Potomac River: Ummm, What can I say about today? We are trying to adjust to the whole dependency on weather concept. We pulled out of the marina around 9:00 AM without checking the weather, other than that we expected it to rain later on. As we pulled out into the Potomac, we encountered 3 foot waves pushed up by 25 knots/hour winds. Since we had plans to meet Tom’s good friend, Russ, for dinner, we went on with a “Can do” attitude. Within the hour, with gushes of water drenching the windshield and the boat literally pounding into the wells between wave crests, we decided that our plans needed to change and started looking for marinas on the south side of the river. We pulled into the leeward edge of each point as we headed east and finally pulled into Olverson’s Lodge and Marina and were amazed at the stillness when sheltered from the wind. Docking the boat went well as we build our skills in the logistics of knots and spring lines. These side thrusters are really the beat-all, end-all.
So we went in to meet the dock master and discovered my highlight of the day. It was under her desk. There she had a little pet pen enclosing a miniature poodle puppy – a red one, a baby Sidney, a small fuzzy ball with shiny black eyes and silky ears. It made me long for my doggie at home and for the thoughts of having another one. Tom even agreed that he was cute!
Outside of the office I was taking a few pictures when I met Red – I think he might have owned the marina. Anyway, I asked he knew of anywhere near by that we could walk to buy a gallon of milk. He answered that he didn’t think there was any place close enough to walk to, but did I see that white Cadillac parked in the parking lot? I am not used to people who just loan strangers their car keys, but that’s what he did. So Tom and I headed into town for milk in the white Cadillac. The car reminded me of my Daddy's car... because it had everything in the front seat (like binoculars, a battery charger, hand tools, a floodlight).
Let me tell you, we were really in the middle of no-where. The country road we were on was not even really two lanes wide, but we did find our way to town, to Callao. Sure enough, Callao had a real supermarket and we got milk, chips, Coke Zero and Tylenol, all the essentials of life. That’s when I got the big surprise. You know that I have spent my entire career working on cash registers. Well this tiny, non-affiliated grocery store had IBM point of sale terminals. They even had one at the front of the store without its cash receipt printer that they were using as a office machine. So really, no one should question that this was a business trip for me. It was a client visit.
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