Short Run over to Annapolis, MD -- July 4

This was a very important day as it was Avery's eighth birthday, in addition to being the 248th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Accordingly, we had big plans for the day, starting with the Fourth of July parade in Rock Hall. We learned that one of the women in the marina office was giving people rides over to town to see the parade, so we signed up for one so as to avoid the one-mile walk on a hot and humid morning. We found a place to sit on the curb in the shade to watch the parade, which was a classic small town affair. It started promptly at ten and lasted almost an hour. The best part was that pretty much every car or fire truck or vehicle in the parade tossed candy to the kids. Avery ended up with well over a pound of treats. What a great start to a birthday!

After the parade we ran the boat over to Annapolis, which was a short but sloppy ride. Just an hour-and-a-half and 21 miles but heading into a chop from the south and running against the tidal current. We docked at the Annapolis Maryland Capital Yacht Club in a part of town called Eastport, across Spa Creek from the Naval Academy and the old downtown area. The marina was just a quarter mile from where the fireworks barge was anchored in the harbor, so we knew we would have good seats for the fireworks show. Once we got settled at the dock our first order of business was opening birthday presents.

Once the presents had been opened and played with for a while, we took a water taxi into the old part of town to get an early dinner and walk around a bit. There was a crazy amount of boat traffic and lots of good people watching. 

We had dinner at the Middleton Tavern, which the First Mate had decided after our last trip was the place with the best crab cake sandwich on the Chesapeake. We were not disappointed on our return. 

 

The Captain bought a wonderful Fourth of July hat from a street vendor and wore it proudly.

 

We took the water taxi back to the marina and just hung out on the boat for a while to wait out a rain shower. Zach found a place in Eastport to buy a cheesecake, which we had for Avery's birthday cake before the fireworks show.                                                                

The fireworks started at 9:15 after a lovely sunset. Watching all the boats assemble in the harbor was part of the fun. We watched everything sitting up on top. 

ZJ&A hung out on the boat for quite a while after the fireworks show to let the traffic clear before trying to get an Uber to their hotel. We played a few rounds of killer Go Fish with Avery to pass the time. They ultimately decided to make the mile-and-a-half walk instead.

P.S. Sorry to be so tardy in getting this posted. We didn't work on the blog while ZJ&A were boating with us, and then when we got home we found that we didn't have any internet because the line from the street to the house had been severed by irrigation workers at some point while we were away and that took a while to diagnose and repair. But we're back at it now, and should have the end of our trip documented in the next day or two.