Baltimore and crossing over to the other side

No, not the dark side-the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake!

This is the Officer's Club at Aberdeen.  The foreground left is the building where we stayed.

We headed north first instead of south toward Boston so we could see the Concord Point Lighthouse in Havre de Grace, MD, the oldest lighthouse in continuous operation in the US.

Replica of the Lazzaretto Point Lighthouse in Baltimore Harbor:

Fort McHenry.  Francis Scott Key was on a ship watching the bombardment of this fort by British warships during the War of 1812 when he was moved to write the Star Spangled Banner.  At the end of the introductory movie, a screen lifts as our national anthem plays and a flag is sighted flying over the fort.  There was a class of 3rd graders in the visitor center with us.  As the music began first one, then 2 or 3 more, then 5 or 6 stood until the whole class was standing and singing, with their hands over their hearts, as the flag was revealed.  We were impressed and moved.

Baltimore inner harbor, Chesapeake Light Ship, submarine Torsk and the very modern and large buildings house the National Aquarium.  It looks as if it would take at least a whole day to do the aquarium justice, so we'll save it for our next visit. 

The USS Constellation is the last sail-only warship designed and built by the U.S. Navy.  When we last visited in 1994, it was in rough shape.  We were glad to see her looking so sharp:

This wonderful sign was in front of Barnes & Noble:

Coast Guard Cutter Taney, the last US warship afloat today that was in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

This is 7 Foot Knoll Light, one of only 4 remaining Chesapeake Bay screwpile lights, and now open to visitors in Baltimore.  The stories of moving the 3 lights (one is still active) to their museum sites are all different.  This one was carried here by a crane, as illustrated in the picture below.  The one at Solomons Island was moved into place by a bridge building company that had been cited for dumping unneeeded cement into the water.  There were intimations that the fines could go away if the lighthouse was moved and it was.
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Edgar Allen Poe's grave:

Back on the boat:  Once a month routine maintenance includes cleaning the engine, generator and air conditioner sea strainers to keep unwanted gunk from going through.   The ice maker and refrigerator also have to be defrosted (makes us appreciate the frost-free models we all have in our homes!), and the sump that drains the shower and air conditioners cleaned.  This is the engine compartment:

We left Patuxent Naval Air Station Sunday, June 3rd.  These cliffs are about 30 miles long and contain many fossils.   
                   

Cove Point Lighthouse.  The tanks in the background are part of Dominion Point LNG Terminal,

one of our country's biggest liquified natural gas facilities:

Across the bay to the Eastern Shore, we docked in St. Michaels.

The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum here is the biggest and most informative maritime museum we've visited.  This is a replica of the boat John Smith used to explore the Chesapeake.  In 2007, 12 people spent 121 days traveling 1700 miles on this boat, repeating Smith's journey.

We'll let the sign describe this one.

There was an extensive boat building, repair and restoration facility:

The Hooper Strait Lighthouse is the 3rd screwpile lighthouse at a museum.  It was cut apart at the roof line to be moved here.

  Can you guess what the little room hanging off the rail is?

Something that didn't have to be considered for Great Lakes lighthouses, even those far from land,  was how to get fresh water.  Here, large cisterns were placed throughout the lighthouses and rain water was collected from the roof.  When it rained, the keepers would let the first rain wash dirt off the roof, then they would open valves to fill the cisterns.

A view from the lighthouse:

Another of their restored boats:

This 50's era powerboat had a very familiar cabin design-just like our 1985 25 foot Cruisers.  The side dinette (we used to take the table down, stuff a washcloth in the table-leg hole, and make a crib for baby Benjer), the bunk beds, the big windows in the front of the cabin.  Someone from Cruisers had to have seen this boat.  Wonder if cabin designs can be copyrighted.

A familiar feeling:

This gorgeous boat belonged to the same family (2 generations) for almost 75 years.  There must be a lot of good memories.


John is pulling up an eel trap,

but there's only a couple of small fish and an unhappy crab.

How many oysters can he capture?

Hmmm.   Don't think we'd make a living at it.

Oyster dredges that were used on boats:

Yep, you can't just pull off an exit when you're tired!

