St. Michaels, Maryland
Season six. State twenty-five. Halfway through 50 at 60, halfway through an idea that turned into something considerably larger than a checklist.
I left Penny with a cat sitting service called Meow Tail, which I want to say up front is not an ad — it’s just the first time I’d ever done this and it worked better than I expected, and if you travel with a cat at home you should know it exists. They vet their sitters, send you photos and updates through the app, and Penny apparently did fine. She gave me the look when I left. Half trust, half don’t-you-forget-about-me. I kept telling myself she’d be fine. She’s a cat.
I landed in DC for convenience, picked up a rental, rolled the windows down despite the November air, and started driving toward the Chesapeake.
St. Michaels in November
St. Michaels, Maryland sits on the Miles River on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, and in summer it’s the kind of place people with sailboats go. In November it’s essentially mine. I walked the main street multiple times over two days and I think I may have been the only person on it, not counting the ducks.
The ducks, for the record, were fighting. About two dozen mallards on the bank near the harbor having what appeared to be a serious disagreement. I have no information on what the dispute was about.
I had a cold. I want to be transparent about this. The voice is off, the hair is a disaster, the energy is somewhere between present and not quite. I made the executive decision on the second morning to skip the scenic drive itinerary I’d built from a book of Chesapeake routes and just stay local. St. Michaels itself had the harbor, a drone-friendly open sky, another cute little town called Oxford a short ferry ride away, and more than enough to warrant a slow morning with a coffee and a journal and no agenda.
The croissant and quiche at the breakfast place on the main street helped more than the coffee.
The DJI Mini 4 Pro
I flew the new drone for the first time over the harbor. The DJI Mini 4 Pro — smaller and lighter than what I’d been using, a built-in screen on the controller so you don’t need the phone, noticeably quieter than previous models. The image quality is at least as good as my old Mavic Air and the footprint when traveling is considerably smaller.
First flight was nothing epic. I went up to altitude, flew it around the harbor, got some orientation footage, did not crash it. That counts as a successful maiden voyage. I’ll do more tomorrow morning when the light is better.
The Waterfowl Festival
There was some kind of waterfowl event happening in the area. I went to it. I drove around. I saw decoys. I looked for actual birds. I found the decoys more cooperative.
I’m going to be honest and say this is not the most riveting material I’ve generated on this project. It was a slow, cold, slightly ill November day in a town that was firmly off-season, and what I mostly did was drive around, fly a drone, drink hot beverages, and recover from whatever was happening in my sinuses.
There’s value in that. Not every day is Olana and a hurricane and northern lights over Nyack. Some days are mallard ducks having an argument on a quiet harbor in Maryland and a half chicken that turned out to be just a half chicken and nothing else for slightly too much money.
I found an Italian place called Limoncello for dinner. The town watched me vlog. I was the only person walking the street.
Penny, by the way, was doing great. The photos coming through the Meow Tail app confirmed this. She had found her new temporary spot and was managing her concern with characteristic feline dignity.
More drone flying in the morning.
