Monday, June 10: Riding and Raining in Oxford

Date:                           June 10, 2013

Day on the Cruise:      56

From:                          Oxford, MD                                                            

To:                              Oxford, MD

Statute Miles:              0.0

Time:                           0.0 Hrs

Cumulative Miles:       1,410.4 SM

On Board:                  Susan, Chuck, Maggie, Trooper, Peanut

Welcome to Oxford, MD

Oxford is a beautiful town! We spent several hours riding bikes around town. We visited some boat yards and rode through the old neighborhoods. It is a small town and fairly compact centered around a creek that comes into town on which many boatyards are located. We saw the Episcopal Church and several other beautiful old buildings. Most buildings and houses are circa late 1800's. The yards, while small, are very well landscaped, and everything is lush and green.

Street Scene, Oxford

Narrow house, Oxford

Beautiful landscaped yard, Oxford

Landscaping along a picket fence, Oxford

Street Scene, Oxford

Street Scene, Oxford

Nice older home, circa 1885

Street Scene, Oxford

Head of the creek in town

Oxford is very much a watermen's town

Boat yard on the creek

Honeysuckle in full bloom

Looking across the creek at the marina where we are docked

Boatyard across the creek

Schooner's Restaurant where we ate dinner on Saturday

Episcopal Church

Episcopal Church. Back of church faces the street which is a little odd.

Oxford Inn and Pope Tavern

Old English automobile in front of Oxford Inn

We were amazed at the lack of activity in town today. This might be very much a weekend town. There was very little traffic in town and few people.

We stopped by the Oxford Market that is housed in a charming old country store type of structure right downtown. We picked up wine and a few groceries, using our back packs and bike baskets to get the goods back to the boat. They have a great old style deli in the store.

Oxford has a "Picket Fence Tour" that they are featuring. This is the fifth year of this charity event. There are 22 sections of picket fence that have been painted and decorated and placed in front of sponsors homes and places of business. All of the sections of fence are painted by local artists. In October, the picket fences will be auctioned off with half the proceeds going to charity. In the meantime, Oxford has published a map showing the location of the fences so you can tour them. A very neat idea!

We found this picket fence in front of the book store

This picket fence was in front of the community center

Rain moved in right after lunch, and this curtailed our museum tour and shopping. It rained hard until about 5, keeping us on the boat. Our friends Susan and Brent from "Once Upon a Time" are anchored in the harbor. We invited them over for drinks and they arrived in their dingy. A strong line of thunderstorms came in around 8, so they blasted off to their boat. We were rocked pretty good by wind and hard rain most of the night.

Susan and Brent in their dinghy

Blasting off to beat the thunderstorm

"Once Upon a Time" anchored in the distance looking through the bimini top on this sailboat

Today we also made our reservations for the marina in Baltimore. We will go from Annapolis to Baltimore on Saturday and stay in the Fell's Point area of Baltimore.

Thanks for Reading!