Happy Father’s Day!
We headed in to Annapolis this morning. We heard that we can park at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium and take a trolley into the downtown area. But we pulled in to the parking lot and found out from the attendant that the trolley doesn’t run on weekends, probably because that would interfere with actual events that take place there, like football games and Naval Academy graduation.
No problem. We sweet-talked the lot attendant into letting us unhitch the Teardrop and leave it there for the day. If we had ventured into downtown Annapolis with the trailer, I swear to God, we would have made the local news. The streets, which are about as wide as my arm, and which were laid out in a “grid” 300 years ago by, apparently, drunk monkeys, were choked with cars and people and more cars and more people. At one point, we spotted a sign for parking and triumphantly turned off the street and started down an alley toward a garage. We were mere yards from the entrance when we (I) remembered that we have a car-top carrier. And, as some of you know, with our track record when it comes to car top carriers, “mere yards” is a total win. Let me put it this way: This is our third car-top carrier. So anyway, we had to back out of the alley and into oncoming traffic -- not an impossible task with just the van, but if the Teardrop had been attached, I would have thrown myself in front of an approaching truck.
So, we spent the better part of an hour trolling for a parking spot before we ended up on a residential street in Eastport, across the Spa Creek from downtown Annapolis, and hiked a mile into the heart of town, right next to the city dock.
We grabbed a bite to eat -- not an easy feat, we discovered, on Fathers’ Day, when every restaurant was in the area was overflowing with families and most places were running 90-minute waits for tables -- we headed across the market square to the Historic Annapolis Museum, where we signed up for a trolley tour of the area. The tour was set to start in 45 minutes, so I said we’d just browse through the museum until it was time to go. The attendant chuckled and said, “Oh, I’m not sure you’re going to find 45 minutes worth of stuff to see here.” But, somehow we filled the time -- mostly because Keith made the mistake of asking a museum staffer about the crest and colors on the Maryland state flag; he ended up getting a 25-minute dissertation from her about needlepoint and fiber art.
The trolley tour was the perfect way to see downtown Annapolis in an afternoon. It took us past the entrance gates to the Naval Academy,the campus of St. John’s College, and the state house and the governor’s mansion, along with a few historic churches and other colonial-era homes and buildings.
After we got a little taste of Annapolis, we fetched the trailer and got back on the road for Washington, D.C.
Tomorrow, we’ll drop Natalie off in Fairfax, Va., for her People to People Leadership Ambassador program -- kind of a cross between summer camp, a social studies seminar and a tour of D.C. She’ll stay there until we pick her up on Saturday morning.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will tour Washington on our own. We’re actually staying at a Best Western in Rockville, Md., -- in a sprawling suburban office park area. This will be our home-base for the next six nights. It’s about a 30-minute Metro ride from downtown, which means it’s cheaper than places closer to the city. I don’t think we’ll mind taking the Metro in every day; it’ll be an adventure. And it’s got an outdoor pool, which is a bonus.
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