A few weeks ago, I got a Facebook message from a gal from my hometown that is now a teacher in England. She told me that her little 6 year old students are doing a project, and learning all about the continents and places all around the world and she asked me if I would like to be part of it. Of course, I agreed and a few days later (it takes way less time to get a letter from England here than from Canada for some reason) I received a little flat girl, beautifully colored, named Emily. Emily is an actual student in the class doing the project, and my assignment was to get photos with her at various landmarks, historical places, nature, weather, food etc. This is my little diary of Southern Maryland that I was able to get with Miss Emily.
Hello Students at Malmesbury!
My name is Tanya and I had the pleasure of taking Emily with me on some adventures in Maryland and in the United States. Sadly, the whole time that we were together, it poured down rain, so we didn’t get to do as many things as we would have liked. Maryland is located on the east coast of the United states and is very near where the Capital of the US, Washington, DC is. I am living here right now, but live part time in Florida in the hot, southern part of the US and I grew up in Kyle, Saskatchewan, Canada.
The first place that we went when there was a break in the rain was to a farm, called Summerseat Farm, where they grow many different kinds of crops, and also rescue all sorts of farm animals from people who can’t look after them how they should be looked after. In this picture you can see Emily with a whole bunch of goats in the background, and in the next one some donkeys and horses.
One of my friends had a baby while Emily was visiting, and the baby was a little bit sick and had to go stay in Washington, DC, the capital of the USA at the children’s hospital for a few days. We went and visited the baby and we didn’t get to see much of the capital city, but this is a picture from the top of the Children’s Hospital. In the picture you can see the top of the Capitol building to the left side of Emily and the Washington Monument, the 3rd tall skinny building on Emily’s right side. The Capitol building is where the the Congress, the very top level of the US government makes all of it’s decisions and makes new laws. The Washington Monument was built in honor of George Washington, the first president of the United States.
On another nice day, we went to the Amish market in a small town, Charlotte Hall. The Amish people are a group that came to America from Europe in the 1700s. They still follow strict religious traditions and do not drive cars, only use horse and buggy, have no electricity and make all of their own clothing, food and supplies. At the market they sell eggs, vegetables, flowers, cheese and all sorts of other things that they have grown or produced. We bought eggs, dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, and lettuce. The Amish don’t believe in having their pictures taken or I would have got a picture with them!
We also went to another nearby farm that grows strawberries and picked a whole bunch of strawberries one afternoon.
One day, when it wasn’t supposed to rain, but still did, we went on a trip through the countryside to some of my favorite places. We stopped first at Mallow’s Bay. This is the largest shipwreck fleet in the Western Hemisphere. There are over 230 huge ships from World War 1 and 2 sunk here because there was no where else to put them after the wars were over. Also if you look in the background of the first picture, you can see Quantico, the training headquarters for the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) for all of the United States.
While out on our drive, we encountered two Eastern Box Turtles in the middle of the road, so we stopped and moved them off of the road.
This is just a pictures to show how pretty and green all of the rain made everything!
Next, we went to Purse State Park. In the first picture, you can see Emily with thousands of fossils of ancient seashells. This area used to be the ocean and seashells settled to the bottom and fossilized over millions of years.
The park is on the Potomac river, one of the main rivers in the Eastern USA. This river was also used by the American’s and the British to do trading and bring supplies from Europe, as well as during the War of 1812. It was very calm this day at low tide.
It started to rain on us while we were here, and Emily’s colors ran a little bit! We also found a handful of fossilized shark teeth on the beach! These teeth are from all different kinds of sharks and wash up here all the time.
After the beach, we went to the Port Tobacco Courthouse. Port Tobacco was one of the first and largest ports in the United States. This land was also once inhabited by Native American Tribes for thousands of years and one of the first places that explorers came ashore and met Natives in the United States.
Our last stop for the day was St. Ignatius Church at Chapel Point. This church was built in 1662 and is the oldest continuously active Parish in the United States. That means it has never had a break in service in all those years! The bottom pictures is the cemetery at the church and has grave stones from all the way back into the 1600s too. The church overlooks the Potomac River and has a beautiful view!
I hope you enjoyed our adventures, and I hope we can go on more together!
Tanya and Emily
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