Annapolis & Lighthouses

Happy 60th Anniversary to Mary's mom and dad.  We love you and miss you.

Friday, May 25, we drove to Annapolis.  We were last here in the 80's.  John Paul Jones' crypt in the basement of the Naval Academy chapel:

We went to the Naval Academy Museum, had lunch in the Officers' Club, and wandered around the campus.  Then we looked for the navy marina.  It is pretty, but much more expensive than Patuxent, and REALLY in the middle of nowhere.  We looked for a Sharp's Point Lighthouse which is on the Maryland state map, but not on the signs at other lighthouses or in our (actually Mary's mom's) lighthouse encyclopedia.  We finally found it:

The only information we could find was an on-line (not sure of the veracity of the site) photo and indication that it was decommissioned, turned into a b&b and is now a private residence.  This is the Maryland WWII monument:

Saturday we went on a lighthouse ride.  We knew Point Lookout light was near the Potomac River, but hadn't been able to spot it from the water.  We found it at a state park that was the site of the largest Civil War prisoner of war camp.  It was a Union site and more people died here than at Andersonville.

While heading to the next lighthouse, we found this monument.  One of the boilers was bad on the ship and the captain had been told not to fire it up but he wanted to move quickly away from Confederate ships to the Washington Navy Yard for repairs so ignored the orders.

We drove through St. Mary's, the first capitol of Maryland.  We knew that there is an historic reenactment village there, but tend to not go out of our way to see them because, after all, we have Greenfield Village in Michigan and how could you top that?  In fact, there is an historic site on the navy base that was the location of a farm and the marker indicates that Henry Ford bought the house and outbuildings and moved them to Greenfield Village!  Anyway, St. Mary's looks like an English village and we accidentally visited.  We parked the car to look at an old church and the reconstruction of the first capitol building:

A couple was standing on a hill overlooking the Potomac and Mary wandered over to see what they were looking at.  There was the replica of the Dove, one of the ships that brought the English settlers.  Before John could get there with the camera, the ship's cannon fired:

We continued our stroll and came to the gift store and a sign that said "purchase tickets here"  and realized we'd already toured part of the site without paying.  We decided to find someplace to eat lunch then return, buy tickets, and continue exploring.  We could not find a single eating establishment in St. Mary's and by the time we drove 10 miles and found an A&W, we decided to just continue to the Piney Point Lighthouse:

During our extended stay at Pax River NAS, we discovered Red Box movie rentals.  We had, of course, seen them lots of times, but decided to take advantage here, as there are a couple of movies we had been hoping to see.  We rented Cowboys and Alien (do NOT bother with this one), Puss 'n Boots (we both enjoyed it) and Tower Heist (pretty funny).  Descendents and Muppet Movie were both out of stock each time we checked, so we'll have to keep those on the list.

We drove across the river to Solomons Island to see Mary and John and the Calvert Maritime museum.  This picture shows the "screwpiles", which many Chesapeake Bay lighthouses have, as there was not good foundation material to build on in the water.  As the lighthouse leaned, different screws could be tightened to level it out.

Bret Michaels is in this picture.  Really!  He was giving a concert here and there were so many security people around this bus that it had to be his.  Taken from the Drum Point Lighthouse, on the grounds of the Calvert Maritime Museum.

We had stopped to see Mary and John before we went to the museum, met them for lunch, then we traveled together to AnnMarie Garden.  Mary knew she loved it as soon as she entered the grounds!

The garden was featuring fairy and gnome houses:

This Chesapeake waterman is near the front entrance to the museum.  There are several modern sculptures on permanent display, but we all liked the fairy houses better than those.

We sat on Passport's top deck for drinks and good company and said our goodbyes until the next time our paths cross.

We left by car Memorial Day to visit Baltimore.  We drove a little way off the highway to see the Cove Point lighthouse:

We drove a LONG way off the highway (didn't look so far on the map!) to see a museum in a railroad station, but it was closed.  We drove past Baltimore to Aberdeen Proving Grounds, where the army tests a lot of equipment.  There is a lighthouse on base, but it's in a restricted area so we didn't get to see it.  We had a very nice suite in the DVQ: