May 23 – Annapolis, MD

City Mooring Field

“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.” –John Burroughs

We spent our first day in Annapolis exploring on foot. The weather was clearing, but not completely, so we decided to stay in the historic area. We wandered down the main streets where most of the buildings are over 200 years old. It's a beautifully laid out city where almost all the roads end at the water. It's fun to look down Main Street from St. Anne's Church and see the water and boats...even though it’s filled with cars these days. I'm sure the view was more spectacular a few hundred years ago.

Looking up Main Street to St. Anne's and Francis Street to the State House

Looking down Main Street

We didn't do anything in particular in town today just took in the sights, watched people, wandered through a few shops and had some wonderful crab soup at Chick & Ruth's. It’s an old fashion “Ma & Pa” establishment that has been serving wonderful food at a good price since 1965.

The restaurant is small but the food and service are great

Delicious crab soup for lunch

Later in the afternoon, we enjoyed the view of Annapolis from the deck of the boat. It's the first day that we could enjoy sitting on the flybridge in about a week. It's a great place to watch all the action in the harbor. When we picked up a mooring yesterday there were over 20 moorings left...by the time we got back after lunch they were filled up. We watch a fellow Monk owner (we met at the rendezvous) pick up the last ball and then watched boats circle the harbor hoping someone would leave. Things are getting busy around here because it Commissioning Week at the Naval Academy. We've been told the mooring field is one of the best seats in town for the Blue Angel performances, which start on Tuesday.

The clouds came back this evening - this is the view from our deck