It’s been a very busy day; I’m only going to cover some of the highlights.

Our morning excursion was a guided walk through Portsmouth, led by Andrew and Mary, who were dressed as 17th and 18th Century settlers. They didn’t just tell the stories, they sang them! Some of the songs were on the baudy side – not what I expected, but all in good fun!

On the way to the ferry, we stopped by the Armed Forces Memorial, which has the text of letters sent home from the front in wars from the Revolution to the Gulf War – the letters were sent by service members who never made it home. It was sobering.

“The Homecoming” depicted a much happier moment.

Mary warned us to be careful as we walked on the streets and sidewalks: “you may trip, you may stumble, you may fall, but you may not sue!”

Some of the houses had a “firemark” on the outside, showing which fire company the owners were paying to protect the house.

The busybody (below the air conditioner in the photo) was invented by Franklin to let the occupants see what was happening on the street!

We continued walking through Old Town Portsmouth, visiting Hill House and Trinity Church; it would be an interesting area to explore in more depth; we found a walking guide that I’d use if we came back.

In the afternoon, Diane went to the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Museum while I went to the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach.

My tour started with a visit to a WWII “Watch House” (we’d call it a control tower) from Goxhill, England; it was used by the British early in the war, then given to the US Army Air Force as they were building up for the assault on Europe. After the war, it fell into disuse and was eventually taken apart, shipped to Virginia, and rebuilt.

There was a Quonset hut outside the watch house – that’s the American name, chosen to honor the base in Rhode Island where they were built. In Great Britain, they call it a Nissen hut after its inventor.

We then went to the WWI hangar, filled with airplanes. There was one original WWI “Thomas” plane which is no longer flyable; the others were modern replicas and are flown regularly.

The visitor center had planes from WWII and later, as well as a few other interesting vehicles. I especially liked the “Glimpy”, an airplane which was attached to a blimp; if the blimp saw something interesting, the airplane would fly back to base and report it while the blimp kept doing recon.

It was a very informative day!

When we went down for breakfast this morning, we could see our ship getting ready for the onslaught of passengers.

After breakfast, we walked along the Inner Waterfront to the Baltimore Visitor Center and turned into the Otterbein neighborhood. In the 1970s, it was a slum; in desperation, Baltimore started to offer houses to urban homesteaders for as little as one dollar. It worked, and now the area looks a lot like the Fan District in Richmond – lots of well-kept townhouses.

Many of the houses had nice gardens in front; I couldn’t resist another photo of a tulip.

We also got to see a very nice dogwood tree in full bloom.

Our path then took us into the Federal Hill neighborhood, loaded with interesting shops and markets. We had no time to patronize them, though.

I liked this nice old firehouse near the Inner Harbor.

When I picked out this walk, I thought we might climb Federal Hill itself, but we didn’t have the time before getting onto the ship. I did get a photo.

It was a nice area that I would have liked to explore in more depth.

We went back to the hotel, packed, and walked to the ship. We passed the mandatory Covid screening, so we’re all set for the cruise!

We are currently at sea off Sharps Point, Maryland (near Annapolis) en route to Norfolk. Cocktail hour awaits, so I will sign off and post this now in case we lose connectivity later – I don’t know how far offshore we’re going to be.