Monday, November 16, 2009

Annapolis Is My Kind Of Town!

Are you surprised? You shouldn't be!

Seriously, it was a fabulous weekend. Just another reason to say I love flying by the seat of my pants. The whole thing was decided pretty much Friday afternoon.

Friday night I left home and drove to the hotel Priceline found for me in Wilmington Delaware. I had looked at the map and figured I had about 5 hours or so worth of driving time in me. I cut it closer than I thought because I was driving in and out of rain squalls. I got there at 4 am totally exhausted. When I got into the room, there was a moldy smell, but it wasn't the bed, so I didn't care! I had set the alarm for 9 am, but really couldn't move until 10 lol. the moldy smell turned out to be the shower curtain, so I left it closed and put a towel on the floor. Even though I was running late, I still strayed to the business center to check email and send out invitations to various people to "FIND ME" in DC/Annapolis.

Back on the road and headed for Walter Reed. ConcreteBob, Laughing Wolf and others were having a cookout at Malogne House and I was going to make an appearance......Princess Crabby-Scullery Wench. The DC area is like Boston, something is always under construction, so I was right at home! I made it by 1 pm.

Malogne House seems like a small hotel plunked down on the grounds of the enormous hospital complex that is Walter Reed. I walked through to the patio out back. there were several seating areas with large gas grills built into brick walls. They were furnished with nice heavy patio furniture and protected from the weather by sturdy tents. I saw LW & Bob talking with two young ladies in chef's whites. It was my pleasure to meet Katy & Molly of Baker's Without Borders - their part in the day will come later.

I got to meet Gunn Nutt who was ably manning (wo-manning?) the grills and churning out burgers and hot dogs. Bob had finished making chicken on the other grill with his famous BBQ sauce (that is never made with any Heinz products, lol) and was working on cooking yellow squash and onions.

At first the number of volunteers overwhelmed the guests they hoped to serve. But over the course of time, we got to feed quite a few people. Carter, Dayna and Lisa dished up burgers, dogs, chicken, beans, the aforementioned squash and onions, potato salad and other snacks.

Shortly after my arrival, Mary Ripley showed up and we were joined at the hip for the rest of my stay! More fun than I can tell you.

We got to meet Olga, whose comments at the Castle Argghhh!!! I have been reading for a while.

It was a dreary day, but the volunteers working the line and the cheerful people who came through the line made up for the less than stellar weather.

I guess they usually get a bigger crowd, but it turns out that quite a few people had hopped a charter to Vegas for the weekend. So we just made people eat more food and pack some to take with them!

Laughing Wolf has a great write-up at BlackFive.

Ok, next post - Bakers Without Borders!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Did you visit the naval academy? Its supposed to be pretty cool.