4/30/18 Monday: This looper schedule is taking over our bodies and brains! We were both awake at 5:00am. What the heck?! That ain’t natural for a Stark! I laid there until 6 and finally got up. No big schedule today, so we chilled out and had brunch around 11:00. Its a nice change to have omelets, fruit and toast at a leisurely pace. Sometime around noon we ventured out to explore historic Portsmouth. It is on the southwestern side of the Elizabeth River. Norfolk is on the opposite side. We found several looper boats here in this marina. The AGLCA Spring Renedezvous is happening today through Thursday over in Norfolk. We did not register to go to the event because we did not want to have a schedule this early in our trip. We are here just in time for it by coincidence. While here, we got our Fleet of 2018 T-shirt’s! 🤗 Yay Island Girl! See there – we are not alone out here on this adventure!
Historic Portsmouth is quite interesting. There doesn’t seem to be a typical architectural style. The original Olde Towne dates back to 1752 when William Crawford took 65 acres of his plantation and laid out the area of streets and half acre lots. He named the community Portsmouth after his hometown in England. Homes here date back to the 1700s.
This was a Mermaid house B&B. I thought the front porch art was so cute! Both of our daughters were really born as mermaids, but before we could take them home from the hospital, they had to be transformed to have legs. They still cannot deny their love to be in the water, and both of them taught swimming lessons when they were teenagers. 😉
The sidewalks seem like they are 300 years old too. They are brick and very rugged and uneven. And covered with tree pollen. We have been having eternal spring since we left Florida. The oak trees were dropping pollen 7 weeks ago, and everywhere as we move north is doing the same thing! These sidewalks literally had piles of pollen!
This house is from 1789. Check out the wood siding! I wonder how many coats of paint are on there over 230 years?
This Catholic Church was huge! The big stones were really impressive. I read some of its history, and it is amazing how many times the church building was destroyed by fire and rebuilt. It wasn’t open, so I couldn’t go inside, but I bet it was amazing.
This is a Confederate Memorial, completed in 1881. It sits smack dab in the middle of a street. There are four people statues around the base representing the four branches of the Confederate Military: Calvary, Artillery, Infantry and Navy.
This is St. John’s Episcopal Church. The church was founded in 1848, and this building dates to 1896.
This is the Court Street Baptist church, founded in 1789. The original structure was burned down. This existing building was completed in 1901 with pink granite from North Carolina. It is “Romanesque Revival” style.
When we were done walking around Olde Towne, we took the little ferry boat across the river to Norfolk Waterside. ($4 each, round trip).
Most of the boats in this picture are looper boats! We are not alone!
We walked along the waterfront, then went into the Waterside building. It houses a dozen or so very large restaurants! We pulled into Guy Fieri’s Smokehouse. He had some really wonderful sounding things on his menu!! We each got a very unique and yummy drink, and shared a trashcan nachos appetizer. Oh man was this good! They bring it to the table in a can, then lift it up and the pile of goodness settles down on the plate. Nacho chips with cheese, baked beans, smoked brisket pieces, more cheese, sour cream… and for most people but not for me… purple onions, jalapeños, and picco de gallo. Wow – what a flavor fest!
In Norfolk, they have mermaids around town! We only found a couple of them.
It was time to go meet SeaJamm! Sherry and Alan are friends that we met last fall at a Looper event. They too have a BAYLINER, so we are meant to be friends on the loop! They are wonderfully fun people! We visited on their boat with 2 other couples that have BAYLINER boats. It was great fun! They will be here in Norfolk until Thursday or Friday. We are leaving for York River tomorrow. We have different itineraries and ‘schedules’, but I sure do hope we can fit in some cruising days and destinations with them sometime soon, because they are so fun! They had an event dinner to go to, so we took the ferry back to our side of the river. A beautiful calm evening! Tomorrow should be a lovely calm day on the water, so we will head out into the Chesapeake to our next destination! Hopefully we’ll find less congested waterways. Apparently the river here and over to Hampton (known as Hampton Roads) is as busy or busier than New York Harbor. Norfolk is home to the world’s largest naval base, including aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, support ships, nuclear submarines and admiral’s barges. And then there is all of the commercial traffic and the naval shipyard. Congested waterways are not our favorite places to be boating!
We had a beautiful calm sunset.
Am looking forward to your commentary as you cruise north to NJ/NY. Lived on Long Island and along the NJ Raritan River until I went to college. Spent summers just north of Cape May. Enjoy.