Thursday was Tunnel Day. I drove through four tunnels.

The Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel connects Hampton, VA and
Norfolk, VA on Hwy 60 between the James River and Chesapeake Bay. The highway
bottlenecks down to just a couple lanes for the tunnel. During morning rush
hour, this provides the usual unsavory traffic experience associated with large
cities that have more cars than room on the roads.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel runs between Chesapeake Bay
and the Atlantic Ocean. It’s actually two small tunnels connected by bridges
and is a $12 toll road –- the first of many toll roads I would encounter on the
journey. But it offers an outstanding, unmatched view of the Atlantic and the
Chesapeake. Sunlight sparkled on sedate seas, the air held that briny scent, a
gentle breeze blew, and gulls cavorted in the air. If you’ve crossed during
stormy weather, email me or post a comment about your experience. Quite
different, I’m sure, so I’d like to hear about it.

The portions of Virginia and Maryland east of the Chesapeake
Bay have been dubbed "the boondocks," but there’s some lovely country
in that area. The drive along Hwy 13 and Hwy 50 is peaceful in contrast to the
urban bustle of Norfolk.

The Compleat Bookseller in Chestertown, MD, is a lovely,
welcoming bookshop in a vintage downtown building. On Thursday afternoon, the
weather was mild enough to open windows to the cross-breeze. The store mascot,
a 14-year-old pointer named Brittany, slept content on the wooden floors while
customers strolled past.

Although rush-hour traffic in Norfolk delayed my arrival,
owner Lanny Parks greeted me graciously in her upstairs office. In keeping with
the interests of their primary clients (retired folks), the Compleat Bookseller
stocks just about every kind of book except business and New-Age titles. Every
year at the end of May, the town hosts a reenactment of the Chestertown Tea
Party. Boston doesn’t have the monopoly on tea parties. Groups of irate
colonists disposed of tea all up and down the coast. Janet Schaw chronicled the
Wilmington, NC Ladies Tea Party in her journal, now published as Journal of a
Lady of Quality.

Back on the road again, I crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge
westbound, a toll road in the eastbound direction only, but didn’t escape the
toll ($2) for tunnel number 4, the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel beneath the
Patapsco River in Baltimore, MD. Mystery Loves Company, bookseller for the
annual Malice Domestic conference, also has a store in Oxford, MD ("the
boondocks"). I visited the downtown Baltimore shop, located in a house
dating from the 1880’s and situated just outside the historic district. What
history, you say? Well, during the war of 1812, a fellow named Francis Scott
Key sat aboard a British warship in Baltimore Harbor and watched British
cannons bombard Fort McHenry all night long. After dawn revealed the fort’s
flag still flying, inspiration struck, and Key penned lyrics to a popular
drinking tune. Thus was the U.S. national anthem born.

Mystery Loves Company has the cozy ambiance of your dear,
old auntie’s home, but trust me, the store stocks far more than cozy mysteries.
All genres and sub-genres of crime fiction are represented. Owner Kathy Harig
also stocks impressive backlists, so no one goes away hungry. Except perhaps
the two shop cats, who were irked Thursday afternoon because Kathy talked with
me instead of feeding them on time, hrumph. Late for this appointment, too
(yeah, that Norfolk traffic was a bear), Kathy nonetheless greeted me warmly,
offered me a glass of iced tea, and chatted with me a long while about her
customers (kids to seniors), the industry, and Malice Domestic.

I took the "scenic" route out of downtown
Baltimore, through little neighborhoods with ethnic markets and delis. Carl has
lived in the South his entire life and never seen anything like it except on
TV.

Thanks to Lanny Parks and Kathy Harig for their time.