Charming Chesapeake Bay

Chesapeake Bay

Our stay in Annapolis has been one celebration after another. What a fun capital city this is.
Our arrival on Mother’s Day, began our two weeks of celebrating. A gift had arrived from Julie, and Doug took me out for a nice dinner at Maria’s, one of our favorite restaurants here.

Well, we’ve lucked out again with our accommodations. We’re staying in a wonderful old colonial home right in the heart of downtown Annapolis which means we can walk to restaurants, church, theater, art galleries and shops. This charming old home was gutted and completely renovated and decorated just the way I would have done it. It’s going to be tough leaving here, we’ve become so comfortable. The owners, Genevieve and Bill, live on the top floor and we’ve become fast friends. We have so much in common - they’ve been live-aboard boaters, love traveling to Europe, are artists (they own Annapolis Pottery) and enjoy fine food and wine. When we get together, we never run out of things to talk about. They’re coming for dinner this evening for "our last night ashore."

It didn’t take us long to settle in here and we’ve enjoyed visiting our many favorite restaurants and watering holes: McGarvey’s Pub, Maria’s Italian, Harry Browne’s, Carols Creek Café, Chick & Ruth’s Deli,and some new ones - Ying Yankee and Severn River Inn. There’s also a wonderful book store/coffee shop at Harbor Circle and a nice little breakfast spot near the Academy grounds.

On Wednesday, the 16th, I celebrated my birthday and was shocked and surprised when Julie showed up! She flew in from Phoenix so that we could celebrate our birthdays together (hers is the 17th) and stayed until Saturday. We have a habit of staying up until about 3:00 a.m.the first night we’re together and this time we said "We’re not staying up until 3:00 tonight." Well, we didn’t. We stayed up until 4:00. We did sleep in a bit the next morning and had a relaxing day of shopping. On Friday, Julie’s friend (bridesmaid), Karen, drove over from D.C. and we went out for a feast of hard-shelled crabs at Buddy’s Crabs & Ribs. It was the best birthday surprise I’ve ever had.

We attended a nice service at St. Mary's Episcopal Church and enjoyed a wonderful champagne brunch at Harry Browne's restaurant on Church Circle. Later that afternoon we stopped by Aurora Gallery for a wine reception and show featuring the work of seriographer Jeanne Norton Hammett who very graciously talked us through the process of silkscreen, screenprint and serigraph. We would like to have purchased a piece of hers but at this time we don't have a wall to hang anything on. It's a challenge being nomadic.

Seeing all the boats here in the harbor and out on the Bay brings back many wonderful memories of our boating years. We talked to a boat broker but never quite went so far as to look at any boats to buy. It is sometimes tempting.

We spent one day last week being tourists in D.C. The morning was devoted to the West Wing of the National Gallery of Art and we concentrated on works by European artists Rembrandt, Bellini, Raphael, Jan van Eyck, Rubens and my favorite, Vermeer. I particularly love the painting of the Girl with the Flute. Karen met us at lunch time and gave us a wonderful tour of the area with an eye towards the best places to live based on safety, access to metro line, shops, etc. The International Spy Museum more than took care of the rest of the day. It’s a new museum and very well done. It’s a hands-on tour of the "invisible profession" that has shaped history and continues to impact world events every day. It houses the world’s largest collection of espionage artifacts, weapons, disguises and surveillance and portrays spying from biblical times to the present. It was absolutely fascinating! We stayed three hours and could have easily stayed another hour, but wanted to have an early dinner and get our car out of the lot before it closed at 7:00.

Our stay here happened to coincide with Commissioning Week at the Naval Academy so there are lots of people in town and lots of celebrations going on. Thursday, the Blue Angels put on a fabulous air show, which we watched from the Academy grounds. It’s certainly convenient that we chose to stay downtown because driving and parking this week is all but impossible. Our "landlords" Genevieve & Bill, asked if we’d like to get together for dinner Thursday and said they’d arrange for us to eat somewhere we hadn’t yet been. We met at their house for a drink at 6:00 and learned that dinner would be at their place. The next thing we knew it was after midnight and we were still talking. What fun.

