This was the last full day of our 7-day trip back east, visiting my wife's family in Virginia, plus a couple of days spent exploring the Delmarva peninsula. Highlights of this leg of the trip included a fun and informative visit to the Delaware state highpoint, a visit to Rehoboth Beach where I set foot into the Atlantic for my first time ever, a day at Ocean City (Maryland) and its famous boardwalk, and some time driving the back roads of southeastern Maryland. The highpoints that we had planned here were all very easy, low to the ground and nearby the main roads. They weren't the focus of the day; we spent a lot of time driving out to the ends of the 'necks', twisty peninsulas that lead into the Chesapeake Bay. In some cases the roads are built up on berms above the bay's waters. Most of the time we'd dead end at someone's property. That was fine by us; we enjoyed the drives more than anything.

On this particular day we left our hotel in Pocomoke City (a Days Inn that has seen far better days) and went west along US-50 to the city of Cambridge. We drove out some necks then returned to Cambridge where we walked the harbor area and looked at the nice boats, including some big yachts. Then, it was highpoint time! We had two on the docket, this one in Dorchester County, and another one nearby in Talbot County, both not far from the city of Easton. For the Dorchester highpoint, we followed highway MD-318 to the tiny community of Hynson, which is west of Federalsburg and maybe 15 miles east of Easton. We found the Lowry Farm and everything matched well with the maps; we were at the right place. The highpoint is a lone 60-foot contour near a chicken shed and in a soybean field. We drove in and parked at a residence. I walked up the road to a stable/livery but couldn't find anyone. Not that I was being quiet; a little dachshund - with a busted leg and a nasty scar on its face - was yipping up a storm and no amount of trying to pet it would shut it up. Shortly Beth and I met with a young woman at the residence who had no issue with us walking the grounds to the highpoint.

Past the stable is a long building, a chicken shed. Past reports indicated the highpoint, which is not easy to discern, is south of this shed. We walked to it but frankly nothing looked higher. We were blasted by huge exhaust fans that were blowing out the stink from inside the chicken sheds. Yikes! We did find a rise in the land sort of northeast of this shed. It was half open (grass) and half planted with maturing soybean plants. A propane tank sat upon it, but the size of this rise seemed natural and enough to convince us that this is probably the highpoint. The map we had was dated from many years ago and showed two long buildings side by side, with the highpoint south of the second (to the right) building. In reality the two long buildings - the stable and the chicken shed - are more linearly aligned than side-by-side. It's possible that in the past there was two buildings side-by-side and if that was the case, the highpoint rise would be at the right place, south of the old phantom building. Regardless, we visited anything that looked high, and our whole visit was only about 20 minutes. It was very humid and very sticky. From here we drove up and visited the highpoint in Talbot County, then had some real fun exploring the downtown of the city of St. Michaels, about 10 miles west of Easton on the bay.