I'm currently reading James Michener's epic, Chesapeake, having been inspired by our recent trip to Maryland for Plein Air Easton's Quick Draw competition.

Yes, I grew up in MD, but had never managed the trip east from Annapolis to meander around this side of the Bay. The Eastern Shore seems a world apart from the just-outside-DC areas of the state - it has a slower-paced, New England-meets-the-South aura, with roadside crab shacks, corn-rich farmstands, and wide open spaces between the fingerlike waterways.

We explored Easton and St. Michael's, biked and bird-watched in Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and kayaked the calm waters near Oxford.

I chose to work in watercolor for the Quick Draw and happily sold my work to a local collector within ten minutes of the horn signaling "brushes down."