Shear Madness

November 30, 2015

Aside from stops for maintenance, our stay at National Harbor has been our longest ever at a marina! We are continuing to enjoy our time here, which has been packed with visits from friends and family. We plan to be here another couple weeks, so if you are one of those friends who haven’t yet visited, please contact me! We’d love to see you!

Grandson Tyler on the Capital Wheel with Shear Madness in the background

I’ll mostly let the photos tell the story – here are just a few highlights:

1. National Harbor is a great place with lots of events, many of them free. We attended the lighting of the Christmas tree, ICE at the Gaylord hotel (not free), and a Christmas dance show. If you live in the area and haven’t been to National Harbor lately, you should make plans to visit. It’s an amazing place!
2. Many local friends have come to visit and we also had a visit from two Nordhavn’s who came for a couple nights at National Harbor. I don’t have photos of everyone but you know who you are!
3. I got to play some more golf! Thanks Mary Irene!
4. We left the boat and flew to Florida to visit friends and family in Naples and to attend the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show where we caught up with many good friends. We also had a memorable (not good!) restaurant experience – read the review here.
5. Bradley’s daughter Margy and family came for a night at the Gaylord and to attend the ICE show – an amazing city constructed of fantastic ice sculptures.
6. On Thanksgiving we visited former neighbors Allen and Mary Ann, whose children were visiting – they are now all grown up, out of college, and living in New York. Great to see them! We then spent the day with Margy and her husband Bryant’s family where we had a fantastic turkey dinner.
7. We had a special visit from Mitch and Meagan, their daughters Elise and Alexa, and Mitch’s cousin Ryan and daughter Molly. Meagan is the daughter of Dudley, the original owner of our boat, then called The Good Life. Sadly, Dudley passed away not long after taking delivery of the boat. We’ve been in touch with his family by email for many years, but this is the first time we’ve had a chance to meet in person! It was wonderful to make this connection and we really enjoyed the visit. In one of those serendipitous turns of fortune, Ryan is a marine electrician and was able to diagnose and solve a big problem that had recently cropped up – turned out to be a bad relay in our A/B Bus system.
8. We visited my step-mother Virginia, who still lives in the house I grew up in. She is a great cook and loves to make Filipino food for Bradley! She and daughter Ela also came to the boat for a visit.
9. I decided to go for a long run one day. Setting off from a park in Old Town Alexandria, it was a beautiful day and I decided to do a one-way run. It turned into a half-,marathon (13 miles, but I did walk a couple of them) as I decided to go all the way to Arlington Cemetery, where I visited my father-in-law Army Colonel Ted Rosenberg and my father, army Private Austin Clark. Uber took me back to my starting point!

And finally, here are some new book reviews.