It's hot here. Real hot. The kind of hot that slathers you in bacon fat, wraps you up in Saran Wrap, and throws you into the sauna. Luckily, it's humid, too. The kind of humid that makes you feel like a sweaty soft-boiled egg, quivering in a cup on Newt Gingrich's table, waiting to be dribbled on his jiggling jowls and gummed into digestibility. That's humid.
There will be no camping in Otto in this weather. It can get as cold as it wants, and I'm comfortable, ready to camp. Just turn on Otto's furnace, and we're good to go. Humidity, however, is a different story. I hate that feeling where you're sitting in bed, sweating, fully aware that you will not stop sweating even while you sleep, only to wake up after a fitful three hours in soggy blankets with the sun in your face anew. Mr. Sun is our friend, but sometimes I wish he'd call before coming over.
Fortunately, we met Bill, Betty, Donna, Josh, and David. Kristanne's mother, Rosalie, was Josh's schoolteacher in Okinawa and got to know the whole crew. She was out visiting them in Easton while her husband, Calvin, attended a conference in DC. That's me and Rosalie on the dock up there with Betty and Donna. Hospitable as they were, Bill and Betty invited us to spend the night at their wonderful home on the Chesapeake Bay. This was pretty much mannah from heaven as far as we were concerned. Not only did we get an evening of great conversation, we also spent the night in heavenly air-conditioned comfort. Sometimes, the stars are all in alignment, I tell you.
| After a pleasant night's sleep, we got up to tour the town of St. Michael's with Betty, Donna, and Donna's kids, Josh and David. Josh and David are around 11 and 9 years old, I think, and they have what you might call excitable dispositions. They are pretty much full of vim and vigor from dusk 'til dawn, sprinting from frying pans into fires as fast as they can find them. It's downright high entertainment just to watch them go pinballing here, careening there, kicking up a heck of a dust cloud in their wake wherever they go. | |
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We started off our tour of St. Michael's by checking out the maritime museum on the Chesapeake Bay waterfront. The maritime museum was pretty darn interesting, showing as it did the evolution of boats on the bay. There was even an old "screw-piling" lighthouse that had been moved to dry ground as an interpretive exhibit. Screw-piling lighthouses were built on big pilings that were threaded at the bottom. Because they were threaded, these pilings could be screwed right into the muddy bottom of Chesapeake Bay, firmly anchoring whatever might be set on top of them. Lighthouses are always fun to tour. This particular lighthouse featured an open-air crow's nest balcony at its top. To get out on it, you stooped down through a little hatch in the wall. During the museum's open hours, this hatch was kept open. To Josh and David, though, something that's open might just as well be closed, too. And opened. And closed. These guys never seemed to let the way things are get in the way of how things could possibly be. Regular little Ayn Rands in that regard, these fellows were. Finally, though, the door wouldn't open anymore. The latch seemed to be stuck. This probably would've gone unnoticed had not Rosalie, Kristanne, Donna, and I still been out on the crow's nest, breathing deeply of the Code Red Air Quality haze in the 100 degree heat. I felt myself beginning to swoon. David felt himself beginning to panic. I can't imaging that trapping your mother and your brother's teacher outside can do much for a 9 year old's peace of mind. There you see him at right, trying to take some instruction from Rosalie in how to open the stuck latch. |
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David's face turned redder and redder, but the latch wasn't budging. He even got a running start from the spiral staircase, spinning up and up and up, gaining momentum until he finally lowered his shoulder into the unyielding door. Nothing. He just bounced back on his keister with a dejected look on his face. Donna asked him to go get one of the tour guides to help him open the door. However, the tour guides all seemed to have had their fill of Josh and David by this point, and were a little bit reticent to help. After trying brute force for as long as possible, we finally arrived reluctantly at logic and tried to examine how the latch might possibly work. After some fits and starts, we eventually got it and quickly retired to the nearest restaurant for air conditioning and refreshments. Well, we would have had those things, except the nearest restaurant was closed, as was the next nearest. Then, we tried the fanciest, but it wasn't serving lunch. So, we tried one nowhere near where we were. No luck there, either. Finally, we left St. Michael's and went back to Easton where a bagel restaurant did us up nicely. |
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Sated, we returned to Bill and Betty's home to take a few pictures and head off to Washington DC to meet Calvin. That's Betty there at left, taking a picture of us taking a picture of them taking a picture of us taking a picture of them. And so on. This meta stuff is pretty cool, huh? Sort of the Odyssey within the Odyssey, if you will? Alright, alright -- I'll stop. |
| The drive to Washington DC was hot, though relatively uneventful. Fumbling our way through the city streets, we finally happened upon our hotel, just in time to get on a bus for a tour of some of the monuments. This was just fantastic. I've never been to DC before, so to see the Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Korean War, and Vietnam war monuments was a real treat. The heat made things uncomfortable, but it was worth it to get a glimpse at these incredible monuments. In fact, we even have a monument of the day shot. It's the Korean War monument, an eerie set of larger-than-life sculptures depicting a full US squad in classic patrol formation. Very powerful stuff. |  |
After a wonderful tour of the monuments, we tried to get some rest for our big day of sightseeing coming up. We understand there are a few museums in DC, and we thought we might try to see some of them. Wish us luck, and we'll see you next time on the Odyssey.
Total Miles for 7/16 = About 75