystery but it was definitely worth a little looksee either way.
We came across the Record Exchange as we were walking down Market Street and decided to give it a go. It was larger than I thought it would be and oddly enough full of people! I say oddly because usually record stores are pretty unpopulated in the middle of the day. I mean you got to admit it’s a niche market but apparently one that was thriving in Frederick! This place was a’ hoppin’!
All three of us separated into our own individual corners to look at things – the heavy metal section, the used CD’s and DVD’s, and my choice of just wandering at random. My interests are too diverse to fit into any specific genre. I had apparently caught the attention of the cashier who I was aware was watching me. Maybe it was the bright orange hair, I don’t know. But I flipped through the “bargain” bin and found myself a John Sebastian record for $2. The last song on it was I Had a Dream which I never thought I’d find on a record. It’s one of my favs. So I was very happy. I wandered back over to my travel companion who was finding weird DVD’s and then conscious of the cashier still watching me I decided to thumb through the bin reading Hardcore Punk just to make him wonder. Also I’m rather fond of the adorable depictions of disease infested rats that tend to adorn the covers of these records. What can I say, once a rat lover, always a rat lover.
Everyone came back with something to buy. So we made our way to the counter.
“What’d you find?”
“A copy of that old slasher flick about the Texas Arcane murders!”
“Cool. That should be fun. As long as it just looks like exploding watermelons. The cheesier the slasher flick the funnier they are!”
The cashier made a funny expression, probably trying not to let on he was listening to this exchange. I handed my John Sebastian record to him – which is calm 60’s folk. He seemed confused. I left this place endeared and entertained.
And now for one of those new things that has been wrapped into my life because of others. Since we were in a totally different part of the country the idea came up to check out an escape room. This one we just found walking by! As we entered we were warmly welcomed and told there was two openings – one for a saloon game and one for a T-rex game. With a three person team I was given the deciding vote. I went for the dinosaurs. I mean… I’d seen all sorts of escape games in old timey settings but dinosaurs?? I know I’m well into my thirties but come on… dinosaurs are awesome.
ANYWAY. Our game masters seemed happy with our choice and told us if we succeeded that we’d be in for a big surprise at the end. Sounds good to me! The basic gist of the game was that we had to find the T-rexes missing eggs and return them to the nest by going through a series of puzzles. This we did – in the dark because that’s where we started and we never figured out the puzzle that turned the damn lights on. So we’re special. We know that.
This was doubly amusing when at one point I decided to solve one of the puzzles by myself while the others were busy. I knew when I started it that it was meant for two people to be doing at once but fuck that. I was going for the introvert award. Hilariously it did take me a good ten or fifteen minutes but I totally was able to finagle it all by my lonesome. Look! I’m useful! This is new.
We all solved the puzzle and there was indeed a big surprise at the end that scared the bejesus out of all of us, even me, and that’s saying something! Anyway, here’s our winning photo and me as usual looking very… drunk… because I have to blink at exactly the wrong moment every goddamn time. SIIIGH.
I don’t know how long we’d been walking but my feet were to the point they were on fire and my stomach? Rumbly. In fact I think everyone was getting a little punchy when we decided to settle down and find something to eat. We did this by walking by Tsunami and saying, “Hey! How about some noodles?”
Now I admit this whole noodle thing is a new concept for me… but I thoroughly enjoyed it! And so did everyone else. I even got the joy of being tonight’s entertainment because I still don’t understand how chop sticks work. Luckily these were just noodles and stabbing them at random seemed to work fairly OK. All I needed was the dexterity of a drunk toddler. At one point I was so stoked I managed to pick up an egg yolk with my handy little sticks that I made a joyful little noise about my achievement only to have everyone look up just as it disintegrated before my eyes and flopped back into the bowl. So close. I ate the leaf of seaweed as punishment. I used to feed that to my fish and always wondered… I wonder no more.
I ended up with the vegetable noodles because I friggin’ love the mushroom stock at noodle places… and the weird unidentifiable vegetables. It’s added fun, I swear. Loved every minute of it and so did my poor feet! Everyone else seemed to be having a good time too which is great because these photos weren’t taken by me. Clearly someone else in our group was into teasing everyone on social media with images of comfort food. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. Tsunamis was a hit and I think it’s a great place if you want a giant endless bowl of noodles.
One thing I had not planned on was coming across a number of vinyl record shops on our little walk through the city of Fredrick. But I mean how could we possibly resist? This first one wasn’t just a record shop it had an adorable name the Rock and Roll Graveyard. We had passed it on our first night in Fredrick and seeing it was closed we made a mental note to come back the next day. We were not disappointed!
Essentially we thought it was just another one of those cute off-the-street basement vinyl shops but this place actually had two floors and a wide range of music genres to pick through. Everything from folk to punk. And I even found a copy of Alice’s Restaurant for five bucks which I had to buy considering I have been torturing my travel companions with this song extra hard since it’s November and so close to Thanksgiving. I think we all won with this one. And it came with this cool new sticker…
One of my travel companions also made out with a few items selected from the heavy metal bins.
Another thing on our list of to-do’s was to visit an antique store. It’s something we had become accustomed to doing in Rhode Island (where the products are usually quite pricey) and Maine (where every rusty nail is a treasure.) We even discussed potentially finding an antique store with something Civil War related – maybe an old musket ball or something – to see if we could take home something to curse ourselves with. And of course I was on my usual mission of finding the world’s creepiest doll. It’s not a common hobby but it’s my hobby and I like it.
The Antiques Emporium was a great place to stop for all of this. It was huge. Two floors of absolute chaos. Everything from fine furniture to a copy of Marilyn Monroe’s drivers license. And of course there were steam punky things, sharp things, things with faces that shouldn’t have faces, creepy dolls galore, and a painting of an androgynous child I would have totally brought home with me if I had $250.
And some of this stuff was apparently haunted – I can tell because one of my travel companions had to bolt out of the store at one point. No worries, we’re all good now. It was just a case of the heebie jeebies.
