Autumn in Baltimore

—Blogpost written by Bob 

Friday, October 23

For the third day in the row, the day started out very foggy.  The temperature was warm (upper 60's) for late-October.

My first project of the day was to replace a failed 12-volt cabin fan--it was located in the v-berth.  This was a simple replacement in kind and it worked perfectly right from the get go after installation, like I would expect.

The installation of the replacement
cabin fan in the v-berth.

By the time I completed the cabin fan installation, it was nearly lunch time and it was my turn to make lunch--today's lunch involved oyster chowder.  I made it as a variation on the lobster corn chowder that I made last week.  This version was the tastiest I've ever made--the heavy cream and the additional vegetables made all the difference.

My oyster chowder included oysters, corn, peas,
diced onions, celery, and potatoes, as well
as diced tomatoes, butter, garlic, heavy
cream, and a dash of cayenne. 

I really didn't do much during the remainder of the day, though the weather was beautiful.  Before I realized it, happy hour was upon us.  (It took me a very long time to learn how to just relax for a day--now, I'm enjoying every minute of it.)

Saturday, October 24

Today started out partly sunny and in the low-60's but ended up slightly warmer than yesterday.  The sky was overcast most of the day and rain threatened late in the day.

I did some taping off of the stern toe rail but I didn't complete it.  I didn't want to miss the first Penn State football game of the season--it was scheduled to start at 3:30 PM.

I carefully checked my "to do" list for things
that I could accomplish before the
Penn State game started.

The Penn State game was on Fox's FS1 but we couldn't find this channel on the fancy TV in the boater's lounge.  Frustrated, I came back to the boat and tuned in the proper channel (81) to listen to the game on Sirius satellite radio.  It was great to listen to Penn State football again! However, Penn State lost to Indiana by a score of 35-36 in overtime.  (Later, Penn State's quarterback, Sean Clifford, took personal responsibility for two interceptions that were a big part of the loss.)

Sunday, October 25

It was raining lightly when we awoke today and the light rain continued throughout the day.   The temperature was in the low-40's in the morning and only reached a high of 50 degrees.  (The forecast for the coming week features high temperatures in the 60's with a slight chance of rain on Monday and Friday.  Next Sunday, the day we will be motoring to Annapolis, the weather was predicted as sunny and 63 degrees.)

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Maggie made huevos rancheros for breakfast to start out our day--they were delicious!  A little later as Maggie closed up the side windows of our cockpit enclosure, I watched some Sunday morning TV shows (like Meet the Press).

A couple images that describe our day follow:

Lola sitting on top of the companionway
slide while it rains outside.

I'm watching football during a cold rainy day.
(This answers the most prevalent question
we get: what do you do when it rains?)

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You would think that as advanced as we are in the U.S. that we could initiate a scientific commission of maybe a dozen highly qualified health professionals who could come to a consensus on exactly how to handle the coronavirus from where we are now.  However, with this president and his failure to acknowledge science (and even acknowledge the problem), there couldn't be such a commission.  So, the U.S. continues to suffer needlessly.

Does this graph of new cases by date look like
 the coronavirus is "going away" anytime soon?

(The source of the above data was Johns Hopkins
University and the graph was made by CNN.)

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We now have only one week remaining in our stay in Baltimore.  Next Sunday, we leave for our 5-month winter stay at Annapolis City Dock.  (We have rented out our Baltimore slip for the next five months, finding a renter on Craigslist.)  Stay tuned for our last week in Baltimore...

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