REVIEW: Vacation Spot. Cambridge, Maryland

My wife and I have never really been vacation people. Not really. I mean, we’ve taken a few vacations over the years. Well — one. We’ve taken one real vacation in twenty-three years. That’s one. We did that, airplane ride, baggage check, reservations through a travel agency, kind of trips when we went to Key West for a week. One time.

And then when the kids came, we started talking road trips — too many to count actually. We went to museums, water parks, zoos, carnivals, cabins, cities, to visit family, beaches, battlefields. In fact, if it’s within eight or ten hours of us, we’ve been there. And we drove.

So although we may not be vacation people. We are definitely road trip people. Which I think is just as good.

And now that the kids are older, Debbie and I try to get away a few times a year, just the two of us. Someplace close — just a quick trip for a few days. And this past weekend — our anniversary — we went to Cambridge, Maryland.

Now Cambridge, Maryland, is this quaint little, brick paved street, kind of town that sits between the mighty Choptank River — which is the greatest name for a river, ever — and the Chesapeake Bay. It has restaurants, shops, fishing, music, dinner cruises, golf and just about everything you would ever want in the entire quaint little town package.

But — and this is where it sounds like a bad movie trailer — there is something a little off about the place.

If you go to Cambridge, the trip will start like this. You’ll drop your things in your room and head downtown — to go to one of the great restaurants, shops or museums that you’ve heard about. And when you get there —.

You’ll walk into a place that calls itself a wine bar. And you’ll see three bottles of wine sitting towards the back someplace.

Then you’ll walk through another door that raves about homemade lunches and the lady will have to go and see if they still have a menu.

Then you’ll decide to try that gastro pub that has such good reviews and you’ll find a dozen college kids drinking around some brewery vats.

Nothing is how it seems — or how it’s portrayed.

Now we are all accustomed to businesses, products and shops that exaggerate on what they have to offer — even the old bait and-switch — but here, it seems like the entire town is in on the deal. Every place is smaller, dingier, or in many cases just completely different, then you expect it to be. And the vibe is very odd too.

In Cambridge, you will see Porsches — and not just any Porsches, models you don’t even recognize — parked next to old Buicks that know people are living in. You’ll see well-dressed tourists and right behind them you’ll see a group of people that spend entirely too much time looking in your car. And there is this extremely strong Stepford Wives kind of feel to the place. As if as soon as you drive out of site, someone will give the signal and they’ll fold it all up and set up shop somewhere else — so when the authorities get there they’ll be harder to find.

Now if you leave the small downtown area and go the big Hyatt resort a few miles away, everything is clean and pretty and homogenized. Manicured lawns, a luxury golf course and beautiful people — we saw former Eagles player Vince Papale in the hallway. There is nothing strange — or actually interesting — about the place because it’s like all overpriced resorts. Scrubbed of any genuine feel and made safe and clean.

Now with that said, if you do ever make it to Cambridge, Maryland, one thing that is absolutely a must is to take an hour’s drive from there to a place called Elliot Island. This is a tiny little patch of land — there are only a few homes, a fire station and a church there — but to get to it you’ll need to pass  through hundreds of acres of protected wet lands, and that’s the best part. You will drive for twenty minutes without ever seeing another car — and what few you do see, will wave to you as you pass. We saw bald eagles and huge turtles that sunned themselves on logs and acres and acres of wide open land — which is pretty rare in that part of the world.

And then, you cross over the tiny bridge to the island. And you see all the little houses that sit next to boats and crab pots. And the GPS shows that large blue area ahead of you that keeps crawling closer.

Until you roll to a stop.

At the end of the road.