"From the Ocean to the Bay to the Mountains" Top 5 Page for this destination Maryland by grandmaR

Maryland is my home state. I went to elementary and junior high school here. I met my husband in high school here. After I married we moved all over the US until finally we came back to Maryland in 1973.

I went to post graduate school in Maryland, and taught in Maryland secondary schools for 7 years. Then for 14 years I worked for MD State OSHA and traveled to manufacturing locations all over this state from Ocean City and Crisfield to Friendsville and Deep Creek Lake.

Sandblasting the Gov. Preston Lane Bridge

Maryland is divided into six parts. If you think of the state as crab's claw, with the Chesapeake Bay between the pinchers, then you have:

1) The Eastern Shore (the east side of the claw)

2) North East Maryland - east of Baltimore Co and northwest of the Eastern Shore.

3) Baltimore City where I was born (near the middle top of the claw at the thumb knuckle on the western shore) and Baltimore County which goes all the way up to the Pennsylvania line.

4) Western Maryland (the claw arm) which goes from Frederick west to West Virginia

5) Central Maryland or - as the phone company calls it - Suburban Maryland (the area around Washington D.C. and north to Baltimore which includes Anne Arundel County where the state capitol is in Annapolis, Prince Georges County, Montgomery County, Howard County)

6) Southern Maryland where I live (the west side or thumb side of the claw) which consists of the counties of Charles, Calvert, and St. Mary's

Atlantic Ocean from hotel window in fall

My philosophy for my state pages is that I do not put restaurants on my page unless they have at least two locations in Maryland. I don't put tips on the page unless they apply to the state or a section of the state.

• Pros:Near the center of power
• Cons:Rural lifestyle is being eroded away
• In a nutshell:From the Ocean to the Mountains