Author: Beachy

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Museums of Worcester County

There are many places of historic interest throughout Worcester County, Maryland.

Broom House at Furnace Town
The “Broom House” at the Furnace Town Historic Site

Here’s an historical look – of nearly two decades ago for these pages – at several of Worcester County’s museums. The pages of OCtheBeach.com contains the earliest iteration of web pages for these museums and were first published online back in the Fall of 2000. Today, the “Official” website is the Museums of Worcester County at http://worcestermuseums.org and, of course, contains up-to-date information. With that in mind, here is a “brief tour” of several historic sites scattered throughout Worcester County – as they were seen way back then.

If you’ve had a bit too much “fun in the sun” and need a change of pace you might consider a day trip to visit one or more of these museums. None of them are more than a half hour (or so) drive from Ocean City (or wherever you may be staying) and you may discover that visiting some of these areas around Worcester County is interesting, fun and educational. So, load up an address or two into your phone’s map/directions app and give it a go.

Worcester County Museums list…

Queponco Railway Station by Bill Swartwout Photography – Click the image to browse wall art.

Today there are some additional museum venues described in the umbrella organization website. Visit the Museums of Worcester County to learn more.

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Steamed Crabs at the Beach

How to pick ’em & eat ’em…

EATING STEAMED CRABS in Ocean City …where adults are actually encouraged to wear a bib, eat with their hands, get food on the table, pound on the table, throw their leftovers in a pile, generally make a mess and… HAVE A GOOD TIME.

Note please: There are probably as many ways to pick and eat steamed crabs as there are “crab pickers” in Ocean City or all of Maryland. The following photos and descriptions should help with just a few hints to get you started:

  • Don’t bother about the mess.
  • Don’t rub your eyes until you have thoroughly washed your hands.
  • Have fun. Share stories with your friends (and just maybe a cold beer – or two).
  • Enjoy!

1. Tools: All you need are a mallet, a dull knife, and plenty of kraft paper (or maybe newspaper) to cover your table.
2. Remove the front claws: Put them aside, you can come back to them later.

3. Pull off the rest of the legs: Sometimes, you get lucky and some crab meat pulls out with them. Just enjoy it.		Open the carapace, or the apron.
4. Open the apron: Pull up the apron on the bottom of the crab and break it off.

5. Open the crab: You can now easily pull the hard shell off of the top of the crab.		Clean out the devil fingers
6. Clean out: Scrape out and discard anything that does not look appealing to you – the yellow “mustard” and the lungs (sometimes called the devil’s fingers).
Break the crab body in half
7. Break in half: You are now down to the main part of the crab. Simply grasp it in both hands and break it in half to expose the sweet crab meat.		Crab meat on display
8. The crab meat: can be found in all of the little nooks and crannies. This is some of the finest tasting seafood to be had anywhere.

Oh yes, what are the mallet and knife for? The knife (not sharp, please) helps to pull the crab meat out from all the little nooks and crannies. And the mallet – well, each large claw also contains some fine-eatin’ meat – use the mallet to crack the claws. Actually, the only essential “tool” is the paper to cover the table. The mallet and knife only make things a “little” easier, but they definitely add to the fun.

Also See: Eating Crabs in Ocean City, Maryland.

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Ocean City Maps Page

See what the “sights” look like from above – try the different views.

Try our Interactive Map of the Ocean City Area. This “iMap,” provided by the Beaches and Towns Network, is powered by Google Maps. Try the “Zoom” buttons ( [+] [–] ) on the bottom-right of the map and “drag” the map (or use the arrow keys on a laptop/desktop) to move around the beach neighborhoods.

See what the “sights” look like from above; try the different views. Click the Map view above (lower-left-corner) to see street names to figure out “how to get there.” We hope you enjoy your visit to the beach.

This is just a sample image for the Ocean City Maps page.