7/29/2017 Annapolis, Maryland

From: casarollnotes.blogspot.com 

Tim and Linda Bunyan

Annapolis, Maryland @ Elk Lodge

We arrived and are very welcome at the Severna Park Elks Lodge.  We plan to stay on grounds here for 3 nights (while touring Annapolis) and attend their Monday night steak night. 

We are invited and parked in the large, backlot to allow for their Annual Crab Feast.  We met Amy and President of the Severna Park Elks Lodge.  Amy has a worthy mission:  She runs ½ marathons in each state!

There is a grassland area here and it is quiet for Woodstock so he liked his twilight-time walks.

We are in town on the same date as: Mac McAnally!!!  
Tim reserved tickets at the Rams Head Theatre.  It was exciting and a good show to see the very night we arrived downtown Annapolis!  

Annapolis:  Historic district 18th-century brick houses and the dome of the Maryland State House.

Walked the sprawling waterfront lined with yachts and many happy people. 

We toured the US Naval Academy with its beaux-arts architecture, monuments and a naval history museum.  There is a crypt of John Paul Jones, US 1^st Navel hero. 

In a sarcophagus of Pyrenees marble beneath the main chapel.  Noted for saying: “I have not yet begun to Fight”.  

We were there in time for the noon formation of pleues.  In the ceremony, they align and are all accounted.  They march in formation into Bancroft Hall, the largest cafeteria in the world.  It seats 5000, enlarged a few years ago. 

17,000 applicants to attend Annapolis; 1200 per year are accepted.  A legislator can only sponsor 10 at any one time.  At the conclusion of graduation ceremonies, midshipmen toss their caps into the air.  Hats are replaced by the new ‘covers’ worn by Officers in the Navy & Marine Corps.

We toured the small, eloquent Capitol with its paintings of founding fathers.

We had a pleasant visit to our ‘other address’: 

The post office was around the corner where we met Victor who worked at the post office.  We mailed Alicia’s birthday present.  Victor held the door open said hello and goodbye.  With his broom in hand, he swept the front step.  He is a reminder of Mac McAnally’s song “It’s my Job”.  A moment!  "You Just Have To Be There" 😊