Maryland’s Eastern Shore

Not long ago, I found two older guys eating sandwiches and drinking sodas at the bar in Taylors Island General Store on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. They had settled in for what sounded like a daily ritual of watching a quiz show on television and arguing over the answers. When I asked for directions to a local spot, they argued over that too. How is that possible, I wondered? Only a handful of roads gently vein this small island landscape. But, perhaps this slower-paced life gives the people who live here more time to argue over life’s little details. It’s part of the local charm.

In midsummer, giant sprinklers hunker down over fields of spindly, dry wheat, seven-foot-high corn, and ruffled green soy. Puffy clouds rim the horizon. Sometimes, a soft rain taps the ground. Or, an early morning fog dips into shallow roadside ditches or seems to rest on the pavement. Clothes flap in a light breeze behind low-slung houses and trailers. Oak trees, weeping willows, and evergreens flank the road. Lazy Susans shoot up in bunches. People pedal one-speed bikes. And, fruit and vegetable stands with homemade signs appear on side roads at uneven intervals. You’re on your honor to put your money in a worn slot in a wooden or metal box, in exchange for tomatoes, cantaloupes, and berries.

My favorite memories: Watching a gaggle of geese chase after green apples in the shade of an apple tree, fingering soft white marsh lilies that bloom in the dark grasses of a saltmarsh, and feeling the tickle of a firefly in the palm of my hand. I’ll also never forget a conversation I had with a local once about why he had spent his whole life on the Eastern Shore. “I like it,” he answered. “It goes slow.”

—Erin Monroney

Erin Monroney is a Traveler senior editorial researcher.