It has been twenty-one months since my last county highpoint (Wasatch County, Utah, August 2006). I have long since “saturated” my immediate home region, gaining all the county highpoints within one or two days’ drive of Phoenix. The reality is that most of my recent new county highpoint opportunities only come when we visit Virginia and surrounding states, which we usually do once a year when we visit Beth’s family, but what we didn’t do in 2007. Beth’s folks live in northern Virginia near Winchester, and we usually fly into Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) airport. More often than not we usually crash at a nearby hotel for the night after arrival, then drive toward her folks’ place the next day. On this visit, I lined up the Baltimore City and County highpoints figuring they’d be easy and simple and shouldn’t add too much time to our travels.

The Baltimore area was getting slammed by some wicked storms, a huge front of energy that had barreled across the central United States in the recent day, dropping tornados and causing all sorts of damage and casualties. All of southern Maryland was under a tornado watch and virtually the whole state, plus most of northern Virginia, was under flood warnings. During the night we heard some heavy thunder and they said about 3 inches of rain fell. It was impressive in a scary way. Apparently some twisters had hit the Quantico Marine base south of Washington that night. The next day (today) was more of the same – heavy rain, clouds, general gloom and doom. But since our highpoints were not hiking journeys, we figured we could do these in any conditions, rain or shine.

We waited until the morning traffic had died down then got moving. First up were the highpoint areas of Baltimore City, which is a separate entity from surrounding Baltimore County. The highpoints of Baltimore City are in its extreme northwest corner along and near Reisterstown Road. We came to Reisterstown Road via the Loop-695, then southeasterly toward the highpoint areas. Map printouts from mapquest helped a lot. We were slightly concerned we’d be driving into gangsterville, not knowing anything about Baltimore, but the reality is much more pleasant. The city northwest of Baltimore is Pikesville, and it appears to be an old, solid middle-class city, a combination of Archie Bunker-style row homes and nicer two-story places. Reisterstown Road is a major thoroughfare but a mess to navigate. Traffic lanes suddenly become parking lanes, and there are no left-turn lanes either. Somehow we got through this and into Baltimore City. First up were the areas along Park Heights and Labyrinth Roads which we bagged in no time, making short walks in the mist, and generally doing visuals to gain a sense of the highpoint area. The stronger candidate area is about a mile away along Falstaff Road then north up Park Heights Avenue to Temple Ohev Shalom. We drove in to the big parking lot around back and walked to a row of trees that seemed highest. Is this within the city boundary? Not sure. However, a short walk in the parking lot may be sufficient.

Back onto Reisterstown Road we rewarded ourselves with Starbucks coffee for Beth and some wonderful deli sandwiches and snacks from the Edmart Jewish Delicatessen. The circumstantial evidence suggests this area is heavily Jewish: aside from the obvious clues already mentioned, we saw plenty of men wearing the yarmulke, some with long beards, and I was even hit on (sort of) by an older woman in the Edmart Deli. Beth explained she was probably looking for someone to meet (and marry, presumably) her daughter. Overall, a nice fun visit, and the food was great.

The Baltimore County highpoint could not be more different than the city highpoints. It is located way up on the Pennsylvania border in the town of Stiltz, about 40-something miles away via Interstate-83 and Middletown Road, in farm and rolling hill country. We followed the highway toward Stiltz in the heavy rain, and before we knew it, we were there. There is no sign naming the town on the highway and the only hint we were "here" was a sign for York County, Pennsylvania, and a junction sign for Pennsylvania state highway 895. The town apparently straddles the two states. The Baltimore County highpoint appears to be right on the state line near a small Notary Public office. We called it good after a short walk in the heavy rain. Beth, bless her heart, even got out in the rain to claim it for herself, then gave me one of those "why did I marry a highpointer" looks. Extra foot rub for Beth later.

From here we drove north through the town of Sticks (mainly for its name) then back into Maryland in the town of Lineboro. It was here we snapped the photo of the sign for the Mason-Dixon line, the traditional division boundary of the “North” and “South”. We continued southwesterly toward the Carroll County highpoint, which was just a few miles off the main route.