Chesapeake Pride

Mayo Beach Park, August 1, 2009: The day was almost hot and humid, perfect for a day at any beach. In recent years the Chesapeake Pride Festival, a gay festival for the Southern Maryland counties of Anne Arundel, Calvert and St. Mary's, has been held at Mayo Beach Park. The park sits on the south side of where the South River empties into the Chesapeake Bay and is one of two bayfront parks owned by Anne Arundel County but open to the public only by prior reservation and payment of a steep fee!

We waded in to swim but it really was too shallow:









For entertainment, there was the usual gay festival fare--guitarists and drag queens:





















Those performing inside the pavilion hailed from Baltimore!

The Straight Eights, the local chapter of the Lambda Car Club, were lined up as you entered the parking lot. We talked with them at Capital Pride and they recommended Chesapeake Pride. Below left is a Corvair convertible and a 1957 Rambler station wagon; on the right is a 1938 Packard convertible coupe that looks like something Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) drove in Chinatown:

A Ford Super Deluxe leads the way, followed by a Mercury coupe:
A damselfly at the shore: