More Washington, DC...

We've been busy the last 2 days...it's hard not to be when there is so much to see and do. And it has been a real treat to have our friends from both Corkscrew and Act lll here with us to play tourist. One downside of all of this fun is that we are eating WAY too much! Of course, we justify all of this by walking miles and miles every day...it's only right that we should ensure that we are well nourished.

We have now added these special places to our list of destinations visited:

• The National Archives (where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution are kept)
• Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
• The US Capitol
• Library of Congress

Plus, last night we ventured out for an after dark tour of some of the monuments. This was really neat...some of these are just gorgeous at night, and the crowds are really light. It was terrific, and we have Act lll to thank for the inspiration for this...we walked another couple of miles and saw these at night:

• Jefferson Memorial
• FDR Memorial
• Korean War Memorial
• Lincoln Monument
• Vietnam War Memorial

And now...a bunch of pics...

The Arlington House at Arlington National Cemetery

Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This was really special to observe. These guys are all elite at what they do, and they take this very seriously.

The US Capitol.

Library of Congress...much more ornate than anticipated. Beautiful.

Library of Congress.

Rear of the Jefferson Memorial

Jefferson Memorial

Jefferson Memorial

Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial

Part of the FDR Memorial

Bronze at the Vietnam Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

Jeff, Rob and Sonny trying to get into the National Archives.

Washington, DC - Tourists Everywhere...Including Us...

Day #262; Loop Miles to Date = 3,515

We've now been in the Capitol for 5 days, and we've been making the most of it. We are worn out at days end, but enjoying ourselves immensely. Our marina set-up is great with one notable exception...it is 700 or so steps to where we find the first tid-bit of grass for the pups  -each way. We figure that we walk between 1/2 and 3/4 of a mile each time we walk them...which is 4 times per day. Add this to all of the walking that we do playing tourist, and we are definitely getting our exercise!

The good news is that our cockpit has a 5-star view of where the fireworks will be on the 4th. It should be spectacular! So...what have we seen so far? Here's the list:

• National Gallery of Art Sculpture
• Butterfly Garden (lacking butterflies unfortunately)
• Smithsonian Natural History Museum
• Smithsonian American Art Museum and Portrait Gallery
• International Spy Museum
• Lincoln Memorial
• Vietnam Veterans War Memorial
• Korean Veterans War Memorial
• WWII Memorial
• The White House (just a walk by)
• The National Mall and Reflecting Pool

For us, the highlights thus far have been the Vietnam Wall and the WWll Memorial. Everything has been great, but these 2 are standouts for us. The Wall was especially poignant for Sandy, as she was able to find the name of a close friend from high school who served in the Army Special Forces, and was unfortunately killed in battle. It is really hard not to be touched spending time in this special place.

One of the sculptures in the National Sculpture Garden.

The Hope Diamond.

Clever display at the American Art Museum.

Anymore, this is as close as you can get.

Bronze at the Vietnam Wall.

Bronze commemorating the sacrifice of the women who served in Vietnam.

Korean War Memorial.

Panorama of the WWll Memorial...it doesn't do it justice.

Strolling around today, we spotted this unusually colored squirrel (at least to us it is).



Breathtaking.

Coles Point to Bayside to Belmont Bay to Capital Yacht Club!

Day # 257; Loop Miles to Date = 3,515

A busy couple of days, but we made it to Washington, DC as planned today!

We are glad to be sitting still for a while now...we have been in 4 marinas in 4 days, and traveled 157 miles in that time. It is about 125 miles up the Potomac from the Bay to get to DC. We had mostly good weather, with rain only really hitting us when we were at a dock, and wind mostly always blowing in the right direction for comfortable travel. So...all in all, a bit hectic, but productive and enjoyable 4 days.

Bayside (in Colonial Beach) was a small marina, and one where we thought we might return for an extended stay later in the summer. But, we found the area to be a bit more depressed than we hoped, and the marina fine for a short stay, but not what we would chose for a longer visit.

Belmont Bay is a huge development about 25 miles south of DC, and largely populated by folks who commute to DC for work. Lots of construction...lots of condos...but not much for us as transient cruisers. The marina itself was nice, and fit the bill for transiting through on the way up the Potomac.

The Potomac starts out as a very wide and not very scenic river, but narrows as you make your way north and becomes quite pretty. One of the out of the ordinary happenings was when we exited Colonial Beach. The Navy has a practice firing range over this section of the river, and occasionally blocks off the majority of the waterway to traffic. You see...they like to fire these really large "guns" at targets in the water from long range, and they don't particularly like folks like us to be in the way! And certainly, we would rather be spectators than actual targets. Well...as we entered the river, we were immediately hailed on the radio by a Navy Range Control boat, and they were approaching our position as they were hailing us. This certainly gets ones attention!

To make a long story short, the range was "hot" and they were requesting that we re-route to the extremity of the range to make for safe passage. Obviously we were glad to comply. The only downside was that this added 3 miles or so to our already long day...but it worked out just fine. And unfortunately from our perspective, we never saw any large splashes from incoming artillery fire, so we are not certain that they were actually firing anything as we passed by.

Enough chatter...here are a few pics from the past few days.

One of our days of travel was entirely into the tidal current. It was running past this buoy at about 1.5 mph, which cut into our speed by that much, and added to the length of our travel day. It makes you feel like you are in slow motion some days.

As we moved closer to DC, our imaginations ran wild with speculation about what secret government agencies might be up to. We're pretty certain that these were being used to talk to aliens.

