Magothy River

Cool and grey with rain on and off, we tucked into Magothy Marina on the Magothy River just north of Annapolis. We settled in to get some work done – more laundry and cleaning as well as Al catching up on some boat maintenance.  We planned on spending the week here, taking in the boat show and Washington DC.  Lovely marina, put on are radar by Rob and Serena from our Trenton yacht Club who are also spending time here.  Fabulous marina, new and clean with alot of  friendly folks around. Close enough to Annapolis and good prices to be at the dock for the week.

rain, rain go away!

We were able to use are bikes to travel around as amenities were a bit of a distance away.
Renting a car for a few days helped do some errands and of coarse get into DC without any hassle’s. We found a place to buy a couple of metal slides for our new sails to replace the plastic ones that were put on by "mistake" and of coarse blew apart when we were under sail. Now to sew them in.

Friday we headed into the Annapolis boat show. Cool weather and rain in the forecast but off we went.
The show was great.  Annapolis is really a cool place, again full of history and an amazing gathering of businesses supporting the marine lifestyle.  Dodging the rain we made it around to probably 80% for the booths. I also made it on to view some of the sailboats – if only we would win the lottery!
I made the mistake of wearing my wellies without socks

Gathered lots of great ideas and information yet we still held off on buying the watermaker. Although we didn't come away empty handed!

I know it’s probably not the best time to visit Washington DC, as I’m sure all of you have heard about the federal shut down.  We had talked about visiting there before leaving Ontario, so being so close we just had to go.

Although disappointing due to all the federal buildings, monuments, memorials etc. including Smithsonian museums, being closed down we had a fabulous time!

We walked and walked covering an amazing amount of ground. Through the city, White House, down to the Lincoln Memorial, through the “Mall” ending at Capital Hill. Still lots of visitors but we were told that it is much quieter than normal.

cello players vs. sharp shooters??

What we did end up getting to experience were different groups of people staging protests in different areas.
We stumbled along one at the Lincoln Memorial where folks were attempting to pull back barricades to gain access, having words with the police officers who were there to maintain peace (zap straps in hand).  So, my first protest, well not really. We stayed back from the ruckus but ready with camera .  Not much ended up happening so we moved on. Some areas said closed but yet people were moving the barriers out of the way  and walking on.

Reflection pool, Washington Monument then Capital Hill

Lincoln Memorial

Al disappeared to look for washrooms in the park. After he had left I asked one of the officers where the closest restrooms were only to be told that all the ones in the park are closed also due to shutdown. I stared to get concerned when Al had taken too long to come back, I was confident that he was probably arrested for public indecency.  A short time later he  came around the corner shaking his head and laughing.  Yes, he did end up peeing in the trees but only following the crowd. Turns out when he had finally found a restroom, locked and the official notice on the door, there was also a form of protest going on with piles of human excrement left outside the doors! We spared you the photo!

Well many miles on our shoes. A couple of beers and smoked chicken wings (yum!) we made our way back to the hotel and called it a night.

Vietnam Memorial

Capital Hill

The next day we walked around Chinatown and more of the down town area then headed out for a drive. Made it to The Pentagon to walk through the beautiful memorial erected in honour the 185 people that died on this site on Sept 11, 2001.

lunch!

Pentagon Memorial, there are 185 "floating" benches, one for each person killed, placed in a time line from the year they were born. The wall of the Pentagon that the plane went into is in the background.

I was surprised that DC as a whole is not that pretty of a place, when you broke off from the main downtown area. Lots of garbage, rundown real estate and homeless. You would think that Mr. Obama would take better care of his own backyard. 

Trying to navigate back to the boat our GPS decided to become possessed  and took us on quite a tour doing circles around Washington over and over again.   These machines get very squirrely when massive construction and roadwork is underway. Finally made it back still in under 1 hour.

Monday turned into more errands and boat work including me going up the mast to investigate our furling. Not my favorite thing to do but made it, trusting my skipper not to let me fall.
I prepared a fabulous THANKSGIVING dinner. OK, no turkey, but my chicken filled in wonderfully. We had all the fixings including stuffing, gravy, squash and of coarse pumpkin pie (store bought). We sure missed our family that day and especially Sonja's fabulous homemade pies! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. You were all thought of.

yes, that's me up there!!

Thanksgiving feast

Fall definitely feels like it is settling in, cool breezes, sunshine and the smell of wood fires burning.  More biking on Tuesday before we secured them back on the boat and enjoyed  happy hour with Rob and Serena from "Vita" as we were both heading out on Wednesday.

We ended up only going into Annapolis and anchored for the night outside the Naval Academy. Great to experience the capital of Maryland without the chaos of the boat show.

Bye for now.