I just got home from a great visit to the eastern shore of Maryland. The visit was primarily business with some visits to past, present and new friends mixed in to make it a fun trip.
Here are some observations in no particular order:
> The economy seems to be booming with a rather large increase (Maybe as close as 100%) in retail space. With
that written, there was a lot of empty retail space.
> There appeared to be quite a bit of retired folks with money walking around in the towns I visited. With that
written many retired age folks were working in shops.
> I was told that property taxes have close to doubled over the past 10 years -Ouch.
> ALL of the restaurants I visited were no more than 50% full or totally empty. The ones that had people the
customers were of retired age and looked to have money. They were being waited on by retirement age
waitstaff's.
> One day two Warthogs and about a half dozen Chinooks landed at a local single strip airfield that usually only
handles civilian single and double engine prop airplanes. That was odd and I was glad to be getting out of dodge
when that happened.
> Residents were not too concerned about Baltimore riots as "the mob" would have to cross the Bay Bridge to
get to them.
> There are a lot of former Military or "Alphabet soup types" who live there now. If I was one of the mob from
Baltimore I would worry about crossing the bridge to the Eastern Shore because of this.
> Even though MD. is a "Shall Issue" state for CCW's, you basically have to start a lawsuit to force "the issue" to
obtain one.
> Gas is ~$2.55 a gallon for regular.
> The crab catch is down. Second year in a row.
Again, nothing in particular to take away from the visit other than the separation between the rich and poor appears to be growing.
