Category Archives: Tourism

Descriptions of the places we’ve been.

Relaxing with friends in Shaw Bay

We spent 3 nights tucked away in Shaw Bay on the Eastern Shore.  The trip was organized by some friends who usually stay in Annapolis.  We all ate together and there was so much food to go around!  It was nice to go somewhere to relax and enjoy the good company.

Gail on the ATA Marie.

Gail on the ATA Marie.

There was nothing around except some big fancy houses and grass and trees, but our dinghy could go fast and we zoomed around for a while!

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And there was a beach there!  Stanley had gotten used to running and playing on the beaches in the Caribbean and the Bahamas so he was happy to relive that experience!

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Harness Creek

Harness Creek is a nice little spot about an hour by water from Annapolis.  It’s off the South River and there are lots of pretty houses to look at and a nice park to go walk around in.

We rode our dinghy around to check out the creek.

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And walked Stanley in the park.  They even have a dog park where he made a new friend!

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And spied Ryana through the trees from the park!

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And we took the kayaks out to explore!  This was such a nice relaxing place.

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The Eastern Shore

We were lucky to be invited to share the dock at the house of our friends brother in Cox Creek.  We spent one night there enjoying their hospitality and took a fun walk around the neighborhood.  I think that seeing this beautiful house and neighborhood was the highlight of the trip for Ryan’s Mom!

At the dock and looking up at the house:

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We took a fun walk around the neighborhood with our friend Kirk.  It used to be an old plantation that is now broken up into a few parcels for houses.  There is still co-op farming done on the land and we met the farm manager Mr. Fred.  He gave me a start when he saw a fly on me and smacked it away, but as he said “that’s how we do it around here.”  LOL.  What a fun time!  And we are continually amazed by the hospitality shown by folks in these parts.  But, I guess ,that’s just how they do it around here.

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A quick trip to St Michaels

After visiting Washington DC we took the boat over to St Michaels which is a delightful town on the Eastern Shore.  Ryan and I had never been there so were excited to visit somewhere new.  The harbor has plenty of room for anchoring and the town is very cute.  We pulled our dinghy in next to the Crab Claw restaurant and maritime museum.

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We had a great time and wandered around town.

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And then had an amazing dinner at the Bistro restaurant.  Chuck’s comment was that this was the first time in 30 years that Cindy had eaten her whole dinner.  I just wished we had gotten a picture of the empty plate!!

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The next morning we visited the maritime museum.  It has an old lighthouse that you can tour and a lot of old boats and exhibits about the Chesapeake Bay.  We spent about 4 hours enjoying all the sights!

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They even have some tools for you to catch oysters!  St Michaels was a fun place I’m sure we’ll visit again!

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Fun in DC – Day Two

The next day we woke up eager to experience more of DC.   First though we wanted breakfast to build up our energy before a tour of the Capitol.  We went to Old Ebbits Grill to fuel up and had a delicious breakfast!  We enjoyed ourselves too much though and were running a little late for our tour.  We also underestimated the distance across town.  When everything is so big it feels closer together!  We did make it for our tour though, thanks to Ryan sprinting ahead!

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After that we went underground (beat the heat!) to the Library of Congress.  It’s an interesting building and had a great view of the Capitol.

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After exploring there we walked back underground to the Capitol and got some great pictures in front of it.  We were running so fast earlier to make our tour that we didn’t have time to stop and smell the roses.

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We next visited the National Art Gallery and then decided to call it a day.  What a fun time in DC!  I think we walked 5 miles each day but had a blast!

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Fun in DC – Day One

We had Ryan’s Mom and Stepdad out to visit us a few weeks ago. and they wanted to go to DC.  Cindy had never been and Chuck has been when he was much younger.  So, on a couple hot and steamy days we took the metro in and played tourist!

We hit all the important spots…

The Washington Monument

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The White House

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Lincoln Memorial with a break along the way!

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Vietnam Memorial where we traced a name for Cindy’s brother who served in Vietnam.

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MLK Monument and Korea Memorial

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After all that walking we headed to the museum of American History.  Man, these museums are huge.  After two hours we had been through one wing of one floor!   By that time we were thirsty and hungry and ready to head home where we could recharge for the next day!

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Back in Annapolis!

After a few stops as we made our way up the Chesapeake we were finally back in Annapolis!  Annapolis is such a fun town.  We took up residence on a mooring ball behind the bridge on Spa Creek and settled in.  Ryan was going to school for his Captain’s License for 2 weeks and I had some free time on my hands.  Luckily for me our friend Cynthia made a surprise visit and kept me company for a few days while Ryan was in class.

I took Cynthia on a tour of all the Annapolis attractions…

The Capitol

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The Naval Academy

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The Happy Hours

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Ryan joined us or a Sunday afternoon at Pussers.  Always a fun experience people watching.  🙂

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Bonus picture  of Ryan with his diploma from Captain’s School.  Yay!  So proud of him!

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Bonus Stanley picture of Stanley being weird and sitting in the window.

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Beautiful Beaufort

Beaufort North Carolina that is.  Our our way north we stopped at one of our favorite places.  We have now visited Beaufort 4 times!  We like it because it is such a cute town with beautiful houses and nice people.  We like the neighborhoods so much I think Stanley’s walk time doubled!  We met up again with our buddies Kirk and Donna from Ainulindale and had a nice dinner out with them and several boat dinners and generally just had a great time!

Ryana at the Beaufort Docks

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The wild horses on the island across from the city front

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Stanley, visiting his favorite bar The Backstreet Pub and just hanging out.

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More St Augustine

While in St Augustine we enjoyed more than the cute neighborhoods.

We went to the Fort and looked around.  We’ve been to a number of forts over our travels, the most impressive being the one in Old San Juan Puerto, but still enjoy visiting them and learning about the history of the town.

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We tried the local winery which we would not recommend.  Our tasting started off with one dry wine and the guy pouring it said “don’t worry, just get through this and we’ll get to the good stuff”.    🙁  The rest of the wines were really sweet or fruit infused.  One wine had hints of bubble gum ice cream.  Yeah… we wouldn’t recommend it!  It was fun though because we went with our friends Kirk and Donna.  (They didn’t like it either!)

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Kirk and Donna are not impressed.

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The winery had a nice logo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had our boat in the marina the whole time in St Augustine, mostly because it was easier for when we went back to the west coast.  The marina was nice and good walking distance to everything in town.

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St Augustine – The Nations Oldest City

Our first stop once getting back to the US was St Augustine.  We’d heard from many people that we would like it and we did!  St Augustine is the nations oldest city and was founded by the Spanish in 1565.  It still has a little bit of that Spanish flavor, lots of nice old houses and a cute downtown walking area / tourist trap.

While in St Augustine we docked the boat at the City Marina which was quite nice and took a quick 2 week trip back to the West Coast to see family and friends.  It was great to see people and recharge and we returned to St Augustine feeling good!

Views around St Augustine:

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