Sometimes a Fella just has to Rest!!

This has been a tough month!  I am sure that many of you are now gagging on your evening meal as you imagine our life on Rock Chalk being described as tough.  Admittedly I am not getting up at the crack of dawn and beating my way through traffic to fight the battles of my former career.  And Yes I am retired and not worrying so much about my next paycheck.

So what is so tough you say?  What could possibly be so difficult that I would have to write about it on my blog?  Well, let me tell you about our battles with Mother Nature.  Now there is a foe even bigger than my former career challenges, where I worked every day for 34 years to slay the dragon.   No the challenges are different and as the past month has proven quite humbling.  

I remember that adrenaline rush I used to get before every one of my "stellar" high school football games.  (Stellar is being used loosely here to protect my reputation with my grandsons.)  You know the feeling.   Your body is getting ready to battle and all senses are on high alert.   I can honestly say that I did not get that rush before or during very many works days over those 34 years.  But since we left Charleston, SC in mid April, my body is producing said adrenaline every morning.   I won't mention the first affect that has on me every morning, but I digress.

Each night I would check our forecast and it was consistently cold temperatures and high winds.  Yeehaw, this is fun, right?  Every morning for this last month, I could feel that adrenal rush getting me ready to slay this new dragon.   Showers and high winds resulting in poor visibility and high, steep waves, closely aligned to give you the biggest bang for the buck, tend to get my attention.  Oh boy, when is this going to settle down?  That was the question that Shelley and I kept posing to one another.   I have been wearing jeans, and three layers of sweat shirts for the last month.  Shelley is in shorts, but I am freezing.  Oh, I am so ready for shorts!  Women.

Today it did....finally!!  I write this at dusk on Thursday, May 16 watching a beautiful sunset off to the northwest.   (Red sky at night...Sailors delight)  We are at the Spring Cove Marina in Solomons, Maryland. This is a very nice yachting center about half way up Chesapeake Bay on the Patuxent River from Norfolk.   There must be 20 marinas located in this very protected creek off the Patuxent.  Many of the people that live in this small quiet village,  work in nearby Washington DC., which is a short 40 miles across the peninsula formed between the Potomac River and the Pax.  Today was beautiful and I needed this to recharge our batteries.   In fact we have been here 3 nights just "chillin"  and working to get Rock Chalk back to some sense of order.   Hence, the mantra that sometimes a fella just needs to rest.

I actually love my routine of cleaning the boat and getting the mud off from North Carolina.  It is relaxes me.  If Rock Chalk was a cat, she'd be purring right now.   We have given her lots of love and attention.   Plus this is a really nice town.   The marina has free bikes to ride around the town.   These are those big tire, one gear, big seat bikes that would make Lance Armstrong cringe.  But we do not need blood transfusions to ride these babies to the grocery store and back.   The Maritime Museum is right next door and is full of the fishing/nautical history of this region, which is extensive.  Well worth a visit.  (Shelley did her speed walk through it)

This is the place that I would normally share with you some wonderful photos of what I am describing to further enhance your experience of our blog.  Well, Shelley left the camera in the ON position for the last two days, and the battery is being recharged.  Damn, that sunset would have been beautiful.  

Tomorrow we are off again, (wind forecast of 5-10 mph, waves 1 ft) in favorable conditions, with a goal to reach Annapolis by 2:30 pm.   It is 50 miles up the coast of the Bay, which should take us about 6 and a half hours.   We missed Annapolis the last trip through The Bay,  as we spent all of our time over on the Eastern Shore exploring the Delmarva peninsula.

Which raises the brain teaser of the day.  Who drew the state lines in this place?  The Delmarva peninsula is a pretty place, very quiet, and I guess so valuable that three states wanted a piece of it.   Look at Delaware.   Who drew that state line?   It makes no sense. Why not take the entire peninsula?   No they had to let Maryland have some of the middle, and Virginia made a land grab for the lower mouth of the Chesapeake.  Wouldn't you like to have been in that room when they worked up maybe 30 or 40 renditions of where state lines would fall?  Me thinks they had a little too much whiskey in those negotiations, and the fellow from Delaware got really drunk.

So we are off again, with more big water ahead of us until we reach the Hudson River.  All of you in Texas, just keep the tornadoes and let us have about 10 days of fair winds.  But with our luck so far this Spring, Rock Chalk and Mother Nature may have to battle once more.  Marc