Annapolis and the Naval Academy

October 24, 2017

Annapolis likes to call itself the Sailing Capital of America and while there are certainly lots of sailboats in and around Annapolis, Newport, Rhode Island, or San Francisco, California might disagree.

We toured the Naval Academy while we were there and its grounds and museum are steeped in history. Above you see Memorial Hall where all the cadets live. The yard in front is where they parade every day at noon.

The inside of Memorial Hall is as beautiful as the outside. Except the cadets' rooms; they're pretty spartan.

This building is called the Drydock and the cadets come here to relax and entertain visitors. The giant ship model above the doors was used to teach the cadets all the ropes on a sailing ship.

We also visited the museum which is a storehouse of Navy history.

If you don't think global warming is a real thing, check this out. This street next to the waterfront was flooded with a foot of water one morning at high tide.

Monticello

Friday, October 27, 2017

During our time in Norfolk we rented a car and drove to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home. It's in amazingly good condition for being over 200 years old. And it's furnished with many items that Jefferson actually owned.

The typical tour takes you through the ground floor, and you can do a self guided tour through the dependencies and grounds.

The gardens are actively farmed and some of the food ends up being served at the visitor center cafe. I liked that.

It was a lovely warm fall day and we ended our tour by walking by the cemetery where Jefferson is buried beneath a granite obelisk.

Jefferson's chamber.

The chrome yellow dining room.

Tea room.

Norfolk and Portsmouth

There are lots of photo ops in and around Norfolk and Portsmouth. So much history and action.

And churches, lots of churches.

Norfolk and the Chrysler Museum

One of Norfolk's more famous residents; the USS Wisconsin, a WWII era battleship.

We've been anchored in Norfolk, Virginia for three days now waiting for good weather to travel South. The good thing is that the Dismal Swamp Route is supposed to open October 31st which coincides perfectly with the good weather. So, Dismal Swamp, here we come!

Norfolk has a huge commercial port that handles containers, coal, cars, and numerous other commodities. After the peaceful Chesapeake or ICW, it's always weird to come into this busy harbor with its huge ships, tugs, pleasure boats, and confusing array of navigation lights. And Navy ships, HUGE navy ships. Naval Station Norfolk is the world's largest naval installation and it's interesting to be so close to all these ships.

We haven't spent all our time looking at boats though. Yesterday we visited the Chrysler Museum of Art. They have a wonderful collection of American art like this Bierstadt

and this Renoir

and this painting by Gustave Jean Jacquet, who was a disciple of Bouguereau. You can see the influence, can't you?

The museum also has many gorgeous sculptures

and a huge collection of Lalique glass.

The museum also has decent displays of Asian, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, African, and Precolombian art. Like this 3500 year old figurine from Western Mexico. Traveling through Mexico and Central America in the last few years, we visited lots of museums, but I never saw anything like this. Thank you Chrysler Museum of Art for a very interesting day.

New York City

October 18, 2017

We stayed in Port Washington, New York for a couple of days waiting for good weather. We figured it would be a good time to visit New York City so we took the Long Island Rail Road (similar to CalTrain) into the city and arrived at Penn Station. From there we walked to the Empire State Building and went to the top for some fabulous views.

This is looking east towards Port Washington where Thistle is.

This is looking south towards the East River which we will transit soon. You can also see the Chrysler Building.

This is looking southwest towards the mouth of the Hudson River. You can see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty in the distance.

Next we walked to the Library, used in the filming of "Ghost Busters". It really is a beautiful and inspiring building.

In fact, New York City is full of fascinating and historically important buildings like Grand Central Station, 

St. Patrick's Cathedral,

Macys,

and Saint Thomas Church.

Next we walked up Fifth Avenue along Central Park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where we saw gorgeous works of art by Cassatt,

Degas,

Monet,

Pierre August Cot,

Bouguereau,

and this monumental work by Emanuel Leutze.

The museum also has a nice collection of sculpture,

and some nice American glass

including these Early American flasks.

After walking to Times Square in the evening we crashed at what has to be the worst hotel ever. As if the lumpy, noisy bed weren't bad enough, the shared bathrooms had horrible shower heads and no exhaust fans. The "breakfast" consisted of hot water and instant coffee packets, cookies, and bananas. We've stayed in nicer hotels in third world countries, but we were so tired from walking all day that we slept like logs anyway.

We walked to Washington Square and then to the 9/11 Memorial. I remember so vividly watching the events of that morning, and the museum does a great job of documenting it.

We also walked by Battery Park, Wall Street, the Charging Bull, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the tallships.

We took our last ride on the subway back to Penn Station, hopped on the LIRR, walked back to the public landing at Port Washington, took the water taxi back to Thistle and got a good night's sleep in preparation for the East River.

The next day we made the quick run (with the current) down the East River and to the anchorage near Lady Liberty. Then we made the 32 hour run around New Jersey, up the Delaware River, and into the Chesapeake Bay.