museums

We traveled the 30 miles from Annapolis to Washington, D.C. yesterday morning via hailed ride to New Carrollton, MD and then the subway.  My priority was the National Air & Space Museum so we went straight there.  That was sort of a bust as about 1/2 of the museum was closed for renovations.  We still spent about 90 minutes looking at the rest of the displays.  For lunch we walked a few blocks to a line of about 15 food trucks that we had previously spotted.

Then we walked back to the Mall and decided to go in the National Museum of Natural History.  One of the first things we saw there was a rhinoceros gathered from Africa by Theodore Roosevelt.  When writing this post I read a little more about the specifics of that, which was part of the Smithsonian–Roosevelt African Expedition that collected over 11,000 specimens!  We spent a good amount of the time on the animal exhibits but breezed through the mineral exhibits which I think would have been really interesting to spend more time on.  But we had more places to go!

We almost made it to the Washington Monument but then decided to go to the Holocaust Memorial Museum first, which was great.  Then we spent a few minutes with the Washington Monument, Anna walked a little on the grass with her shoes off to give her feet a break, and we checked out the WWII Memorial.  We went down the south side of the reflecting pond as the sun was sinking pretty low about an hour before sunset...very nice.  After an obligatory few photos with the Lincoln Memorial we decided that we didn't want to wait the half hour to see the sun set behind us as we watched from the steps there, so we visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and then went to see the White House (from right where the National Christmas Tree will be).  Then we made the long trip back to the boat and had a late supper!

Monday was a beautiful sunny day and we motor sailed about 45 miles to Annapolis, MD.  We checked out Back Creek to anchor where we did last time we were here but it was just a little too full for us to feel comfortable.  So we looked at the map and decided we would try out Weems Creek.  15 minutes later we were there and found plenty of room for us and Thursday's Child to anchor.  I took Louise to shore for a walk and we watched old sitcoms on the Laff channel that our antenna was able to pick up.

Tuesday started off with scattered light rain.  Anna's friend Will who she worked with in Big Sky lives in nearby Crofton and he came to say hi and bring us a few packages that had been mailed to his house.  It started raining more often and I took Will back to shore.  Then he gave me a ride to the grocery store about four blocks away.  I bought about as much as I could reasonably carry (I always put the heavy things in the backpack) and then walked all the way back to the dinghy in steady rain.  As we unloaded the groceries back at the boat Anna said that some of the bags were so wet that they felt heavier from the water!  We used the generator for about an hour to make some water and heat it for showers, and charge the batteries to keep our electronics going to entertains us through the rainy day.  It was interesting that the watermaker produced 27gph rather than the 15gph that we expected in the cold water here.  My best guess is that the creek we are in is not very salty as the tidal range here is only a foot or so.

Today we met Steve and Susie on shore at 9:30am and went to tour the Naval Academy.  It was a pretty interesting tour.  We went through a couple of the big halls and towards the end saw all of the students form up in the courtyard and march in to lunch.  Then we followed them into Bancroft Hall (all 1,000 or more of them were gone into the depths of the building already) which had some great architecture.  After the tour we went into the Naval Academy Museum which had great displays about the ships, technology, leadership, etc. of the Navy in all the wars throughout the generations.  There was also a very interesting part about the research arm, especially all of the satellites that they have launched.

We walked around Annapolis a while and checked out a few shops with Steve and Susie, plus the obligatory ice cream. Tomorrow we plan to take the bus/train to DC and see a few things.  Steve and Susie are heading towards Hampton, VA tomorrow so will probably see them there on our way south in a few days.  There they will be preparing to go offshore with a bunch of boats in a rally down to the Bahamas--something like seven days at sea.  We will proceed our own way slowly down the coast but I think eventually find them in the Bahamas.