Trip to Maryland: Part 5…Exploring with Anj in the Country

My sister will tell you she lives out in the country, in the sticks.  Don’t believe a word she says.  There are still tons of people around and it felt like every 10 minutes or so you would run into another small town.  It is too cute!

This is the adventure to get to and from Happy’s Preschool.

This is on Main Street Keedysville.  So many of the houses will have a lit candle in EVERY window at night.  I’m sure they are now battery-operated, but it is soo cool.  I just wonder where the tradition started from.  Anyone know?

Next up is one of the many farms you pass by.

I LOVE how old some of these homes are… 1803!

And here is the Rockland.

Another house, this one does have candles in every window too.

Maryland-style log cabin.  U-G-L-Y…you ain’t got no alibi….you ugly…yeah,yeah…you ugly.   Yuck. 

The house my sister wants us to buy.  It’s gorgeous and comes with tons of farmland.

And the reason we won’t be buying it.

I will NOT live that close to a main free-way.  It was so surprising to see homes literally butted-up against the road.  No thank you.

But it sure is cute!  I love the matching swing on the porch.

Haha.  There’s a good story to this one.

Doesn’t look like much does it?  It’s this little western-style town that we have not much more information on it.  I was busy jumping out of the car and running to take pictures and Anj’s job was to drive as close as possible to the site.  On this occasion she barely pulled off the road.  I had to run the whole way up to this area and I was so scared I would get in trouble!  Literally RIGHT after I took this picture some men came into view and I ran as fast as I could back to the van.  Laughing the whole way of course.

Our favorite farm.

A wider angle of it.

There are these old one-lane bridges that you have to cross over.  Soo pretty.

This one was built in 1850 for just over 1 thousand dollars.

A mill that’s now used as a house.

Many of the old homes had signs like this.  Pretty much any building was used as a hospital.

The remnants of the working part of the mill.  So crazy that they put these stones in by hand.  I can’t imagine how much time and effort that would have taken.

Daffodils in bloom!  As an Arizona girl I have never understood bulb flowers, but to see them bloom in the midst of the dreary winter that never seemed to end was quite the sight.

And I love the stone wall behind the flowers.  These were all over and were again placed by hand without any mortar.  Soliders may have crossed over these during the Civil War.

Here’s the remnants of an old bridge.

See where it connects on the other side?

Yeah, clear up there.  This was a Civil War bridge and certainly would have been cool to see.  It spanned quite a distance and went extremely high up.

So many cute churches.  Each small town had several at least.

I love this stone-work!

Keedysville Main Street.  I love seeing the flag and the steeple of the church.

Cute houses.

I love the old red brick poking through.

Sometimes at the top of the brick fences would be these rocks poking straight up.  Ouch!

Just lounging.

These homes had the craziest switch-back driveways. 

It is soo rocky and hilly there.  Most of the farms raise animals instead of growing plants for sell.  At least most of what I saw.