Friday, June 8. 2018
We had another good breakfast at the Quality Inn in Mount Vernon. Interesting thing this morning. We assume the pancake machine was here yesterday and we just did not notice it... Ben had pancakes and then Jane went back to make one too just to see how it worked. Interesting - batter comes from a plastic bag inside onto a belt that runs through the machine sort of baking or roasting as it goes. Comes out a slot in the side of the machine onto your plate....something new for us!
We were slow getting on the road this morning because we knew we had to enter the beltway in VA and cross the Wilson Bridge into Maryland as we headed to Fort Washington. We were trying to visit a couple National Park Sites that we had missed on other trips to DC area. Also trying to avoid traffic! Remarkably it was an easy with much less traffic than we thought trip onto the beltway and across the bridge into Maryland. I knew there had been a lot of development on the Maryland side of the river but did not know there was a huge MGM Casino on the riverbank. We headed south to visit Fort Washington which had been guarding Washington DC on the banks of the Potomac since 1808. The history of this fort is interesting since it began as Ft. Warburton. When the British burned Washington DC in 1814 - remember Dolly Madison rescuing the pictures - this Fort was destroyed so it would not fall into British hands. During the 1800's it was rebuilt as Fort Washington. The fort saw various service through the Civil War and Spanish American War. Different guns were used through the years and in World War 1 two of the largest guns were removed and sent to Europe for use in France. During World War 2 it served as a training facility for officers - turning out 300 trained officers very 60 days. Interesting place. The last of the 3 photos shows the view across the Potomac - there are 3 breaks in the trees on the VA side - the middle one is Mount Vernon.
Leaving Fort Washington we headed south on Indian Head Hwy to Waldorf and on south to cross the Potomac back into VA. Crossing this bridge on 301 is a toll - looked it up on the internet to find out toll and it said $4.50 - wrong it was $6.00 good thing we got that cash last night! Have to say for the $6 toll I expected better conditions. Road was in very poor condition with numerous potholes. Maryland must be using its' money for something besides road upkeep! Luckily the traffic was not too bad but that entire Maryland area was fairly built up - some farmland but primarily suburbs.
In Virginia 301 continues on to Richmond but we were headed along the Potomac and Chesapeake to Reedville and the Crazy Crab. In 2009 we spent about 10 days camping on the mainland and eastern shore enjoying seafood everywhere we went....and one place that always stayed top of our list was the Crazy Crab in Reedville. A small fishing and crabbing village with a nice museum, a ferry to Smith Island, and beautiful homes. We had camped there one night. So we meandered down the coast on small roads and finally about 1:30 ended up in Reedville. Would you believe Crazy Crab was closed until 5 PM. Oh no! Where is the next best seafood restaurant - Tommy's - only .2 mile - also closed until 5 PM - moving on to #3 Cockrell's Creek Seafood Deli - we did not have high hopes but it was after 1:30 and we were starving and really hungry for crab! Yah! It was open but sure did not look like too much - but several cars. You could buy fresh seafood or order from a menu and eat in a small dining room, under the trees, or take out. We ordered and in a few minutes we had Crab Cake, Soft Shell Crabs, and fries - excellent food! Not fancy like we might have ordered at Crazy Crab but one of best crab cakes Jane remembers and Ben says maybe the best soft shell crabs ever!
Nice view of Reedville from the tables under the trees! After our lunch we headed south to Gloucester which is on the middle neck - Reedville is on the upper neck, and lower neck is Newport News, Hampton, and Williamsburg. Having visited that congested area before we were not going south of the middle neck. Gloucester was a much larger town than we had anticipated but very nice with a unique downtown -old courthouse and many other old buildings. Our Quality Inn was new and in a more recently developed part of the town. Again we found it clean and of good quality even tho they were doing a bit of remodeling. We were surprised to find ourselves hungry so started out for dinner about 6. We chose Bangkok Noi - a well rated Thai restaurant with a number of seafood entrees. We loved their signage ! We had excellent satay with a peanut sauce and pickles. Probably one of the best satay we have had. Also had Lemon Grass soup with Shrimp (Jane) and Lemon Grass Soup with Seafood (Ben). Ben's had calamari, oysters, shrimp, and scallops. Excellently seasoned. And then for an entree we split crab fried rice - very good too! We were stuffed. No photo of the Satay! Anyone who loves Sushi would love this place. The plates that came by our table sure were attractive and people seemed to be loving the numerous choices.
We made some great choices for food today even tho not our original choices.
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