A dear friend of your favorite Home Vacation Team, Tracy, recently had to move to Annapolis, MD for her job and wanted friends to visit her in her new place. Tracy also invited Carl and Jill down; it was Jill's birthday. What followed was a liquor induced hazy weekend that I will try and reconstruct with this entry.
Laden with bottles of wine as gifts for our hostess, Janet and I drove down on Thursday night. Typical of all my driving routes, we avoided Route 95 and took the somewhat roundabout way through the eastern shore of Maryland and over the Bay Bridge. Actually, according to Google maps both routes were equal in distance and time. But the route going down Route 301 and the Bay Bridge had no tolls in this direction. Remember...cheap...
Most of the traffic was heading east towards shore points and we avoided any drastic traffic jams. This is not usually the case as we learned the hard way on Saturday when we drove to Kent Island and on Sunday afternoon for our return. Still, we arrived pretty much the same time as the other guests, despite the seemingly meandering way.
After relaxing a bit we took a taxi to a restaurant on the South River for their delectable half priced happy hour appetizers. The bar area of Yellowfin was crowded with patrons aware of the good food served here. We each ordered an appetizer. Janet had a "Rainbow Tower" which had three different types of raw fish, layered between large fried won tons. I had fish and chips; pedestrian by comparison. As we chatted we watched the sun glint off the vast windows overlooking the scenic marina.
We took another taxi into Annapolis proper to walk along Dock Street to ogle with the rest of the hoi polloi gathered here on this hot night the yachts of the well-heeled. After yet another quick drink in the Middleton Tavern and attempting to negotiate its warren of corridors to find the men's room, we took a taxi back to Tracy's to drink even more.
Jill's birthday was Friday. She spent most of the day wishing she was not hungover. Tracy had to work and the rest of us drove into Washington, D.C. for the museums. We had a limited amount of time though, and Jill was of very limited means. So, we settled for two museums. First we went to the Museum of Natural History. We found a fortuitous parking spot directly in front of the place on Constitution Avenue. We then saw a head spinning 3D film about dinosaurs, the Hope Diamond and several dinosaur skeletons. Surprisingly Jill held up pretty well, even when we walked across the Mall to hit the Air and Space Museum. There we oohed and aahed over the various displays of airplanes and capsules from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions. Janet was especially interested in the World War II displays of aircraft because she had an uncle that served as a tail gunner. I dragged her through the WWI display. We then separated from Jill and Carl at this point, because we went on to meet my daughter for her 23rd birthday.
Ally has been living down in Maryland just outside of Baltimore with her mother since she left school last spring. She's not returning to Florida this fall and she agreed to meet for a birthday dinner. Jill was too tired from cavorting about the night before and declined to meet her birthday partner, Ally, though she and Carl had expressed an interest in meeting my vivacious first born. A friend from the D.C. area recommended a place called Busboys and Poets. A restaurant, bookstore and bar, it's reference is to Langston Hughes who worked as a busboy before gaining recognition as a poet. It's eclectic clientle and menu in the high ceiling airy place made for a pleasant place to meet my girl. Modertly priced, Janet had a meatloaf sandwich, Ally a hamburger and I a blackened Mahi sandwich, each priced under $10.00. Bright sunlight streamed through the tall windows as Ally smiled over the modest gifts I had gotten her. As a Dad it's always great to have your daughter smile at you.
After seeing my daughter drive off out of my life for another four months or so, Janet and I toured D.C. a bit. We drove along Embassy Row on Massachusetts, through Georgetown and searched for the "Exorcist Stairs" and over to Arlington Cemetery, which was closed for the day. We then drove back across the Potomac River and walked through the impressive Jefferson Memorial as the waning light of day turned the dome a dusty pink. We stood next to the statue and peered out onto the Tidal Basin and thought how nice it was to be here. I've always liked this town; I had been here several times over the years. I've run three marathons here and while in high school studied journalism one summer long long ago. This was Janet's first trip.
We finished our visit to D.C. with a drive by the Capitol. Bullards prevented us from getting close by car so we drove slowly by, careful not to slow our pace too much. We felt like we were being watched intently until we left the capitol hill area. We slipped quickly along route 50 and the drive back to Tracy's townhome was quiet. We arrived to find Jill convulsing in a dry-heave to the Rolling Stones, while her husband tapped a beer bottle to compliment Charles Watts' rhythmic drumming. No matter how many drinks we inbibed we would never catch up with this bacchanalia.
Saturday was spent driving around on Kent Island and finding more places to drink. After fighting traffic across the Bay Bridge we briefly toured a golf course then hit a couple of bars situated right on the marinas. I asked about crabs, but they were far too expensive! A dozen "jumbo" at the first place was in the neighborhood of $70.00. Everywhere at The Crab Deck people were banging and prying at the pile of critters before them, but we settled for beers and moved on to the next place. It was a biker bar. Red Eyes Dock Bar had some event going and there were a lot of tattooed, pierced, doo-ragged, overweight biker types left over even though by the time we arrived most of the festivities seemed to winding down. A cover band played music as eclectic as Sublime to Prince. But, there was no admission and the beers were the same price as the last place, so we settled in at a table next to the water for a few. The sun was warm, but the water (and beers) kept us cool. Moving on we decided to stay in the Kent Island Narrows area rather than return to Annapolis for dinner. We ate a decent meal at a Fisherman's Wharf that had a lionel train set tootling around a track suspended from the ceiling. I had a spinach salad with blackened mahi. It was good, but it was way too overpriced.
Only Janet andI went out to Annapolis later that night. The other three wanted to stay home, but it was far too early for us and we found a parking spot and walked around the town again. I purchased a cigar and we watched as sailors in their dress whites stroll the town with their dates. We window shopped and admired the old homes. We peered into the dark campus of the Academy and kissed on the dock of the National Sailing Hall of Fame.
Sunday we went for a lunch with Tracy at a chain craft brewer in something called Parole, Maryland. It was in a mall. The beers were decent and the prices reasonable.
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