Sue and I flew Southwest out of Manchester Wednesday 10/17/18 for a trip to Maryland to visit my brother, Alan.

Sue at Rocky Point Beach and Park.

Our flight out was pretty bumpy, particularly landing in Baltimore because of the 150 mph headwinds that we had to fight all the way. But it was so good to see Alan and Abbie who picked us up. And the beltway wasn't too bad driving up to where they live in Parkville, MD at the Oak Crest community, a lovely, senior living complex set on a beautiful 87 acre campus.

My nephew Scott joined us just after 5:00 pm just as we were well into our serious sampling of 2 different quality levels of a Porteguese red wine Alan had bought for us to try. We had a nice dinner at one of the restaurants in the complex, The Oak Room, returned to their apartment, and chatted for a little while.

Alan let us use his car, and so we headed out around 9:30 pm for our hotel on, of all places, Yellow Brick Road, in Rosedale, about 12 minutes from Oak Crest. We had stayed here before and liked it, and so an easy check in. But we were beat, and turned in shortly after 10:00 pm.

Since we weren't due back over to Alan's Thursday morning until noon, Sue wanted to drive out to see an area called Rocky Point Beach and Park where there was a park and boat launch area. That was a lot of fun; I know if Beau had been with us that he'd have been all over that place! We drove to the end of the access road, parked in a large lot, and walked down a path to the water overlooking several bays. It was just beautiful.

Leaving there, we walked around to another area where there was a boat launch and docks. The temps were in the high 50s and the sun was warm; a perfect day, though none of their leaves had begun to change as yet.

Alan had wanted to take us to his favorite place for coffee in Baltimore, Artifact Coffee. It was so good that I wrote the following Yelp! review on it:

My wife and I are from New Hampshire and were visiting my brother who lives in Parkville. He said Artifact Coffee was his absolute go to place for great coffee, great food, and a spectacular atmosphere. Sue and I both agreed to all of those statements, and if we lived in the area would make this a constant stop. Just a wonderful place with super wait staff. The coffee was so complementary to the great sandwich that I had, I have to give this place 5 stars! Check it out!

By the time we got back to the apartment, it was, as my brother so eloquently put it: time to raise the flag! And that was fine because we still had some of that marvelous wine left from Friday night to finish up. We walked over to another restaurant in the complex, The Fireside. We had a terrific meal, went back to the apartment, and closed out the night watching the wonderful 2018 movie, Our Souls At Night staring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. What a great movie that was. Unfortunately, Alan couldn't get the living room tv to pick up the streaming service, and so we all went into their bedroom, and flopped onto the bed. I got such a great picture of that! Priceless....

We had a big breakfast at the hotel before meeting up with Alan and Abbie at the apartment around 11:15 am Friday morning. We had a lovely visit until we packed everything into Abbie's car, and they drove us down to BWI for our 2:45 pm flight back to Manchester.

It was windy and chilly when we walked out of the terminal building to catch the shuttle to the hotel where we had parked. After getting the car, we drove to The 99 Restaurant on South Willow Street, and had a really nice dinner. We're never disappointed at The 99. We took Route 28 all the way home, and pulled in around 7:00 pm. We quickly unpacked, and got a fire going in the wood stove to take the chill out of the air.

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