Going Back in Time

Last weekend I made my annual Memorial Day trek over the traffic-filled Bay Bridge en route to a long weekend at the beach. Even hitting the road at noon on Friday was not early enough to beat any sort of traffic, so the drive was long and slow. 

Though unlike prior years, the beach wasn't my first destination. This year I was stopping off to spend Friday night with Bug, Little Man and their parents. We had a relaxing Friday evening around their house and early bedtimes where yet again my sleep quality was 100%. My original plan had been to hit the road to the beach first thing in the morning but that got derailed when my friends invited me to go with them to the nearby Chestertown Tea Party Festival.  

No, it was not a festival celebrating the modern tea party, I would have skipped that for sure, but a weekend long festival & reenactment of when citizens in Chestertown had their very own tea dumping party back in 1774, about six months after the more well known one occurred in Boston. 

We arrived in Chestertown around 9:30, just in time to find parking and get to the parade route. We were surprised to see so much activity going on already - including the funnel cake and wine tasting booths with steady streams of early morning customers. Neither items really my breakfast of choice but hey, to each his own. 

We settled into spots along the side of the road to wait for the parade, and oh what a parade it was!

Chestertown rocks the Colonial parade. 

After the parade we wandered the festival, which was filled with people walking around in period costume like the "Kissing Wench" who left bright red smooch marks on the cheeks of random passersby and "Toss the Tory", when a "British loyalist" was captured and tossed into the Chester River. There were also more modern festival activities, like face painting, shopping and yummy food. 

As we sat in the town square enjoying a yummy seafood lunch my friends commented that they were really glad they live on the Eastern Shore now. And with fun-filled days like last Saturday I can certainly understand why.