Bayberries, Baltimore, and beads... and bacon

We headed out on a road trip this morning.  Bead show in Baltimore.  I was just along for the ride.  Inner Harbor in Baltimore is a great place to spend a day.  Not that we did that, mind you, but it is a cool place.  Anyhow, we stopped by my super top secret bayberry patch before leaving town.  My sister needed to drop off a soap order there, so we got in touch with the groundskeeper/security who allowed us to harvest over a quart of the little lovelies.  This is a picture of one of the branches AFTER we were tired of picking them.  It is still laden with berries. My friend there (at the super secret site) told me that they'd cut the bushes way back just a few weeks ago.  Just imagine all the berries that went into the chipper!  Sob.

Then we got on the road.  We didn't get too far before we started to see signs for a Cracker Barrel.  Not long ago we had the opportunity to sample the bacon there, and now we have a new tradition.  We start to drool whenever we see a sign.  That put us back another hour or so.  The 70 or so minute trip to Baltimore was now more like 3 hours.  We would have liked to park off of Rt. 83 and take the light rail into Inner Harbor, but the light rail is being repaired.  Instead, we drove all the way in and found a parking lot that charged a mere $18 for a couple of hours.  The light rail would have cost about $5 for both of us.  Grrrrrrr.  As we got into town we started seeing giant decorated fiberglas crabs.  You may remember that there were the giant mastodons done the same way when we were in Ft. Wayne.  I love this trend!  Maryanne is standing behind one of my favorites - Black, White, and Red All Over.  The body of the crab is covered with those flat glass globs. 

The one below was just gorgeous.  Shards of sea glass covered the entire thing.  Didn't catch the name of it though.  There were a lot of really cool crabs, but we walked for hours during the bead show and didn't have the strength to take more pictures.  One of my favorites was painted like a blues singer holding a giant harmonica in his claws.

The bead show was interesting.  They aren't really my thing, but I love looking at the strands of pretty, shiny stuff - lol.