Sept 19 Washington DC

 Sept 19

We've had a great time in DC.   Got in midafternoon on Friday which gave us time to give the boat a quick wash.   Dinner at Surfside which is actually a seafood/mexican/taco shop here at The Warf.  Really good fish tacos for me and shrimp spring rolls for Martha.  Add an order of chips and guac to go and we had a nice sunset dinner in the cockpit.   

Saturday we spent with my nephew Dan, his wife Athene and their almost 3-year-old son Xavier.  There is a really good farmers market in old town Alexandria, and they were kind enough to pick us up and take us there. Purchased some great looking veggies and baked goods.   Biggest disappointment was the vendor where we have gotten Jordanian dates in the past would not be getting another shipment until Oct.  Those things are amazing!! 

Great vendors and big crowds at the farmers market

Then a trip to Best Buy to pick up another Samsung tablet for running our navigation apps.  We're finding there's times when having a second would be beneficial plus our original is getting a bit of age and we were concerned about it dying unexpectedly on us.  Spent some time over at their house helping rearrange some furniture into their recently renovated bonus room and then enjoyed a delicious BBQ dinner cooked by Dan.  

Sunday was our day to host them on the boat along with their friends Tim, Nicole and Maddie.   Maddie is about the same age as Xavier and together they are best buds. One bit of drama before we got going as we had to find a second child's life jacket.  Thankfully a neighbor on the dock had one for us to use.  Took them down the Potomac past Alexandria where they live and continued down to anchor off Mt. Vernon.   Perhaps a mistake to anchor there as we got waked unmercifully by the heavy boat traffic. 

Two peas in a pod

 Back to DC with both Xavier and Maddie getting a turn at the wheel.  Maddie quite the serious and concentrating captain.   Xavier - a bit more interested in steering his own course and trying to reach the horn button.  Seemed like everyone had a good time although we were exhausted.  Just not used to having that much activity.  Wish I had half the energy of those young ones!

Xavier takes his turn at the wheel

Monday we opted to stay an extra day at the marina and play tourist.  I had hoped we could tour the Air and Space Museum but it was closed for renovations. Next option was the SPY museum.   We always laugh at the estimated time to explore museums.  They said 2-3 hours.  We left after 5.  Pretty interesting displays and a nice interactive experience to test your spy skills.  We were so slow our "spy cards" timed out before we could get our final assessment!  I'm guessing we shouldn't expect any calls from the CIA trying to recruit us.

The SPY Museum

Our round trip river cruise on Sunday