A fun day in Calvert County, Maryland

An arts group to which I belong visited two very different but extremely interesting venues yesterday in Calvert County, Maryland and I want to share it here. This is going to be very general as you can find the sites online.

The first was Annmarie Garden Sculpture Park and Arts Center. The arts center is relatively new but the sculpture garden has been around for quite a few years. Anyway, in the arts center were 2 stories of exhibit space, a nice gift shop and a little snack area. There is a fair-sized annual celebration there in September I do believe.

The gates to the park are ceramic a la Gaudi and very nice. Outside were amazing sculptures (some on loan from Hirshorn!) and some really whimsical extras. A favorite was vignettes of famous artists' works painted into tree trunks. We had a great time finding and identifying them-probably to the dismay of our docent who was trying to educate us about the sculptures!

We ate lunch in Solomon's Island at a place called Stoneys. It is on the left just as you enter the main street. Everyone loved the food. I had a blackened rockfish gyro that was excellent. BTW, always get wild rockfish-farm-raised is awful IMHO.

After lunch we visited the Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum. This facility is the State's repository for archelological treasures not associated with specific sites (like St. Mary's City). The tour was fascinating and we were able to see how pieces were examined and preserved. The earliest finds have been dated at 12,000 years ago!

If you are a Maryland history buff, a trip to St. Mary's City would be a good combo with exploration of this area. We hired a bus in Annapolis and it drove south on Md. Rte 2 meeting up with Rte. 4. It took about 1.5 hours. Signs are good. I'll post separately my blog with some Annmarie pix. Oh, both of these sites were made available because the families who owned the lands, donated them to the county or the state-to the benefit of so many people.