Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Day Trip to Annapolis



Our wonderful summer interns and I took a trip to Annapolis to show the gals a few interesting spots right outside of the city (since they don't have cars). I took the gals on a fun day and one of my guy co-workers took the guys for a dude's day in the DC (our trip was clearly better!!)


We started our adventure in Alexandria--harking on a few local highlights (like the spite house on Queen street). We had breakfast reservations at Jackson 20, a fairly new restaurant located in the recently renovated Hotel Monaco. Dan and I had dinner there first in February and though the meal was pricey we had a great experience; if they have pork belly as a special ORDER IT!
We spent a good hour and a half enjoying a leisurely breakfast, just chatting and lounging--starting with coffee and a fruit course--KG has an addiction to fruit and the rest of us were happy to oblige.


KG & I had their eggs Benedict w/ hash browns (above)--YUM. KK had a B.E.L.T (bacon, egg, lettuce, fried green tomato) sandwich, which looked fabulous, I'll have to order that next time.


We arrived in Annapolis around 11am and after parking we headed over to the Naval Academy. At noon when the boys are on campus they do a formal gathering outside the mess hall and it is fun to see the guys in formation. It is really a beautiful campus--well worth the stop.


After touring the Academy, we headed to the dock for a quick snack before boarding the 74ft wooden Schooner Woodwind at 1:30pm for an afternoon sail. If you have seen the movie "Wedding Crashers" then you have seen Christopher Walken sail this boat.



We had a two hour sail (with some rather rowdy deck mates who were in town for a corporate team building event). It was the PERFECT day for sailing; one of the crew members said that the wind was more on the levels of what you would see in fall, not late summer. It was wonderful to have them open the sails and truly tack.



KG's family had a sailboat when she was a kid so she felt right at home at the wheel. I'm thinking of submitting this pic to Ralph Lauren to save them some trouble for their next ad--KG would be perfect!



I loved the details of the sailboat--the wood and white--I took far too many "odd" architectural shots to not include at least one on this site!


After the sail we were rather ravenous so we stopped for ice cream at a local shop on main street. I don't know if this is a "normal" sized scoop or if the teenage boys working the counter were just wooed by the three pretty girls (I think the latter because these were truly massive scoops!)



The downtown area in Annapolis is stuffed with cute mom and pop shops. Many have useless tchotkes but some are rather quaint and carry some pretty interesting nautical paraphernalia.



Our next stop was the Maryland State House, which is the oldest Capitol in continuous legislative use. I was standing on the spot that General George Washington resigned his commission as commmander-in-chief. There is a great painting of this occurance in the Capitol Rotunda in DC.



They are doing a historic analysis of the chamber so there was some construction while we toured, but it is still beautiful and a must see.




Our last stop in downtown was St. Anne's Parish (not pictured above) where we attending evening prayer...by accident. We walked in right when prayer was starting, but we were all so glad we had because it was the perfect closing to a great day. On our way home we stopped at Mike's Crab House for some grub before making our way back to DC.