My New Life As An Army Wife- A Year in DC Metro: Weekend on the Water

It has been my good fortune to have some of my friends in my life for the long term. Susan, Barbara, Kari, Tracy, Cindy and Linda come to mind. These are friends that I can always reconnect easily with, through separations of time and distance.

My friend Kari and I finally got together this past weekend. We got to know each other in Sandy Oregon when our children went to the same school. We have both been through hard divorces and happy second marriages. I haven't seen Kari too often through the years since moving to AZ, but we always seem to pick right up where we last left off. It really is a small world, we are now living less than 30 minutes apart.

On Friday, let's just say Tom and I both had a bit of cabin fever....My good friend Kari knew I needed some fun and time out of the apartment. I was invited to dinner with Kari and her husband J.R. A delicious meal with good company and I felt much better. Tom was out with the boys and I left him a note saying I was out playing pinball. (If you have seen the classic movie Anatomy of a Murder, you will get my reference).

On Saturday- we went sailing with Kari and JR on their beautiful boat on the Chesapeake Bay. The weather was incredible. JR is a skilled pilot ( I think that is an acceptable term) with Kari as his spunky and vigilant crew. It was so relaxing and peaceful on the water.
Of course, we had to have some problems getting to the marina or it just wouldn't be a Dryden adventure weekend. The marina was called Herrington Harbour. I thought I was so clever to change the state to Maryland ,but for some reason I couldn't get the marina to come up on the GPS. I figure it was some sort of sabotage but it might have had something to do with the fact that I was typing in Harrington (our street address) instead of Herrington. The trip there took us on a circuitous route, lasting nearly two hours-OMG! The ride home was bout 40 minutes thanks to following our new friends Roger and Sue, much better.
We had dinner at a restaurant at the marina and I got to try authentic Maryland crab cakes- yum yum!

Thank you so much to our friends Kari and JR- looking forward to more fun in the coming year.

http://www.herringtonharbour.com/

Kari and Nancy

Kari, Tom and Nancy on Cheasapeake Bay

As nice as Saturday was, Sunday was the opposite, overcast and sprinkling rain on and off throughout the day. We had planned to go to Mount Vernon on Sunday- but discovered that it would be closing at 5:00. The Winter schedules are starting at the tourist venues now. Because I am lazy and prefer 11:00 church- we missed out on Mt. Vernon. I had a great idea- how about a twilight riverboat cruise on the Potomac?
Great idea, except the weather took a turn for the worse that afternoon. We went ahead with our plans- only God knows why.... Could it have been my determination to use up our Entertainment Book coupons before they expired? well possibly.

We drove to Old Town Alexandria's pier to catch the boat. We had time for a quick snack before the boat returned from it's round trip from Georgetown. A member of the crew welcomed us aboard with no enthusiasm whatsoever. A grey day with grey moods I suppose. The boat is constantly making round trips down the same stretch of the Potomac with the same canned narrative coming over the loudspeakers. I suppose I would be somewhat downcast as well, if I were him.

The captain was just coming out of the head when we boarded and we couldn't help but notice the Redskins game was on a tiny TV on the bridge. Are there no limits to this Redskin mania?! There was a grand total of 6 of us on the boat- not exactly a sell-out crowd. If the weather had been nice we could have sat up top and really enjoyed the view. My inside pictures of the sights did not turn out due to the splotchy windows, darn it.

After leaving the pier, the "concession stand" opened and a teenage boy fetched a tin box from the bridge and manned his post at the popcorn machine. He was hunched over a paperback book as he had little to do, but I do believe he sold at least two bags of popcorn. Beer, wine and pop were available, and I am guessing that they were stowed in an ice chest nearby.

Tom, anticipating the opening of the concession stand.

I did get to see the monuments illuminated- they were beautiful , even in the cold, wet weather. We saw the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and Kennedy Center.My pictures are of poor quality- but you will probably get the idea.The pictures were taken on the stern. We figured out pretty quickly, that standing in the front of the boat was a good way to get slapped in the face by windy raindrops-duh!