Honeymoon

18 years ago today

On this day 18 years ago, my bride and I started our honeymoon trip…which I had planned. Now Linda usually plans the trips…somehow this one…this VERY important one became my responsibility. ( I guess she was busy with other bride stuff…??)

Just as a side note…last night we enjoyed the same band that played at our wedding reception. This time it didn’t cost me $1500 and they were just as good. We discovered last week that Big Joe was playing at a bar/restaurant music joint that’s nearby that we like. This time it only cost me a few margaritas and a pizza.

Back to the honeymoon trip. To set this up you need to know that we had our reception at the new and very nice Hyatt in Cambridge MD…along the Choptank river.

(view from our room)

We had been married in the circa 1680 Church in Church Creek where we have family buried from the 1700’s to late 1800’s.

The whole theme of our wedding/honeymoon was Eastern Shore, Chesapeake Bay. So I created a trip from Cambridge MD to Crisfield MD, then get on the Ferry (no cars…just people) cross the Bay and the state line into Virginia to Tangier Island. Have lunch…get on another Ferry (different company) and cross to Reedville VA. Then we were going to the Tides Inn in Irvington VA, rest, relax, enjoy ourselves…then retrace our steps and return. How hard could that be ?

Following along on Google Maps makes this much more entertaining.

No one…no one I say, offers that as a tour package. I had to create it. I discovered that the main challenge was getting from Reedville to the Tides without your own car. I figured that I couldn’t be the first person who wanted to accomplish this small feat.

(not to be confused with Little Feat, pictured above on Midnight Special).

There had to be a bus…a shuttle…a rental car…but nooooo…not that was not affordable or convenient in any way. None. Zero.

OK what about a limo…people get married…go to prom…die…

The only Limo services were in DC…and very expensive…like Middle Eastern Sheik expensive…

This was starting to feel impossible…but I REALLY wanted to take my lovely wife to the Tides…and go out on their sunset dinner cruise on their classic yacht the Miss Ann

and then relax and enjoy the honeymoon suite for a few days.

Somehow I found an elderly African American gentleman (this was pre google…we still used phone books) who chauffeured a Funeral Limo in or near Reedville. He was available and could do it…but he had some health issues

OK, he was my last, best hope. We made a deal for the 2 way passage to and from the Tides to the Ferry. He was the critical link in everything. I could not check YELP ratings for help.

Rewind to the morning after the wedding and reception. We drive towards Salisbury on Rt 50…then turn southwest on Rt 13. There was a creek with what I thought was a bridge on a rural road we were on. This was when we had paper maps…no GPS. Navigator Linda said it looked like a ferry…not a bridge…I was like…”you’re kidding…the waters only about 100’ wide”

(This is another ferry…but it was VERY similar)

Well it was getting close to 5 PM or whatever their last ferry time was…and we were cutting it close. We just barely made it to the one car ferry…the only place to stay if we missed the last ferry, was a very old hotel…VERY OLD…and not well maintained, think Bates Motel mansion with the old “lady”.…

so we crossed with gratitude…and drove on in the diminishing light to our hotel in Crisfield. There were only 2 hotels in Crisfield at the time and neither one was 2 star. Picture Bates Motel…luckily Norman was not the manager…

it was a lovely family run business…grandpa, his adult children and and his grandkids…No fear about taking a shower…except for the large bugs…camping would have been a step up. After the Hyatt we just laughed a lot…but found it hard to sleep.

We got up before sunrise and walked out to look at the fishing boats for hire. All sizes, shapes and styles. We discovered a little local “pharmacy” that was a hangout for the older retired fishermen…they had the best fountain coke either of us have ever had. Things were looking up.

We parked our car and got our ferry ride to beautiful, remote Tangier Island

that had been visited by John Smith in the early 1600’s. ( I don’t believe Pocahontas was with him yet)

The crab cake lunch was the best ever. The crabs had probably been swimming that morning…

We got on the ferry to Reedville…this is when the serious prayer kicked in…”Please let the old limo driver be there with his stretch Funeral Caddy…please…” as we got closer I borrowed binoculars from a bird watcher and could see a long black car…with a driver…wearing his cap…we waved…I was sooooo relieved…the Honeymoon would be alright.

The last critical piece of this tale was making it to the Miss Ann in time for our sunset dinner cruise…it was a VERY twisty, hilly ride to Irvington on little farm roads…not like the long flat, straight roads on the Eastern Shore. This was not a ride for folks who get car sick. We made it in time…

the place was better than the brochures and the ship and dinner were lovely...it was THE perfect sunset cruise…

and that’s were this tale ends as the full moon rose over the bay.