Calvert Cliffs with William

Wednesday, August 5, 2020

Hi Blog!

You will be happy to know we survived Hurricane/Tropical Storm Isaias. As we took our coffee walk this morning, we noticed lots of rain ruts in the road and a few downed branches, but no major damage. The storm system cleared out a lot of the heat and humidity. As the day dawned bright and clear, we made arrangements to meet Matt and William at Calvert Cliffs State Park. They had seen the bog from our last visit and wanted to check it our for themselves. Weina had already started work this week, so the boys were on their own. 

Here we are at the trailhead:

You may have noticed William is wearing a sling. The week before they left Myanmar, Sir William fell from a swing an broke his wrist. They called it a greenstick fracture and felt that at his age, it should heal in about three weeks. He goes to the doctor on Tuesday to have another x-ray. With any luck, the next time we see him will be sans cast.

William liked the fact that these plants are called cattails! We don't want to bore you with a lot of facts, but many parts of the cattail are edible. The tender shoots can be eaten raw. The rhyzomes are very nutritious and full of protein. Cattails are popular among the Cossacks of Russia and are therefore sometimes called "Cossack asparagus."

The Red Trail to the beach at the cliffs is about 1.8 miles. We took lots of opportunities to check out the creek flowing into the bog. Here's a little father-son bonding time.

William likes to refer to us by our Chinese names (YeYe - father's father) and NaiNai (father's mother). Here NaiNai and William look for turtles sunning themselves on fallen logs.

A hike with YeYe would not be complete if he didn't document a few of the fabulous fun guys we bumped into!

As you can imagine, a certain irresistible force drew William to try and go out to the end of the boardwalk. However, Dad convinced him it wasn't such a good idea.

How cool is a beaver dam? Pretty darn cool if you have never seen one before. Why do they build dams? If the water in the bog is not deep enough to keep the beavers safe from predators and their lodge entrances ice-free in winter, beavers build dams. Beavers start construction by diverting the stream to lessen the water's flow pressure. Branches and logs are then driven into the mud of the stream bed to form a base. Sticks and mud are then added to heighten the dam. Unfortunately for William, beavers do their best work at night. While it looks like a lot of water is flowing over the dam, the largest part of the dam is still intact. Once most of the hurricane water has receded, the beaver will get back to work.

Seeing is believing. Check out this tree stump that still shows all the gnaw marks the beaver left.

One of the fun activities at Calvert Cliffs is combing the beach looking for shark's teeth and fossils. Unfortunately, many of the small local beaches on the west shore of the Chesapeake Bay are closed to outsiders. You must be a resident of one of the shore towns in order to be able to walk the beach. So, everyone on this side of the western Eastern Shore comes to Calvert Cliffs. We kept our masks on and tried to keep a social distance. It's tough for the little kids, but William was a trooper.  

(That's William in the green baseball cap in the center foreground, observing the engineering design and building technique other kids had been using to construct the dam on the little stream.)

While sifting sand for shark's teeth was fun, diverting a steam and building a dam was more fun!

It's tough being at the beach with a cast, but William did his best to help with the dam construction. Of course, he had no idea what we were talking about when we called him a one armed paper hanger.

We took the less traveled Orange Trail back to the parking lot. It was a little longer, but it meant that William could take his mask off and enjoy the outdoors. Here, he shows off his prized acorn complete with crown!

After the hike, Matt and William stopped by our campground to check out the "new" RV. While it's not exactly new (since we've had it for over three years), it is new to them, since they have been in Myanmar that long.

As with most adventures, all good things much come to an end. However, we look forward to more adventures with William in the coming weeks.