A holiday at Scientists Cliffs

At a charity auction earlier this year we bid and won a vacation at a cottage at Scientists' Cliffs, a very special community on the banks of Chesapeake Bay. What makes the place so special is its location on the Calvert Cliffs, the largest exposed deposit of Miocene fossils on the East Coast.

Mike and Kathy Ellwood have owned the cottage for many years and have built a warm and welcoming vacation spot here overlooking the bay. Mike is also a paleontologist, as are several other people who live in Scientists Cliff (including staff of the National Museum of Natural History). As you might expect, the cottage houses a large collection of fossils from the cliffs, which are nicely displayed throughout the house. In the basement is Mike's paleo-lab, where he keeps the hundreds of fossils he is still working on preserving and classifying.

The first morning we were there, I awoke early to explore the beach. I took this picture of the beach and cliffs before anyo ne had walked on it.

We didn't find any special fossils while we were there, but we did find a few things everytime we went out. The first day's haul, shown in this picture, was the largest. We became more discriminating in later hunts.

In addition to the beach and woods, the Scientists Cliffs community has many other wonderful amenities. We tried out the pool, the tennis courts, and just walked the roads around the neighborhood and admired people's gardens. We also got some exercise by kayaking. Unfortunately the canoe was being repaired so only one of us at a time could enjoy paddling the bay.

I was breaking in a new camera on the trip--an early birthday present to myself. I experimented with nature photography on our many walks. This butterfly was outside the Cypress Swamp Nature Center.
The kids enjoyed picking wineberries, a small red berry similar to a raspberry, right outside our cottage and just about anywhere we went walking. They put up with their elders' need to walk and explore in the woods, and even managed to amuse themselves sometimes. Here Liam is looking for toads, Lucy has collected several small ones in her hat.
When we were doing nothing else, we just zoned out on the rocking chairs in the sun room or stared at the lovely view of the Chesapeake.

We ate out every night and Lucy and Liam provided the entertainment.

Of course, it wouldn't be a fourth of July without the fireworks, so we went to Chesapeake Beach to watch the show over the beach and bay. It was also another excuse to try out the new camera.