Annapolis Trip

Captain Pierre sailing the 70' Windward Schooner

In October Mary and I decided to visit the Annapolis Boat Show in Maryland. Several other members of our yacht club have been there and we thought it might be an opportunity to have a nice trip while doing some boat dreaming.

Before leaving we used Mapquest to plan our route. We had been down that way before and thought it might suggest some alternatives. At the last moment my friend loaned us his GPS unit, so it became the third member of our triage team of paper map, Mapquest route and GPS routing senario. Now Mary is the navigator in our family and she has successfully navigated around the UK, Europe and wherever. She has never felt the need for a GPS unit. None the less she couldn’t help making comparisons between suggested routes on the GPS and Mapquest with her own paper map routing. We had decided to cross at Buffalo, but Mapquest suggested Fort Erie and a route that took us through some backroads and beautiful towns in New York State. The GPS (which by now we had christened Ms. Garmin) verfied our position but was a little unsure of herself because her map chip hadn’t been updated for some years. Eventually we arrived on the highway south to Corning, NY and we were making good time on the expressway. By this time we were both actively following Ms. Garmin and about this time she lost her way. Apparently the expressway was new in sections and the poor dear just couldn’t cope. She sobbed uncontrollably, crying and weeping.....“recalculating, recalculating”, along with several phrases of protest that we were going the wrong way.

As I said, we have been this way before and took matters into our own hands. We decided to call it quits in Pennsylvania and relax for the night. Ms. Garmin was a bit confused by it all, but was pretty decent about keeping us focused as we navigated a few larger towns along the Susquehana River after dark. The Susquehana (isn’t that a beautiful name) is my favourite river. She’s big, she’s long and very lazy as she meanders through some of the most beautiful country you can imagine.

After spending the night in a very nice Hampton Inn and having an awful meal at Evans our wanderlust struck again and we headed for York, PA and the Amish country around Lancaster, PA. We hit a few of our old haunts and ended up at the Strassbourg Railway Museum not far from Lancaster. As we wandered into the railway station area a steam locomotive approached pulling some 1930 vintage passenger cars loaded with people.. As she came closer I noticed that the brass plaque on the front on the locomotive said CNR No. 89. Cool! A nice surprise away from home. We didn’t do the museum (time limits), but we did do lunch at the railway restaurant next door and it was a hit. By one o’clock Annapolis was beckoning and we coaxed Ms. Garmin into heading across country. We spent the next several hours driving through some of the most beautiful farm country we have seen. Our little navigator was really on her game as she guided us in and out of Baltimore in a flash. As we approached Annapolis, she instructed us to turn off at highway 50, but in a last minute luddite like protest Mary said the machine is wrong, ”keep on this road”. As we approached the Chesapeke Bay bridge I had a feeling that our little Ms. had been right. As we stopped at toll booth number 9, I asked the attendant if we had passed Annapolis. “Sure thing, he said, but if you want to take a chance and cross eight lanes of wild traffic you can pull a 180 over at that little red building.” Since there were no police in sight I decided to go for it and after several heart rendering stops, turns, beeps, upturned fingers and honks we made it. Little Ms. Garmin took us right to our hotel.

I'll post more later.