Thursday, October 31, 2024

Visit to Washington…and a Near Run-in With Kamala Harris


Annapolis – 120 kilometres driven, 10 kilometres walked

Ana and I were out of the boat by 8am and on our way via Uber to the Thrifty rental car office. We got our Kia Sol car after a most entertaining conversation with the two local ladies there, who were looking for food recommendations for Canada and Ana recommended beaver tails, which is the best way to ensure tourists never visit Canada for a second time and just leave us alone. I told them to try a hot dog because they are way better than the American ones at least.

 


We used our newfound vehicular freedom to move batteries around. The old ones had to go back so I humped those four 83 pound lead-acid beauties from the boat to the dinghy to Steven’s Battery Warehouse, with help of Ben and Kate. After dumping the batts, we went to the local Aldi grocery store and score big time on groceries – the prices were cheap and much more in line with what we’ve seen from Aldi stores in the past.

 


On the way back to the boat we stopped at Bacon Sails and Marine Supply and found a massive warehouse of boater treats – used anchors, electronic gadgetry, solvents, rope, clothing, gear, man they had everything. Annapolis is a boater’s paradise and you find things here you just cannot find elsewhere. It is the best place in the world to have a boat breakdown.

 


After lunch back at the boats we took off for an afternoon tour of Washington, DC, which is less than an hour’s drive from Annapolis. There, we were surprised to find ourselves staring down the barrel of 75,000 very ordinary and regular, non-crazy, non open carry gun toting, and non dictator-worshipping people waiting in line for a Kamala Harris political rally. The city was electric with people everywhere, cops everywhere, total insanity. We sidestepped the chaos and walked the Mall to the Lincoln Memorial, WW2 Memorial, Reflecting Pond, Vietnam War Memorial, then found our way to a Cheesecake Factory restaurant, on Kate’s recommendation, which was excellent.

As we were walking back to our car after dinner we were stopped at the corner of the street by some cops. They had cleared the entire street and were yelling at people to stay on the sidewalks if they tried to cross. We waited for quite a while, speculating, and our suspicions were confirmed when Ana spoke to one of the cops and they said Kamala Harris's motorcade was going to be coming through. Sure enough, we saw the motorcade appear several blocks away heading for us...but they turned off before reaching our street. Ana was really hoping to see her, or at least one of the Escalades carrying her! The whole scene was quite exciting as neither of us has ever been this close to a big political rally before. It's just not the sort of thing that happens in Canada much.



We did not have time to visit any of the twelve Smithsonian museums while we were there, but it was a short pleasure to once again visit this grand city. Especially one week away from another sure to be tumultuous election.

As a final note, I remembered that today was exactly one month since we left Canada. Wow.

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