Well.
I was trying to keep the trend of songs referring to my locations and this was the only one I could find that had a snappy beat. It is by the Magnetic Fields. Below is a link to listen to the YouTube. I figure it will be rocketing to the top of the charts any day.
I was off to visit a friend from college that lived on Capitol Hill, the neighborhood, not the actual building. He is a pretty impressive guy. Not many people I know that I would trade spots with, but where I live for the experiential with limited possesions, he opts for the multiple toys route.
The plan was to fly in on a Friday morning and leave for Detroit via Baltimore airport on Monday morning. I arrived about 9am and by 10am wewere already on the water sipping drinks.
His boat was docked near the airport in some sort of bay, estuary, whatever. The water was salty and there were jellyfish swimming around. Below is a picture of where we were. I will now explain how stupid I am. He was docked near the top left portion of the image where it says "Harold Harbor" Annapolis Maryland is where we intended to sail to is down near the botom right. I figured past Annapolis was the ocean.
So below is a wider shot. This shows Annapolis and the chesapeake Bay. Apparently disproving my theory of Annapolis being the end of the flat world.
As we pull back even farther we can see that we were really not close to the ocean at all. It took me until last night, starting this blog and wanted to show picture of area, to figure this out.
As mentioned we hit the water early. We made a brief stop for mixers and food. I was kinda amazed at the Quick-E-Mart as they were making subs and it was all touch screen. it was like a subway where you just click on the sub, toppings, sauce etc and then it sends order to person standing in front of you. For some reason all I could think about was how this would go over if the customer was coming in drunk at 3am. Seems like it would be a cluster-bleep. Who ordered the 15 italian subs with every topping and every sauce and 32 pickles on the side?
We made it to the dock. I was out of my element and Joe took full advantage to ridicule me; I would do the same of course. I did not know which was starboard or stern and I sure as hell could not raise the spinnaker or whatever.
We took his little dinghy boat, which I referred to as a bouy, out to the 35ft sailboat. That dinghy would play a major role in a few hours. We got on board. I was in charge of drinks and staying out of the way.
Joe messed around with a few things and the sails came alive and we began clipping along towards Annapolis at roughly 0 knots. We drifted and drank for a few hours listening to some Marley and shaking the city out, but eventually we were not making any progress and motored back to port.
Wejumped in the Dinghy with some drinks and made our back back towards Annapolis. After we got out for about 5 minutes the wind picked up and realized we could have actually sailed it. We pulled into this little facy seaside town with yachts galore in our 10 ft dinghy. We saddled up to the dock and were an impressive site to be sure. All the women immediately took notice.
we bellied up to a bar and continued the downward spiral. I am on this ginger kick so we had a Russian Mule (Vodka & Ginger) and a Dark and Stormy (Rum and Ginger)
We got some food and a TV (read basement cable access) crew showed up and asked me if I knew the meaning of the word Epistemology. I of course nailed it and earned a stupid looking Tshirt. I have no idea what they were doing, but the mood went sour when Joe refused to let them use the footage of himself on TV. They laughed, and he said, "no, I am serious" and they uncomfortably walked away.
Eventually we headed back to base and drove back into DC. Showered up, did a little pregaming and went out for a somewhat subdued night on the town in the Capitol Hill area.
The following day we got up and hit the pool. Before hitting the pool we visited one of Joe'[s friends, Chris who is a builder. Both he and Joe own a few houses in the Georgetown area. Right now Chris was working on a row house. The house had sunk 2 feet in one corner only so every floor was slanted. This meant that he had to rip out every floor and level them. It was pretty interesting and impressive logic puzzle.
After the pool we met up with some girlfriends of Joe and played some pool and had a few drinks. I ended up getting a little chalk on my face. If you look closely you can just see it.
Earlier on that afternoon I got first run on a scooter. I know, 36 yo and never rode a moped. Well i got a crash course. Joe handed me what looked like strainer for a hat and showed me the turn signals and off we went. It took me a while to figure out what the hell I was doing, but I soon gained the feeling of invincibility which can be dangerous as this thing topped out at 60mph and we were not only briefly hitting freeways but also in downtown DC, which is a complete traffic mess.
The next day was Sunday and we headed back out the boat with the ladies from the night before. Basically did nothing all day. At one point we were clipping along at 6mph (good wind that day) and I decided to jump off the boat, claiming I would catch up. Well, I thought I was a good swimmer but that was just a delusion of grandeur. I swam as hard as i could as was so close to grabbing the ladder but kept looking up and lost my momentum. I had this feeling I would swim right into the prop, which was a bit odd since it was not spinning. Anyway I gave up and Joe dropped sail and told me to hurry up. he was about 30 ft away and I was gassed. I was using all my strength just to stay afloat. I had to back paddle to the boat almost having a heart attack. I must have looked pretty cool getting back in the boat that day.
We closed out the day about 7pm and headed back into DC for dinner. Joe was in rare form to say the least.
The next day I got up and took the train from Union Station to Baltimore for the flight out. A great weekend that took 3 days to recover. I think once a year is about right.
Until Next time
Darren
« Pine River Kayaking. River Raging! Cadillac MI | Main | Colorado: Feel My Wrath (1 of 8) »
