Maryland State House: Stairwell to Nowhere

And now here is the part where I would love to tell you about the wonderful time that my sister and I had in Annapolis, viewing not just one or two, but THREE marvelous lighthouses, shopping till we dropped in quaint stores along the City Dock, and eating all the seafood we could possibly stand.

However, alas, dear friends, I cannot tell you that tale, for it would be a bold-faced lie. In truth, it poured down rain in Annapolis, our group was forbidden to go out on the Chesapeake Bay because of the storms and flooding, and our bus departed Annapolis quite early, with no time at all for shopping in a single one of those cute shops or eating any seafood at all!

Here is a thing I have learned. There are times in life when the adventure you get is not at all the one you ordered. To be happy, one must frequently make the best of the adventure one actually gets, even when it may not be the one you were hoping for. And so it was on this day.

The sky was pouring down rain when our bus arrived in Annapolis Monday morning. A host type person boarded our bus and delivered the sad news: due to the storms and flooding, there would be no boat cruise on the Chesapeake Bay, no lighthouses.

But they could take our group out on a little cruise up the scenic Severn River, which we did. And we would have our boxed lunches, which were quite nice indeed. And then they would take us on a tour of the Maryland State House.

Alas, I do not have any photos of lighthouses to show you, on this, National Lighthouse Day. Which breaks my heart (for I am a lover of lighthouses), but maybe only just a little. For the lighthouses will surely still be there for visiting on some other, sunnier day.

So these two photos are from our visit to the Maryland State House, which was quite interesting indeed. The stairwell above is called the Stairwell to Nowhere. These stairs in earlier days went to the jury room (now the governor's office), but it does not do that any longer; it goes, in fact, nowhere. I liked the way it looked, especially in black and white. And I also enjoyed those two rather dark and ghostly cut-out figures on the stairs.

During our last vacation adventure, my sister and I visited the Pennsylvania Capitol building in Harrisburg, PA, and admired its many fancy rooms (see the extra photos in my June 29th blip) and stained glass windows. The Maryland State House, though much smaller, also boasted some very nice rooms; in the extras you may find a photo of the  quite fetching House of Delegates chamber.

When we finished touring the Maryland State House, our group got back on the bus, all soggy and squishing from the rain. The tour host announced that he had received orders from the main office to bring us all straight home. And so we did that, cutting our day short, with just a quick stop at the Westfield Mall for dinner. (Which involved pizza and soup and salad, but not seafood.)

The host told us that within a week and a half, each of us would receive some sort of partial reimbursement via mail, as the trip had not turned out to be what we all had hoped for. I am quite curious; I wonder what should be adequate recompense for all of what did not happen. (Sort of like a stairwell, going nowhere!)

In the email my sister sent our family that evening, she summed the day up concisely: "It should be noted that due to the inclement weather, pouring rain, and flooding streets, no lighthouses were viewed, no shopping was done, no seafood was eaten."

However, my sister and I made merry as much as we possibly could, given the circumstances, for we are the hardy sort, not known to wilt in rain or any other sort of weather that is thrown our way. We try to be those "glass half full" kinds of gals. However, we did reflect fondly on our earlier totally awesome and completely flawless trip to the beach in Atlantic City. Gee, maybe next summer, we'll go there . . . TWICE!

The soundtrack for this day in which our much-looked-forward-to plans were pretty much a washout . . . I've actually picked TWO songs, as a single song cannot come close to summing up what happened to us (or perhaps, more accurately, DIDN'T happen) on this day. So here they are:

Creedence Clearwater Revival, Who'll Stop the Rain
Beach Boys, Sloop John B