New York on Monday Night

We started the evening at the 7:00pm taping of David Letterman. It will air this Friday. Some things you may want to know about the Late Show but never thought to ask:

• Even though it is taped, the show is in real time - meaning we are listening to the band while you are watching all those commercials.
• During the commercial breaks, David took off his coat every time. That was hard to believe since we were advised to bring our coats to compensate for the 53 degrees in the studio. Those lights must put out a lot of heat.
• There is no laugh track. Just about 400 people acting like they were really enjoying the show as we were coached to do before it began. For the most part, we really did enjoy it.

Then after the show, we met our cousin Debbie Jonnes who is now living here as a director with the Bowery Mission, located in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. We found a great delicatessen in Times Square where the cheesecake was the best (and biggest) we have ever had.

Sunday in New York City - Amazing!!

As you all know by now if you have read this blog, when it comes to Sunday, we go to church if at all possible. First of all because we want to stay spiritually connected during our journey and secondly to help me in finding interviews for my research on first generation believers. So far, we've only missed a couple of Sundays in our 12 weeks of travel. Today was a red-letter day of Sundays - to put it mildly.

After docking in Staten Island at a great rate (thanks to a referral from Looper friends Jim and Joan), we rented a car for three days. Sunday morning we headed to the Times Square Church, located at 51st street. This church was founded by David Wilkerson, also founder of Teen Challenge. The service was everything we could have expected and more. The singing, the praise, and the sermon were a pinnacle experience of our trip. You absolutely must attend this church if you happen to be in New York City especially over any weekend! I will pay your parking or subway fare - just go.

Continuing the day, we drove over to another great church in Brooklyn for their 3:30pm service. This is the home of the well known Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. And they were there in full force - great music and worship!

More in the next blog to tell you about another surprising development on tap for Monday night in Manhattan.

Cape May to Atlantic City to Manasquan, NJ to Staten Island

We have been blessed with generally good weather for the entire trip so far. The past three days were no exception, and particularly because we traveled the New Jersey coastline into the Atlantic ocean instead of the intracoastal waterway. All went well.

The highlight of the three days was Atlantic City, but not particularly exciting compared to all we have seen. Since we are not gamblers, our fun included a walk down the famous Boardwalk and a burger at Johnny Rockets.

Trivia: Did you know that Monopoly - the game - used actual major street names of Atlantic City, New Jersey? We stayed away from Mediterranean Avenue, especially at night:)

On to Cape May, New Jersey

On the southern tip of New Jersey and at the mouth of the Delaware Bay is an entire city that is on the Historic Preservation Register - Cape May. Sara and her family remember spending many family reunions here. We now know why. It's a great little town with a lot of character.

Annapolis to Chesapeake City, Maryland

For those of you who are new to this website, read the first post in this blog to find out about our idea behind this trip which has now covered 1600 miles by boat from Ft. Myers, Florida to here.

Chesapeake City is on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal which connects the Chesapeake Bay to the Delaware Bay (duh). It was created about 75 years ago mostly to save distance (about 600 miles) and fuel for those ships and other boaters transiting between Baltimore and points north like NYC. This quaint little town is on the canal and afforded us dockage free plus only $15 for shore power and water.

Annapolis with Carolyn and Jon

Arriving Tuesday evening of this past week, my sister and brother-in-law Carolyn and Jon Silvester joined us as we toured the Naval Academy, then to Washington, D.C. to visit the Holocaust Museum and our Nation's Capitol. In between these events, we found time to dine in some great restaurants as noted above. Jon and Carolyn stayed at a bed and breakfast just a few block from the boat and furnished a big car for us to get around in, including several trips for our provisioning for the next few days. We also had the chance to take them on a cruise of Chesapeake Bay and up the Severn River. The week was complete with our Sunday morning attendance at the Naval Academy Chapel, with Stan Tukarski and Jon's college buddy, Gary Cook joining us for the day.

Annapolis, Maryland

We arrived Sunday afternoon in Annapolis and had the great honor and privilege of being hosted by Stan and Jane Tukarski in their home. Stan is Lisa Groves' brother and has worked high ranking government positions both here and abroad.

Jane prepared a feast which included the main course of those famous Maryland crabcakes, clearly the best we've had. We were joined at dinner and for the evening by two of their daughters, Lara and Lydia. It was so enjoyable to be in a real home for the first time in over two months. The following evening, we invited Stan and Jane to join us for a short cruise around the Annapolis area, including a great view of the Naval Academy from the Severn River.

Tomorrow, we have two mystery guests arriving all the way from California. Here's a hint: He was a history major and flew over Iowa in one of his first jobs to take and sell pictures of farms to their owners. She graduated from Baylor University. If you know the answer, leave a comment.

Up the Chesapeake toward Annapolis

As we cast off to head out into the Chesapeake Bay, we were soon greeted with dense fog. This happens when the hot sun meets the cold water in the bay. I was ready to turn around and wait for it to lift. But the admiral said let's keep going -- so we did. Not being able to see in front or back, I sounded my horn every few minutes to warn other approaching craft, hoping they had their radar on and working since mine is at the lower helm and I preferred to stay on top to look and listen. This is when the GPS becomes worth it's weight in gold. As you can see on the top view, I set the course for a waypoint and activated the autopilot to go to that point. We did. Slowly the fog began to lift and we arrived in Solomons, MD for a stopover about half way to Annapolis.

Tangier Island

About one-third of the way up Chesapeake Bay is a little fishing village named Tangier Island. It is very unique in that it was settled 400 years ago last week. (what's the word for a celebration of the 400th year?) In any event, we found the little village of 300 people very interesting. That guy sitting next to Marlene owns the Marina we pulled into. He was so hospitable that he took us on a personally guided tour of the town. There is much that has been written about the inhabitants of this island. The three last names of the island which makes up about 75% of the 300 are Parks, Pruitt, and Crocker. And yes, some of them marry their cousins.

Also, I took a picture of the Sandra Gail fishing boat. It is the second boat I have seen named Sandra Gail. The first one was named that by my dad when his first grandchild was born. Her name is Sandra Gail Richardson now, living in beautiful Wenatchee, Washington.

One huge ship

This is looking at our boat from the opposite direction. The Navy ship in the background had just come out of drydock. It is a supply ship, so high in the water because it is completely empty of the normal contents.

Joy@Sea docked in Downtown Portsmouth, Va.

As it turned out, we stayed 5 days in the Portmouth/Norfolk area, three of the days here in the center of the historic district (seems every town on the East Coast has a historic district) We've been able to dodge most of the stormy weather they've been having here.

Another Must See - Williamsburg

No tour of the Eastern US would be complete without a visit to Colonial Williamsburg. We docked at Portsmouth, Va. and rented a car to travel the 45 miles to this living history museum. It is the seedbed of American History. The entire town is a stage where you will hear and see people in their attire of the 1700s conversing with each other on the issues of the day. Reenactments also take place on the piviotal decisions of early American leaders to begin the separation from England and, of course, the revolutionary war. I would estimate the investment in restoring and maintaining this magnificent place to be in the hundreds of millions.

The Portsmouth/Norfolk area is the home of the U. S. Navy. The big ships are, of course, everywhere. So far we've managed to stay out of their way.

Our boating journey continues in a couple of days as we travel up the Chesapeake Bay. Plans are to anchor out on the western shores of the bay before we arrive in Annapolis, home of the U. S. Naval Academy.

We found a small A/G church in Norfolk area yesterday. I have another interview scheduled for tomorrow.