Armed with a Cafe au Lait for moi, and a latte for Dave (you know how much we love our morning coffee) from Play it again Sam (that was chock full of parents and their kids, as it was "welcome parents" weekend here), we spent a gorgeously sunny day walking along the quaint red brick sidewalks of Chestertown.
A chat with a very helpful lady in the visitor's centre provided us with some local and very interesting knowledge... how the town dates back to the early 1700's when it was a port of entry for the colonial movement into Maryland. How it holds some of the oldest court records dating back to the mid 1600's (wouldn't it be interesting to read some of those laws ?!!)
These homes are grand "georgian type of architecture" styles. The old Customs House, with its Flemish Bond Brickwork, by the bridge, and of course, there's the Washington College (founded in the mid 1780's and the first college chartered in the Nation after the Declaration of Independence), with the help of George Washington - who gave his name and 50 guinea's to the County for supplying flour to his troops !
Notice how there's no windows on the side of the house ?
We bumped into Peregrine and then Pandora, who were also walking about and ended up joining Peregrine for lunch at the Fish's Whistle. I had catfish fingers and a beet salad and Dave some fried oysters, so good !! Pandora was prepping to leave so we said our good-bye's and continued our walk through town, starting to see orange pumpkins on the front porches, a sure sign that fall is just around the corner.
I love fall - the crisp air, the hot sun during the day. Thanksgiving comes early for us Canadian folk (and I am already missing my turkey, my pumpkin strudel, and of course, my kids - oh so much) .
The American Thanksgiving is not until the end of November so no sign of turkeys anywhere ! LOL.
And so we raised anchor Monday morning, destination Annapolis, as we wanted to get the lay of the land before actually coming in for the Annapolis Boat Show, scheduled for the first weekend of October.
It was once again a scenic drive down the pastoral farmlands, and into the Bay...
under the bridges and into Annapolis,
where our first stop had us docking along the pilings (a first for me) of the Annapolis Marina. The staff was quick and efficient, well, would have to be, with the high volume of traffic and limited space in here. "get in and get out" would be the motto here however, all the while being extremely helpful and the whole "rest stop" (diesel, gas, water and pump-out) was deemed a huge success.
The bridge into Spa Creek lifts every hour and half hour,
so we circled for ten minutes or so and then passed into Spa Creek (oh, and guess who we saw as we entered ? Third Reef (our "Delaware City" neighbours) and we heartily waved to them as we passed by !) and then with the helpful advice of Peregrine, we picked up a mooring ball situated quite nicely in a little cove, well protected, but as with all "big cities", wi-fi is hard to pirate here, and if we're lucky enough to connect for a few brief moments, the swing of the boat has us disconnecting shortly thereafter.
We did a short walk through town yesterday, visited the Harbourmaster, and all streets quickly became familiar as we were here 2 years ago, via land, for the Annapolis Boat Show. At that time we were exploring the wide range of options for the purchase of our "future home", and imagine that... here we are, 2 years later, "on our home", having accomplished SOOO MUCH, and in Annapolis, buit this time, having arrived via water. WOW.
Have Dreams, Dare to Dream, Remember to Dream, and Dream Big and Large... all the while, taking those confident and empowering baby steps towards your dreams.