Here is our friendly Range Control Officer...making sure we were staying where we should be.

Mount Vernon, George Washington's home.

A couple of kids having a ball on a slightly windy day...just south of DC

The Capitol from the Mall...just to prove that we made it to DC today. We took a walk for a couple of hours this afternoon...this is just about a 20 minute walk from our marina.

Calvert Marina (Solomons) to Coles Point Marina

Day #254; Loop Miles to Date = 3,405

Just a quick update today...no pics even.

We had a more or less lazy start yesterday, as we couldn't turn the rental car in until after 10am...so we didn't actually leave the dock until after 11. We had yet another practically perfect day to cruise...sunny skies, light to no wind at all, only a small amount of boat traffic early in the day...all in all, a very nice day.

We wandered about 20 miles or so down the Chesapeake Bay, and then turned to the northwest up the Potomac. In this section of the river, it is very wide, and difficult to distinguish at first from the Bay itself. However, we hit it under ideal weather/current conditions. This section is notorious for becoming very difficult to traverse if the winds are kicking up, and especially if the winds are blowing in the opposite direction of the tidal current. But, we planned it perfectly (and were very lucky that our plan coincided with perfect weather) and it was docile and beautiful.

We made our way to Coles Point Marina about 20 miles up the river, and found it to be small, a bit tired, but with floating docks and friendly folks. A nice choice for a one-night stop. One of the interesting geographical notes about this section of travel for us, is that we are traveling in Maryland during the day, and staying in Virginia at night. The river itself is in Maryland, but our choices this time on the river at night are all on the south side...therefore in Virginia.

And today, we'll find out if we are target practice or not! We are traveling through a section of river that is used for target practice for the Navy. While we are penning this entry, we are listening to our VHF radio to see if there are any alerts for activity in this area today...so far, it has been very quiet, so we anticipate that there will be no excitement on that front today!

All for now...a short 25 miles or so today, and again the weather is fantastic. It just does not get much better than this!!

Rock Hall to Annapolis City Marina to Herrington Harbor South to Solomons

Day #253; Loop Miles to Date = 3,358

Our second week with Sarah aboard was certainly busy! We made a quick visit to Annapolis, and enjoyed a night wandering around this vibrant city, but decided that it just wasn't "kid friendly" enough for us this time around. So, we stayed just the one night and then hightailed it to Herrington Harbor for a return visit. This worked out great...pool, beach, other kids around, etc. and we stayed for the rest of the week. We plan to return to Annapolis later in the summer to spend some quality time there, and we're looking forward to spending a couple of days here at least.

On Saturday, decided to divide and conquer, so Sandy packed up the rental car and spent the day with Sarah running some errands, having lunch out, and then taking her to the airport. While all this was going on, Rob took the boat and drove it to Calvert Marina in Solomons (we had been here 2 weeks ago). Sandy then drove the car to Calvert on the way back from the airport, and now we are positioned to start our journey up the Potomac to Washington, DC next week.

A couple of highlights this week...

• Sarah lost her first front tooth and the tooth fairy figured out how to find her on the boat...amazing stuff!
• Sarah drove the Water Taxi in Annapolis.
• Sandy and Sarah had a girls day out...they found a mall and did some major shopping, dined out for both lunch and dinner, and managed to squeeze in a movie (Finding Dory).
• Rob and Sandy decided that they need more sleep...

Making new friends every day.

 


This is as far offshore as we could convince her to go!

Lunch break.

Driving the water taxi in Annapolis.

William P Lane Memorial Bridge.

Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse.

On to DC...stay tuned.

Solomons to Herrington Harbor South to St Michaels to Rock Hall, MD

Day #246; Loop Miles to Date = 3,276

We've been busy, and moving along nicely, but our blog has not been a priority as you might notice. Our time with granddaughter Sarah aboard has been hectic, fun, busy and yes...tiring! It is amazing how one 6-year old can make two grand parents flat worn out every single day.

We stayed at Calvert through Monday, and then made our way further up the western shore of the Chesapeake to a very nice resort marina at Herrington Harbor. These aren't our typical stops, but having a nice pool to enjoy, and resort like environs were perfect for us this time around. Then on Tuesday we made our way to St Michaels to meet up with a small fleet of others, mostly folks who we met while in Marathon this winter. One of our dock mates had organized a fantastic agenda for a week's worth of activities, and there were roughly 10 other boats that were there to enjoy all the fun.

Most of our time was spent having fun with Sarah, so we passed on some of the group activities, but we had a great time, and would definitely visit there again. We were fortunate to be able to stay right at the Chesapeake Maritime Museum in their private slips, and this made for really simple access to all of the Museum facilities as well as St Michaels itself. We had a great time!

On Friday, we ventured further north to our most northern stop on this leg of our summer on the Chesapeake, and have settled at Rock Hall Landing Marina for 3 nights. Once again, we found a marina with a pool, and we're making good use of it. On Monday our plan is to make a 1 or 2 night visit to Annapolis, and then start south again as we plan to be in Washington DC by the 22nd of June. Sometime after the 4th, we'll be heading back up north again for another visit to Annapolis and points further north but still on the Chesapeake.

Concentrating hard to keep us on course.

At Calvert Marina...Sarah hates the camera!

Ha!

Sarah picked out this shot location while walking around Rock Hall.

Our private concert in St Michaels (that's our friend Jeff from Act III on the right). 

One of the beautiful travel days that we've had on the Chesapeake...not all of them will be like this!