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.
After thoroughly dissecting the National Museum of Civil War Medicine we picked a booklet up in the gift shop that detailed a self tour we could take of local Civil War field hospitals. This we did. Now I did not have a booklet… I was just half-way listening as we walked and I snapped photos so I am going to warn you now this is a historically underwhelming entry. HOWEVER, here’s what I learned: when your city is surrounded by battlefields churches make great emergency hospitals! Seriously, there was a church on almost every corner and almost all of them had some sort of involvement in this. If I remember right (and do not quote me on this) I think there were around 17 of them on this tour. It wasn’t a long walk and was all and all quite pleasant. Below are the photos I took – most of which are probably of significant buildings.
Here’s what I do remember – the thing that looks like stables were once slave quarters and later stables. The iron fencing is where there is a nuclear bomb shelter that the locals like to whisper about. The Cherub that looks like he’s peeing in the bushes is actually looking over a brick labyrinth that was kind of fun to walk. The iron dog was once stolen to melt down for bullets but was somehow stolen back and replaced before this could happen. And of course there’s a snallygaster hidden in these photos too. He’s the local cryptid. Also I am sorry if these photos are a little on the blurry side. My camera was really struggling with full sunlight!
Initially the only thing we had planned for sure when we were talking about visiting Maryland was a visit to the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. Why? I guess because it was just morbid enough to be perfectly suited for the both of us. And it didn’t take a lot to convince our other travel companion to go along with it. History is always interesting to poke at… medical history… well, sometimes it’s just nice to be grateful we live in a time with such things as antibiotics. You know, luxury.
I remember as a kid I was singled out by the town historian to play the part of wounded Civil War soldier for some activity we were doing in grade school… I’m fuzzy on what my badge read but I think it was something like, “leg in need of amputation.” So really this was just an extension of this bizarre role play. Not to mention I’d already been to the Mutter Museum in Philly and loved it so this was going to be fun. I looked forward to seeing all the horrifying sharp and shiny medical instruments.
When we got there we very pleasantly surprised. I was expected a little back country museum with a few feeble displays but this was off what seemed a bustling street and it was several floors and even had a spacious gift shop filled with delightfully morbid things – pens in the shape of femurs, a whole library of books on the gruesome subject at hand, and a wonderful assortment of skeleton lithographs – one of which came home with me.
We learned right away that this wasn’t just the medical history museum it was also where the office of missing civil war soldiers once operated. I hadn’t really thought about this much but I guess a lot of soldiers, especially confederate ones, remained unidentified after their deaths.
I am going to admit right here and now that I know very little about the Civil War. I remember it being shoved down my throat in grade school when I was way too young to truly comprehend any of it and then it never being mentioned again. And if I want to be brutally honest this is probably the beginning of me hating school. I mean I had no interest in any of it. And this is unfortunate because I think if it was taught when I was a little older I would have been as fascinated by the human interest side of it as I am now.
With that all being said I’m sure I will say some dumb things about what I’ve learned so here we go! The museum was very well put together and had all sorts of interactive exhibits, a bunch of life size wax figurines, some dioramas, and of course a whole lotta history. Right from the get-go we were greeted by a big display called Civil War Myths and we got to read through them. One for the most repeated was that Civil War surgeons weren’t butchers or barbers, they were actual surgeons and doctors. I mean they wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny today but at the time they were the top of their field. To become a surgeon one had to attend two semesters of classes which spanned over 6 months and took two years to complete both. Granted there seemed to be little real life “practice” shall we say buuut… it was better than nothing.
Things I learned: the Civil War was the birth of the US’s ambulance system. There were a shocking amount of amputations because the bullets at the time were led and shattered upon impact rather than going straight through like modern artillery. There were women working the battlefields as nurses – some were even people of color. Some soldiers brought their entire families with them – which frequently resulted in their wives being cast in unpaid domestic chores and their children dying of dysentery and other camp plagues. Horses were so important to the war effort that the first ever sanctuary/livestock recovery farm was started to nurse injures horses and mules back to health so they could be sent back to the front lines – in the process of doing this the field of veterinary medicine expanded greatly in knowledge – well past the “Well, it’s injured, guess we have to shoot it now” mentality.
Among all the displays of sharp things there were photos of people before and after they were made prosthetics – an industry that again was founded in this tragedy. Some were profoundly disfigured and aside them there was a photo of a pile of amputated parts – feet, legs, hands. It was… honestly a bit stomach turning. And then we found the arm. An actual human arm. Mummified of course. Whose arm was it? Nobody knows! All we know is that it was plucked off a battlefield where it was lying minding it’s own business and brought home by a doctor before being eventually donated to this museum.
Who brings home an arm?!”
“Well he was a doctor…”
“AND?! Unless his name was Frankenstein that doesn’t make it any less WTF!”
We spent quite a bit of time here. It was even more morbid than I anticipated and it was very educational. Perfect for any history buff or medical student in my opinion. I would highly recommend it if you’re ever in Fredrick.
I am just writing this quick entry to announce that this week I will be doing something a little different with this blog. Since I was invited to attend a wedding in Maryland I decided to take a few days off and poke around Baltimore and Fredric. I had a lot of fun with great people and destinations and took enough photos to make you cry. We ended up everywhere – at museums, battlefields, escape rooms, some fantastic diners, antique shops, record stores, parks, and of course cemeteries. So buckle and stay tuned as I post a flurry of Maryland-based entries!
