We'd had a great visit with Dave and Vicki, but decided we'd better leave before they put us to work. A return trip is definitely planned as they told us a few of the features to be added to the house in the coming years.
We moved to downtown Cambridge. It took us about 5 hours. By car it might have been 20 minutes. But it was a fine day and we found our favorite spot waiting for us when we arrived.
In earlier times, Joe spent a lot of time on the eastern shore hunting ducks and geese, which meant spending a lot of time with some guys who became very good friends. Shortly after we'd tied up, Bernie and Linda (who owned the father of our wonderful lab, Abby), and Fred (Fast Fred, who had been an art professor at UDC) and Marge, and Wayne and Nancy (who was from Moundsville, WV where we visited last year) showed up. Fred had suggested dinner at the Suicide Bridge Restaurant. Once we found it we were surprised to see the size of Suicide Bridge - not real conducive to throwing yourself off of since it's only about 10' high, but I guess it depends on how serious you are. Anyway, we had a great dinner and a great time - all those years to reminisce and laugh about.
While in Cambridge, we had hoped to pick up some steamed crabs and have dinner on the picnic table nearby, but unfortunately had timed our visit wrong as the seafood plant wasn't open. We did walk up and have lunch at Jimmie and Sook's, though. A good stop if you happen to be in Cambridge. Later a couple from a sail boat stopped by. Turns out they know our friends Sue and Paul and also one of Joe's sisters. Small cruising world.
From Cambridge we crossed back over the bay for a visit with Joe's former boss, Bob and his wife Kathy, at Lake Ogleton.
Another Bob they worked with joined us for dinner - so we had two Kathy's and two Bob's and one Joe at the table.
Next was a fifteen mile run to the Magothy River to visit Bob and Elaine. We'd met them on our first loop and have managed to get together several times since then.
Since our last visit, we've each gotten our first two grandchildren. Not only that, our Samuel and their Sadie were born on the same day! Elaine immediately said we should "promise" them, so Samuel's dating days are over - at six months of age.
Bob and Elaine had been sailors before the loop and after the loop they sold their trawler and have gone back to sailing. Every Wednesday night Bob participates in a neighborhood sailing race right behind the house. During our stay we were able to catch up on laundry, grocery shopping and even managed a trip to Costco.
One afternoon, Bob took us for a ride around the area in his small power boat. I'm always happy to see the houses from the water side, especially after I'd done so much walking on the street side. The most spectacular house we saw was this glass one on a point.
Our next move was another big one - 25 miles to Baltimore's Inner Harbor. At least we're keeping the fuel costs down this year.
We spent two nights docked in the Inner Harbor to facilitate a return visit to the American Visionary Arts Museum. We'd discovered it two years ago and it ranks high on our list of favorite places.
They've done more mosaic's on the exterior since our earlier visit and many of the exhibits inside had changed also. I'm sure we hadn't seen the Flatulence exhibit before - I'd have remembered that one. In the building with large pieces there were more sculptures from the annual Kinetic Sculpture Race. We're hoping to time our trip next spring for that one. The sculptures resemble parade floats, sort of, and have to use only human power sources to move along the road and through the water. Sounds like great fun!
The weather had turned fantastic - how often do you hear that in August? - so we decided to anchor near the Anchorage and BMC Lighthouse marinas. Gene and Judy (GH37 Lo Que Se A) were staying at one and Henry and Debbie (GH47 Seven Tenths) were staying at the other. We visited back and forth with all of them, got in some shopping and good walks, and stayed almost a week. The weather truly was fantastic - didn't need air-conditioning at all.
Joe kept looking for Donnybrook, a racing sailboat in Anchorage Marina. One of his former co-workers, Pancho, is part of the crew, racing all over the world. One afternoon while sitting on the boat, I heard someone calling for Joe. There was Pancho in a different sailboat. Joe was out in the dinghy, but they finally got together for a chat - drifting along in the harbor.
Later, we saw Donnybrook 74' of speed - pretty impressive.
We had planned to spend a week at Md. Yacht Club in September, but our loose cruising plan seemed to be morphing in a way that would make that inconvenient. So we went there from Baltimore, expecting more typical August weather. The weather really didn't get that bad, but we had a nice week there anyway. The facility is very nice - a nice building with a restaurant mostly open on weekends, a pool, laundry - and a great price for Loopers. We met Jim and Peg (Sanctuary) there. Joe had conversed with Jim a lot on at least one forum and was glad to finally meet him in person. Another reason we wanted to stop there was to see Jerry and Janet again. We had met them when we were finishing our second loop and they were just starting their first one, in 2011. In July of this year, they were one of the few couples at the Looper gathering that we'd met before. While there, they had talked about how they had originally wanted a Great Harbour 37. They visited on Lazy Dolphin - who they'd met on the loop - and renewed their desire to own one. We mentioned a couple that we knew were for sale and also that our friends Bruce and Joan in Annapolis were planning to sell theirs (Forever 39) fairly soon. Not too much later, we learned that Jerry and Janet were thrilled to be buying Bruce and Joan's boat. So after arriving at Md. Yacht Club, we got together with a bottle of almost champagne and toasted the soon to be At Last.
With Labor Day weekend approaching, we decided we'd like to be somewhere away from the crowds, so we moved back to Bob and Elaine's. Bob and Elaine actually had cruising plans with their sailboat group, so we held down the dock while they were gone. Dobbins Island, across the river, is a big party place - especially on holidays. With great weekend weather, all the boats were out.
The end of summer means we need to start making plans to work our way back south, but we have a few more stops to make along the way.
More pictures on picasa
http://picasaweb.google.com/joseph.pica
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