Old Stuff on the Road
Comment via blog
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Day 11: July 9, 2017 Old Stuff on the Road Comment via blog |
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The Boston Inn
has been my home in Westminster. Not very fancy and not very expensive but
not very shabby. My room from when I first
checked in.
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My GPS has been alerting me to a couple of Roadside America listed
attractions as I've driven around town so I figured I ought to check them
out before I left. The first is a this guy named
Roland A.
Remnant just down the road from the motel.
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The second is a pair of bullet marks from the Civil War. I easily
found the Corbit's Charge sign and even identified the house but the GPS
app didn't have enough information for me to find the bullet marks. So I
accessed the Roadside America website with my phone and got what I needed
to find the marks on the side of the house. There is a barely readable
"STRUCK BY GUNFIRE JUNE 29 1863" stenciled on the wall above two
small craters.
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Old bullet holes are interesting but maybe not as interesting as what's
behind the house next door. I noticed the plaque then walked back to look
at what it described. Two stones stand behind the house with the greenest
bearing the letters 'BC' on one side and
'FC' on the other. I have no guess as to what those
letters mean. There is a
recently updated article in the Historical Marker
Database that reinforces the idea that the stone with the letters is the
survey marker but offers no insight into the meaning of the letters.
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Josh recommended breakfast at Baugher's before leaving town and he sure was right.
It's sort of a farm with a restaurant attached. The counter was empty when
I entered but it was soon completely full and the waitress knew absolutely
everyone except me by name. The bacon & eggs
were great and now I have to come back for some pie and ice cream.
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My route home would be a mixture of interstates (I-68, I-70, & I-71),
US-40, and National Road. The federally financed road went west from
Cumberland but the 1819 Wilson Bridge was on the privately financed road
that connected Baltimore to it. The bridge closed to traffic in 1972 but
fishermen still use it and still get their lines (and the occasional
pair of shoes) tangled in the utility wires that
run by its side.
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I've been curious about the name Mile Marker Lane in the past but not
enough to turn onto it. I was today. I've found nothing online about the
road other than a couple of references about bicyclists using it access to
the Western Maryland Rail Trail and I did see a few of them through the
trees. I did not, however, see any mile markers. I took a brief look at
small cemetery beside the road and it appears to have been there since at
least 1817 which is when one of its residents
died.
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I made a very brief stop in Cumberland where the National Road began.
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Several years ago I was contacted by a Wall Street Journal reporter about
some pictures of this "ark" near Frostburg. He was working on an
article on modern ark projects and he wanted to use the pictures in an
online version of the article. I gave him permission to use the pictures
as well as some of an ark themed restaurant near Saint Louis, Missouri. He
contacted me again the day the article was published and was a little
concerned. He had asked specifically for online use and was surprised when
the editor also included the pictures in the print version. He was worried
that I might be upset. I assured him I was not. Getting my pictures in the
Wall Street Journal might be the closest thing to a miracle to be
associated with this ark which looks about the same today as it did back
in 2006.
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I have done drive-bys, both with and without shooting, of Madonna of the
Trail monuments but I do like to stop and say hello when I can. This is
the Madonna at Beallsville, Pennsylvania.
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The Century Inn
in Scenery Hill, Pennsylvania, was struck by fire in August of 2015 and
this is the first I've been by since then. Clearly a lot of work is
underway but Fall 2017 is getting close. Whenever it happens, it's good to
know that this treasure is coming back.
When I left Westminster this morning I was thinking of another night on the road but it was just about here that I decided against it. After another dozen or so miles on US-40, I slipped onto I-70 at Washington and cruised on expressways the rest of the way home. |
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