Last evening we enjoyed Doug’s birthday gift to me - two tickets to a production of "Godspell" at the outdoor Annapolis Little Theater. What a great cast - young, talented and very enthusiastic. After the show, we walked to O’Brien’s for a nightcap but were met with a very smoky, loud atmosphere and walked back out. The manager caught up with us on the street and suggested we might like "The Treaty of Paris," a small bar at the Maryland Inn so we made our way there and it was perfect. The bartender, Peanut, took great care of us and it wasn’t long until we’d met everyone at the bar. Allison, from Vero Beach, FL and her brother Peter involved us in their discussion relative to his recent (within minutes) announcement that he was getting married on Tuesday. Allison is strictly opposed to the marriage for a variety of reasons and everyone at the bar, including Peanut had an opportunity to provide advice. The next thing we knew it was 1:00 a.m. (I don’t know what happens with time here). We all exchanged cards and promised to be friends forever and keep in touch. We certainly are meeting interesting people on our travels.
The weather, approaching Memorial Day, is absolutely gorgeous. Warm and sunny - not yet hot and humid. Tomorrow we’re off to Columbus, Ohio (to visit family), then Indianapolis (more family), then Pennsylvania (yet more family) and finally Upstate New York (friends and family), before heading over to the Berkshires where we’ll stay at a B&B and visit with friends, Richard & Pauline.

Stay tuned and we’ll take you along.

