Beth and I were on our way back to the Baltimore Airport (BWI) after a great Thanksgiving weekend visiting her folks in Millwood, Virginia. Now heading home, we took Interstate-70 toward Baltimore, but we had a side-trip planned: the highpoints for both Howard and Montgomery Counties were just a mile or so south of the Interstate near the city of Damascus. We exited from the interstate on to highway MD-27, and went south a very brief ways to Penn Shot Road on our left. Less than a quarter-mile later we came to an enormous radio tower sitting right on the highpoint contour, the Howard County apex. Getting inside the fencing seemed out of the question, so we parked and walked the perimeter of the fence. Looking inside and comparing heights, it seemed the actual high ground was outside the fencing, facing back toward the highway. This one was easy. Actually, the view north was quite pretty: houses and farm fields in a pretty rolling-hills panorama.

For the Montgomery County highpoint, we got back onto MD-27, went north about 300 feet, then took a left onto westbound Penn Shot Road to the Mount Airy Full Gospel Church, which sits right on the highpoint hill. Church was in session, this being a Sunday, so we found an empty space to park. We made a very quick walk of the grounds, and deemed the highest area to be around the playground. We didn't dawdle - we didn't want to get caught in the traffic as everyone left from Church. From here we got right back onto the Interstate and caught our flight at BWI a few hours later. Beth was supremely amused at the idea of going to a church to get a highpoint. For us it was the end of a surprisingly lucrative weekend in which we bagged 10 counties altogether, plus some good eatin'.