Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.
— Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

I had great expectations for the Eastern Shore.

I had heard about the charm of St. Michaels, the sophistication of Easton, the crab cakes, the seafood, the general laid-back atmosphere. I kept hearing, It’s not like any place you’ve ever been.

I was almost ready to move there, sight unseen. One of the biggest attractions of the East Coast, for me, is the concentration of interesting and scenic and historical places. In the West you have also have interesting and scenic and historical places, but they’re so spread out.  You can drive for hours and hours, sometimes for days, to get from one place to the other.

But if I lived in, say, Maryland, I could take a day trip to Washington DC or spend the weekend in Boston or Manhattan. I could drive to New England in the fall or down to Miami in the winter. And being a mere 25 feet above sea level, the area more than met my low-elevation requirement.

But the Eastern Shore and I got off on the wrong foot from the get-go.