Road Trip Day 3 - 2007-07-22

Check out pictures from today here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10306971@N03/sets/72157600958647313/

I slept in a bit today again, getting up around 11:30. For lunch, Rob and I headed out to Potbelly's for some sandwiches. I had a meatball sandwich which was quite good.

We decided that it would be fun to go kayaking on the Potomac River, so off we went to Thomson Boat Club. Annoyingly, they had meters in the parking lot that were active on Sundays, and we had no quarters. We had to get some quarters from the cashier at the boat club, but she'd only give us a dollar's worth because 'they don't stock quarters for that'. Well, they should: that is absurd.

Also, they were out of kayaks, so we got a canoe instead. That was fine, except the seat was unpadded metal and I have an extremely bony butt. I kind of had to slouch over in a manner that allowed the more padded part of my posterior to cushion me, which was a bit uncomfortable.

Other than that, it was a beautiful day with nice big fluffy clouds floating by (see pictures) and a gentle breeze. First we paddled downstream to the Arlington Memorial Bridge, where we discovered why the boat club folks told us not to go past this bridge: that is where the no-wake zone ends and a bunch of motor boats are careening around the river. We decided to go no further to avoid being swamped.

After that, we crossed the river, paddled upstream and found a tributary that we could paddle up. There were some hostile looking geese on either side of the mouth of the tributary, but Rob the goose-whisperer managed to calm them down.

After that, we headed up to the Francis Scott Key Bridge, where Rob told me who the hell Francis Scott Key was: he evidently wrote our national anthem. There were a ton of boats anchored upstream of this bridge. We heard what sounded like a waterfall, so we went to go explore that, but it was pretty disappointing. It was extremely stinky, so perhaps it was some sort of pollution being dumped into the river or something.

Tired, we paddled back to the boat club where we headed back to the car. Fortunately, even though the evil boat club people would only give us enough quarters for an hour and twenty minunutes, we didn't get a ticket in the three hours we were parked there.

It is at this point that Rob discovered that his phone was showing some signs of moisture damage (some fogging on the screen and odd behavior). We have no idea how it got wet, since it was in a plastic bag the whole time. Either way, we needed to get him a new phone so we went by Verizon and used his new-every-two plan to get him an LG VX8300 for free. Not a bad deal for a nice looking new phone.

We headed back to Rob's place and played some Wii Tennis. Next, we went out to dinner at Carrabba's Italian Grill, which was tasty. I had a Caesar salad and the chicken parmesan, both of which were quite good. After that, we went home and played a bit more Wii Tennis and a game of Mario Party 8. Good times!

That brings me to the end of my time here with Rob. In the morning I will head out to see my grandmother in Asheville, NC!