Merry Maryland & Phab Philly

On the second floor landing of Bancroft Hall, the dormitory at Annapolis Naval Academy, looking down at the front entrance. An impressive-looking college steeped in naval tradition.

ZIG ZAGGING THE CHESAPEAKE

We had great experiences zig-zagging around Maryland in May. We visited the small communities of Solomons Island, on the Southwest side of the Chesapeake, and zigged to St. Michaels, along the mid-Eastern side of the Chesapeake. We stayed in each town for one night.

The red line is our actual course from Washington D.C. to Cape May, New Jersey.(1)

At Solomons, we borrowed the marina’s bikes and pedaled less than a mile to a popular indoor/outdoor bar. Per usual, we played dominoes and had drinks. The next day, at St. Michaels, we anchored in front of a ritzy hotel. We dinghied to shore to do the Chesapeake Maritime Museum. It featured twentieth-century wooden boats endemic to the Chesapeake. It also explained the boom and bust of the oyster industry over the last one hundred years. The oyster industry was decimated by overfishing and pollution. You got the sense that they wanted to preserve the arduous way of life for the hard-working watermen (oyster and crab fishermen) and can packers. 

Me, admiring ol’ wooden boats at the Chesapeake Maritime Museum. TBH, I’ve seen quite a few maritime museums now. Astoria, Oregon, you had the best so far! I have a feeling I’ll probably keep visiting them.

We also met, for the first time, Mike's second cousins, Juliet Taylor and Jill Graf, who live near St. Michaels. They took us to our first Chesapeake Bay blue crab restaurant. After evading so many crab traps on our routes, it was great to finally munch on some! We ordered two each. They were served steaming hot in Bay Seasoning. On the side was malt vinegar and butter warmed over individual Sternos. We found them delicious; briny and a bit sweet, somewhat like the Dungeness crabs we're familiar with but blue crabs are a bit smaller. 

Next, we zagged to the middle-West side of the Chesapeake to Annapolis, home of 1) the U.S. Naval Academy, and 2) the Maryland State House. It was exciting to approach Annapolis from the water--even though it was a Wednesday. Many recreational boats were darting this way and that. The town's colonial skyline was colorful. Lotsa people were hanging out at the dockside pubs lining the harbor. We opted for a mooring buoy, centrally located. There were so many mooring buoys that a water taxi cruised the harbor, shuttling eager boaters to and fro.

Here’s one lovely view at sunset along the waterfront in Annapolis. Small sailing skiffs were all ready for the next class.

During a ninety-minute tour of Annapolis, we learned many fun facts. (2) Again, I didn’t do any research ahead, so it was all new to me. Three long-lasting surprises:

• The end-of-the-year tradition where the freshmen, “plebes” climb together to the top of a greased obelisk to replace a plebe “Dixie cup” hat with an upperclassman hat. This marked the end of the plebe requirements such as jogging across the quad to and from classes.
• John Paul Jones was buried underneath the chapel after being buried in France (where he was much admired) and then re-buried, where his body was “lost”. He was considered the initiator of the United States Navy and was a life-long mariner. He was admired for rousing his crew by saying, “I have not yet begun to fight,” when all looked lost in one of his many naval battles.
• Students mostly studied STEM. There was a cap on the percent of students that study liberal arts.

This was the dormitory at the Military Academy! It’s Bancroft Hall and was designed by a French architect—in the Beaux Arts style. Not very military-ish, but certainly impressive.

We also enjoyed another long visit to a historic site that we mistakingly thought would be a quick-in and quick-out, the Maryland State House. Yes, it’s just the state capitol building, but it’s also steeped in history. It was the first post-revolutionary war capital, although just for one year until 1784. It was also famous for being the location where George Washington relinquished his position as General.(3)

The State House delegated the whole, original room to a type of reenactment of this event. I thought it was engaging how they put a statue of George Washington in the room, reading his speech to Congress. From the signage nearby, “Washington bowed to Congress, and read the speech he had written on a single sheet of paper. As he spoke, Washington’s ‘voice faltered and sunk’ with emotion…after which Washington bowed to Congress. In gratitude for his service, the members responded by removing their hats.”

We also met up with my Mom's cousin, Larry Shotland, as well as his local friend, Dee. They drove us around town, helping us complete some errands, (thanks Larry!) and topped off our time with a first-class dinner overlooking the harbor.

