Sunday May 30, 2021.
Temp: 55/50, Humidity: 80/96%, Top Wind: N15 mph, Precip-some rain, Miles Traveled: 1.5 walk around town
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One thing I will not miss about this marina slip in Annapolis is the rocking! I think if you set a marble on the table, it would never stop moving. We only had a bit of rain today, nothing like yesterday. But it’s been chilly all day. Our friends Jane & Steve who have been on the mooring ball finally came in to the marina today to plug in. Their batteries were getting tired, and they were cold. Jane said this was the best $99 she’d spent in a long time – to be warm! This chilly weather is for the hearty, that’s for sure.
If there is one thing good that came out of the whole Covid pandemic for boaters, it is the availability of grocery delivery! Yesterday it was so rainy and cold, there was no way I wanted to ride my bike to a grocery store that is about 1.5 miles away. I’d be frozen and wet, and my groceries would be soaked. And I’m pretty sure my compadre wasn’t into it either. Enter Instacart! I’d never used anything like it before, and other boaters have said that it’s the cat’s meow. So I scoped it out. We were out of some basic stuff like bread, milk, eggs, lettuce, etc. So I did my list, put in my payment info, hit send…. and within two hours a nice lady was here with my groceries! WHAT?!? 🤯 The prices were definitely higher than I would normally see in a store, but in the long run, having groceries is better than not having groceries, yes? And I knew I needed to get them now because it could be a week before we’re in a spot to get more. So, there ya go! We won’t starve now, and I know you would have worried about that, because that’s the kind of people you are. 😏
We pretty much just hung around the boat today. It was cold and cloudy and rocky and rolly. Mechanic went to the basement for awhile to make sure that Laverne and Shirley are up to the task over the next few days to take us to New York. Miss Laverne Jelous-pants seems to be burning some oil. She says it’s not fair that Shirley got a total make over last summer, like the prodigal daughter, while she’s been faithful all along, making up for the slacker-sister for years. 🤷♀️ Whatareyagonnado? Somebody is always complaining.
Jane asked if we wanted to do dinner, and I said sure! However, I did not take into consideration that there is a barbeque station here that Kenny’s taste buds were set on. Jane and Steve don’t eat meat, and there isn’t much else on a bbq joint menu, so I knew that wasn’t the best option for them. They got the rest of the loopers together and went to a nearby popular eatery. I felt really bad for ditching them, and it was my bad.
We went to Mission BBQ. They have some good food, and they are a very patriotic bunch, which we appreciate.
The food was good and tasty. There was a navy man there in his white uniform. That seems like asking for trouble to eat barbeque while wearing white! I am really curious what the rules are about their uniforms. We’ve seen so many short sleeve white uniforms around town. Are they always supposed to wear them while off campus? Perhaps they aren’t allowed civilian clothing unless on leave? I don’t know. I don’t even know the difference between leave and liberty. 🤷♀️ So I looked it up. Leave is vacation. Liberty is regular time off, like weekends. But in any case, they sure do look sharp and are very well mannered! Lots of respect in this town.
Since there was no beer available with the bbq, I asked my date if he’d like to go have a beer somewhere. I found the Fox’s Den on the Google, which is just up the road near the bourbon place. It’s kind of a cool place…. it’s downstairs from sidewalk level. (It would make a good ‘speakeasy’!) Just as we were turning to go in, someone called “Hey Starks!”. What?! Hey! It was Tim and Amy who toured our boat at the Looper Crawl in St. Michaels! They live in the area and just happened to be in town and saw us. They are super nice people who are in the Loop planning stages. They have a big dock at their house just north of Annapolis. When we met in St Michaels, they offered for us to come tie up if we were unable to stay here at the marina through this crummy weather weekend. It was nice to chat with them for a few minutes, and Amy recommended a good ice cream stop. 😋 We’ve met some of the neatest people on the Loop! It really is the best part of the adventure. Even better than beer, bourbon, bbq, or donuts. 🤭
Down in the den, Ken ordered a barrel aged imperial stout that was like drinking dessert. It was heavy and perfectly what our youngest son likes. His nickname is Bubba, and this was definitely a Bubbabeer. I had a blackberry cider that was tasty – not too sweet, not too sour. They had a pretty decent bourbon list, and it was a bit less expensive than the Bourbon, Beer and Provisions place.
It was nice to find someplace that had several beers on tap to choose from. They even had a wood fired pizza oven down in the den.
We just had the one drink and then started to head back to the boat. But wait! Amy said to go to the penguin ice cream place! I still had room for dessert, so we turned around and went back up the street.
I was kind of disappointed because out of their zillion flavors, they did not have a carmel praline kind of ice cream. But I forced myself to buy a scoop of penguin tracks which had chocolate swirls and peanut butter cup nuggets. It wasn’t terrible. 😋
I captured this last quick picture up a street to the State House.
If you’d like to see a real tour of Annapolis, search my blog with the little magnifying glass thingy, and you’ll find a couple of days of good photo safari stuff that I did back in 2018. We were allowed on the Naval Academy grounds that year, and it was so cool! This year was just too cold and wet to do much strolling around. In fact, Tim said that they nearly always attend the USNA graduation, and this is the coldest weekend since 2003? 🥶
We wandered on back to the boat and turned the heat on. Earlier today, Jane and I had gone to visit another looper boat. They are planning to get up to New York in the next few days also, and said that the popular Great Kills Yacht Club is pretty booked. We stayed there in 2018, so I’ve been looking for some place different anyway. I had emailed a couple of people about recommendations for places to stay once we get around Sandy Hook New Jersey, so I spent some time reading and researching. I think Atlantic Highlands might be the place, so we’ll see what I can find out tomorrow about reservations.