Wild and wonderful Outer Banks

The Outer Banks
After Florida visits to family (niece Cathy, husband Tony and two-year-old Emily in Tampa), our long-time friend, Beverly in New Smyrna Beach, and boating friends Sue & Dick Stark in Merritt Island, we made an overnight stop in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and reached Duck, North Carolina on the 29th of April.
Early May is an ideal time to visit the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Another favorite is September - both being slightly "off season" when the weather is beautiful but there are few tourists. The natural beauty of this 130-mile stretch of islands and landscape of natural sand dunes is what draws most people here. You can visit the site where, more than 100 years ago, the Wright Brothers flew their plane over the sand at a place called Kill Devil Hills, and even take a flight of your own across the dunes at the only hang gliding school in the country at Jockey’s Ridge. We climbed the large dune and the view from the top of the ridge is spectacular - to the east, the waves of the Atlantic break upon the beaches and to the west, the dune line slopes gradually to the open waters of Roanoke Sound. Orville and Wilbur discovered that "The image from the top is like from some other world - nothing but sand and wind and sun - no trees, no grass - just a hilly desert". The only change is that now the dune is covered in grass and a type of cactus groundcover to stop erosion. This is a great place for kite flying and you see all shapes and sizes, as there’s a constant breeze. .
Each part of the Outer Banks has its own beauty, wildlife and history. Artists have always been drawn to the Outer Banks and inspired by the natural beauty and there work can be found in the many galleries located here. The northernmost beaches, north of Kitty Hawk and Southern Shores (including where we’re staying in Duck) were the final frontier of the northern islands to be tamed and much of it remains unspoiled. There are beautiful secluded (this time of year) beaches and protected soundside land. There are also now country clubs, huge mansions, restaurants and shops; where it was not long ago very sparsely populated. The big growth began when the road was paved from Kittly Hawk north to Corolla. Prior to that you had to drive on the beach to get to these areas. We drove through Corolla, as far north as the road goes, and you can only continue on by driving on the beach with a four-wheel drive vehicle. The land actually connects with Virginia but it’s not legal to drive across the border as it is a Virginia State Park. One of the most famous attractions, at the most northern end of the islands, are the wild horses that have run free on the beaches for more than 400 years. They are decendents of Spanish mustangs and are protected in a refuge north of Corolla where you can take an off-road excursion to see them.
Along the soundside of the Outer Banks shoreline, a wide variety of marsh grasses and vegetation protect various types of waterfowl. I’ve heard you can also see deer, raccoon, fox and possum or their tracks in the early-morning sand but, not being a morning person, I’ll probably miss that experience.
I try to imagine how this area must have looked when my parents spent their honeymoon here in 1930. There were just two hotels and a sprinkling of beach cottages. My first visit was in 1965 when I brought my parents here to revisit the area for the first time in thirty five years and they were amazed at the growth. They wouldn’t recognize it at all if they saw it today - especially during the height of the summer season.
Not every visitor to the Outer Banks was lured by sun, surf and beaches. Some were victims of pirates, wreckers and privateers; others were washed ashore when nor’easters and hurricanes broke their vessels on the shoals. For over four hundred years, the waters off the Outer Banks have been among the most dangerous in the world - so many ships and lives have been lost, these waters are known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic." Except for the lighthouses, all has been wiped out by hurricanes, tides, salvaging and looting. There’s a great museum that covers the history of the Outer Banks’s - exploration, transportation and commerce.
We’re enjoying our beach-front cottage here overlooking the Atlantic and falling asleep to the sound of the surf. The weather has been mixed - starting with temperatures in the 80's during the day and 70's at night and a few days later plunging to the 60's with high winds and seas, and ending with temperatures again in the 80's which allowed for a few more beach days before we leave. We love it all! We particularly enjoy the local seafood markets and preparing soft-shell crabs (as long as they clean them and "cut their faces off"), fresh shrimp and wonderful lump crab meat for homemade crab cakes.
During the first week of our visit here, we drove over to Hertford, a small town near Edenton (not a big city either) to visit our long-time friends Margi & Phil Wynn who live in a community called Albermarle Plantation. Margi and I have been friends since the early 60s when we were members of Beta Sigma Phi sorority. She’s a wonderful artist and I took my first art classes from her when we both lived in Northern Virginia. They took us on a tour of the area and their daughter, Jennifer, joined us for lunch in historic Edenton which was once the capital of colonial North Carolina. It was great being with them again.
Edenton was a major shipping port until the early 1800s when the Dismal Swamp Canal diverted commerce north to Norfolk, Virginia. Now it’s a quaint, beautifully restored small town with beautiful old homes on tree-lined streets. We had planned to take the trolley tour around town but unfortunately the trolley driver was not working, due to a death in the family, and they had no backup driver. Back at their place, we took a pontoon boat ride around the waterway where they live. The next day, they came back with us and we stopped in Manteo to visit the Elizabethan Gardens on Roanoke Island, where we saw gorgeous azaleas, rhododendron, tulips, roses, impatiens and many more too numerous and unknown to mention.
The first Europeans to arrive at Roanoke Island were members of Sir Walter Raleigh’s expeditions of the late1500s when it was inhabited by Algonquian Indians. This is where Virginia Dare was born (the first white person born in the colonies) just a few months after her parents (members of "the lost colony") arrived here from London. I just finished reading a fascinating book entitled "Roanoke - Solving the mystery of the Lost Colony" by Lee Miller, who resurrects the events leading up to the disappearance of a group of colonists who came here in 1587.
I have been inspired by the sea, sand and flowers of this area and it’s reflected in the scarves I’ve been painting. We’ve had a couple of cool, cloudy days that are not suited for being on the beach, so we spend our time painting and reading and just enjoying the quiet beauty of this spot.
One of our last evenings here is spent with our friend, Sara Tyler, who moved here full-time and built a charming house in Southern Shores, seven years ago. We met at her house for cocktails and, in addition to meeting her two dogs Lady and Harry, we met her neighbors Carolyn and Chuck who live in northern Virginia but also own the house across the street from Sara. Chuck is retired Army and is now retiring from a DOD job at the Pentagon. Carolyn has a degree in Fine Arts from Cororan and shows her work at several galleries in Virginia and Maryland. We had a lot in common to talk about and I hope to see some of her paintings while we’re up that way. We went on to a nice dinner at the Black Pelican and by the end of the evening had exchanged phone numbers and email address and promised to keep in touch. It’s amazing how many wonderful people we’re meeting along the way this year.