June 17-20, 2017 Saturday-Tuesday
Saturday, June 17: Spent a fun filled day in Baltimore with our nephew Nick. Nick just graduated from Johns Hopkins University and will remain there next year working on a research project with one of his professors. He gave us a tour of “his domain” for the past five years. His apartment, friends, campus, and the Baltimore Museum of Art’s and Sculpture Garden, which included lunch at Gertrude’s, excellent.
On our way back to Nick’s apartment we walked by the Civil War: Union Soldiers and Sailors Monument. I was surprised to learn that of the four Civil War monuments in Baltimore three of them honor the Confederacy, it is obvious that Baltimore had a lot of Southern sympathies. The Confederate statues; Lee-Jackson in Homewood, the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument, and the Confederate Women’s Monument right on the other side of the Johns Hopkins campus.
Sunday, June 18: Two glorious days in a row, today was spent with our friends Sam, Damon, and family, it has been at least twelve years since they visited us in Italy. We worked with Sam in both Cuba and Panama and she became like family, joining us on Paradigm Lost for a trip to the Bahama’s and one to Jamaica. Damon might have been one of our most entertaining guests on Paradigm Lost and it was great to enjoy his unique charm today. Sam, Rick, and I spent the morning reliving old times and catching up. In the afternoon we joined Daman, Saffron (daughter), Darius (son) and Ashley (cousin) for Father’s day dinner at Damon’s favorite restaurant, Gilligan’s Pier, located on the Potomac River.
The only problem with the last two days, both were way too short. We are already looking forward to our next visit.
Tuesday, June 20: Today was pretty uneventful as we left Solomons and cruised up to Bay Bridge Marina Resort on Kent Island. On the way up the bay, we passed the Calvert Cliffs on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, these hundred foot high cliffs are famous as great fossil collecting areas and constitute the most complete section of Miocene deposits in the eastern United States.
It must be Dolphin Mating Season, around the Calvert cliffs we saw lots of dolphins frolicking in the sun.
Near Annapolis, we passed the Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse, the only screw-pile lighthouse still standing on its original site and the last manned lighthouse (1964) in the Chesapeake Bay.
Kent Island is the largest island in the Chesapeake Bay and is roughly four miles from the western shore, at this point the main waterway of the bay is at its narrowest and is spanned here by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge
Tomorrow we plan to complete our journey on the Chesapeake and cross the fourteen mile C & D Canal to Delaware.