Fancy dinner with my mom’s cousin, Larry Shotland, and friend, Dee, with a wide view of Annapolis Harbor. It was a wonderful evening getting to know Larry better. I love meeting our relatives along this trip.

Here, a departing shot of Annapolis, with the domes of the Naval Academy, graceful sailboats, and colorful waterfront homes:

On our trek to the Northernmost part of the Chesapeake, we would have stopped next in Baltimore, but the authorities only allowed recreational boaters to pass under the Francis Scott Key Bridge(4) on Sundays.

PHILADELPHIA

Our final zag in the Chesapeake was Northeast, where we exited the Chesapeake and entered a relatively small waterway: the twenty-mile-long Chesapeake and Delaware Canal (aka "The C and D"). For the first time since we started living in Sacagawea, we took two days off in a hotel in Philadelphia.

This was purely a history-finding trip. We went to the Museum of Art(4) and a Rodin museum. 

We took a walking tour where we heard about the controversy surrounding whether Betsy Ross was the actual maker of the first United States flag. We learned about Ben Franklin's lightning rod, which has led us to notice stylized versions everywhere.

We found the streets in Philadelphia a bit gritty, much like Savannah. Preserving three-hundred-year-old architecture, sidewalks, and roads must be expensive work. 

No walking tour of old Philadelphia is complete without a meander down Elfreth’s Alley, “the oldest surviving residential street in the United States.” So charming. And narrow.

Back at Sacagawea, we had renewed enthusiasm for the trek. While we found the C & D Canal not especially remarkable, the dock master at the Delaware City Marina was. He held a "Captain's Meeting" each evening. The purpose? To guide Loopers on transiting down Delaware Bay to Cape May, the Southern point of New Jersey, and pivot point, to continue North along the Atlantic Coast. Delaware Bay is a fifteen-mile-wide body of water that opens to the Atlantic Ocean. The dock master lectured on Delaware Bay weather, currents, and tides and reviewed the forecast. Most boaters planned their go, no-go decisions together at the Captain's Meeting. We wish other marinas would host such an event for tough segments like this one. Mike, especially, has done this informally with other boaters at critical points at various marinas. However, we always consider local knowledge the best source.

We found the houses and towns so cute and liveable-looking in Maryland. Boating also seems to be an important feature of the Maryland experience. Unlike other parts of our trip so far, this includes sailing.

The next chapter: New Jersey and New York. This required a cruise outside of canals, into the big, blue Atlantic Ocean.  

FOOTNOTES FOR FUN FACT FANS

(1) I figured out how to extract this as a report from Nebo, an app that most Loopers use to track and communicate where they are with other Loopers.

(2) Annapolis is a four-year college where the student's costs are paid by the U.S. military in exchange for five years of service. Currently, 30% of the students are women. Everyone must participate in athletics, whether it's Division One football, other inter-league sports, or intramural sports.

(3) From another placard nearby, “By resigning as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the end of the Revolutionary War, George Washington confirmed the power of civil authority—the Congress—over the military. Four years later, the principle of civilian authority over the military was enshrined in Article II of the United States Constitution which says, ‘The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States…’.” The implications of his speech were a big deal at the time. We mostly take it for granted, now, don’t we? 

(4) You may know of the tragic cargo ship accident that disabled the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Commercial traffic was the primary user of the waterway. Authorities created an alternate route for commercial vessels to transit under the bridge. A few weeks after the accident, authorities allowed recreational boaters to transit during a two-hour window on Sundays. We didn’t want to stay a week in Baltimore. 

During my time in Washington D.C., I stumbled upon fun facts about Key’s Star Spangled Banner. Posted in the National Gallery: “Francis Scott Key’s song roused a nation’s spirits during the War of 1812. He wrote the words to fit the melody of ‘To Anacreon in Heaven,’ a well-known 18th-century British tune…it gained new popularity during the Civil War, and by the early 1900s it was a fixture at public ceremonies and celebrations.” In 1931, Congress made ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ America’s national anthem.”

(5) This museum was filled with eighteenth and nineteenth century European “period rooms”, filled with the decorative furniture, paintings, knick knacks, fireplaces, etc. of the original homes that were remodeled or otherwise changed. 

I also learned that tea came to England only in the late 1600s from China. It slowly became embedded in British life starting with the upper classes until it became commonplace after fifty-ish years. 

Yet another fun fact from the museum: the Netherlands was a great source for decorative tiles because they used tiles extensively. Tiles stood up better to a wet climate—half of the Dutch population lived at or near water.