Summer in Baltimore

—Blogpost written by Bob

Monday, August 17

The weather today was beautiful with lots of sunshine and relatively low humidity!  We decided to take advantage of the nice weather and visit a new grocery store/farmer's market down the road from our marina, about 1/2 mile to the east on Boston Street.  It's called Sprouts Farm3rs Market and it has a nice variety of fresh veggies and meats, as well as interesting prepared foods.  We purchased a large piece of beef, a bag of small multi-colored potatoes, and a bag of multi-colored carrots for a beef stew I will make in our crockpot later in the week (probably on Wednesday).  Prices were very reasonable too.

Lola sleeping on the navigation
station after a hard morning
chasing dragon flies
outside.

I fashioned a 1.2 inch diameter teak plug to fill an old hole on the starboard side of the electrical panel below the companionway.

I used filled epoxy to hold it in place on the inside.  The new plug (in place in the above photo) has a more accurate finish than the old hole (which was a little ragged from the hole saw) but it is much better than it was.  (I will finish the outside surfaces after the epoxy on the inside has cured.)

A thunderstorm rumbled through the 
harbor in the late afternoon.

Tuesday, August 18

My preparation for my MRI (of my prostate) started last night with a Fleet enema just after dark--I hate them!  I couldn't eat or drink anything except black coffee or water after the enema and prior to my MRI.  In the morning I drank a cup of black coffee (which I really don't like but I felt like I needed hot liquid in my system).

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At mid-morning, we drove to Annapolis for my MRI.  The pandemic makes office visits quite interesting now—outside the office a technician asked me a series of questions and she digitally took my temperature (97.4 degrees F in my case).  Most of my paperwork was handled in advance of my visit.  I had to sign a couple of papers dealing with standard precautions for MRI’s, like making sure that I had no metallic items in my body (stints, pins, pacemakers, etc.).  Then I changed into the supplied scrubs and laid on the table that elevated and moved my body into position inside the machine.  They connected an IV in my left arm to inject the contrasting fluid into my bloodstream.

The MRI took about 30 minutes since images were taken before and after the contrasting fluid was injected.  I was surprised at the loud noises (many different tones and patterns) created by the machine—I even had to wear ear plugs during the procedure.  Every once in a while I thought I could feel the contrasting fluid running through my veins—I’m not sure if this was just my imagination or not.  

After I was assured by the medical technician that I wouldn’t glow in the dark tonight, we went out to lunch at Carroll’s Creek Cafe to celebrate the completion of my MRI procedure.  After lunch we picked up a few grocery items we needed and then drove back to our boat in Baltimore.  We arrived in Baltimore at 4 PM, just in time for Happy Hour!

Maggie makes a pretty
mean Bushwhacker!

Wednesday, August 19

I could hear the light rain pattering on the cabintop as I rolled out of the v-berth--it was a nice comforting sound.

Maggie's flip flops out on the
cockpit cushion in the rain.

The rain stopped before noon and the sun appeared.  The humidity was much lower and the weather was actually pretty nice.  I didn't get much done today.

Thursday, August 20

We woke up to bright sunshine and cooler temperatures (low 70's).  Before getting out of the v-berth I got caught up on the last night's speeches at the Democratic National Convention on YouTube--MSNBC recorded the entire night's events.

I lightly sanded and applied
the second coat pf Cetol
to the companionway
slide handle.

Today was another day to drive to Annapolis.  This trip was scheduled around Maggie’s eye doctor’s appointment at 10:30 AM.  We had several other errands to run as well, particularly some major grocery shopping.  (I was hoping to do some outside boat work this afternoon in the nice weather but it never happened.)

From the eye doctor, we went to our storage unit to pick up something I needed for an upcoming boat project (wood filler).  From there we went to the hardware store and then to Diehls for fresh produce and fruit.  (Most of the fresh produce comes from Adams County PA which is just north of the Maryland-Pennsylvania border.)

We rounded out our day with a short stop at Giant for some groceries and got back to the boat at around 3 PM.  (As I'm writing this I am eating one of the red plums we bought at Diehls!)

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This blogpost is short on boat projects and long on food.  For our next blogpost, I'll return to more boat projects...stay tuned!

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