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(Note: This blog entry represents a combination of writings and pictures already posted about our Cool Change II, Land Yacht Adventures 2021 through Cindy via Facebook and Rick via email. So for some of you, the following posts may be duplicative, but for others, this is the first time you are seeing them. We are repeating them here to centralize the record and share our experiences more broadly.)
RICK’S POST, with Cindy’s captions in italics:
We left Connecticut planning on a short travel day and spending the night in a Walmart parking lot near Baltimore Maryland. We would do our shopping there for the next week of exploration of Annapolis and Washington DC. When we arrived at the Walmart, we saw signs and then confirmed with the staff inside that they no longer allowed overnight stays by RV’s in the parking lot. Apparently it was a statewide policy in the state of Maryland. The staff at Walmart really didn’t care but they were concerned we would get a knock on the door in the middle of the night by the local PD telling us we would have to move on.
We thought to check the Harvest Host website for any opportunities in the area and we found a brewery named Midnight Oil Brewery that was about an hour more distant in Newark, Delaware. We called and they said “sure, come on over” and that we were welcome to spend the night. When we got there, we found that it was not the typical Harvest Host experience. The other Harvest Host sites we have visited have been primarily wineries. The brewery would be a new experience. Midnight Oil Brewery was located in an industrial area, a couple of miles off of the highway. As out of the way as it was, this particular night they were having their weekly trivia night and it was a popular event! They had set up tables, chairs, and some fire rings in the parking lot. A good-sized crowd of what looked like mostly a bicycle riders’ club had filled the area. There was a food truck selling tacos and other Mexican treats. We ordered some food and went inside to sit at one of a couple of tables that were available there.
Our Harvest Host overnight at the Midnight Oil Brewery in Newark, Delaware, after leaving Connecticut
They also served wine but it was soon apparent why wine was not their primary focus. Cindy ordered a red wine and when the woman at the bar started pouring her a glass, Cindy asked how long the bottle had been open. The woman said no worries, the wine should be fine as it had only been open a couple of days! Cindy asked if she could open a fresh bottle for her and she obliged, even though the freshly opened wine was not so good either! I tried one of their house brewed ales and it was very good.
It felt strange sleeping in an industrial complex parking lot and I was worried what we would wake up to, but as it turned out, there were only a few cars around us in the morning as we made our exit.
We continued on to Reston Virginia and the city park and campground there named Fairfax Lake. It is very impressive for a city park. Right past the entrance was a good-sized water park that was closed for the season. Farther into the park there was a lake, a day use area, and a big athletic field set up for baseball and soccer games. Just before the entrance to the camping area, there was a skateboard park, which seemed like a very popular local attraction. There were lots of campsites pretty tightly spaced, and the campground was near capacity. Most of the people camping there were probably there only because of it’s proximity to Washington D.C., and would just be home-basing there like we were while they visited DC.
Knowing we would be spending some time there, we had arranged to visit some cruising friends we first met in Mexico. They had moved to Annapolis a few years before. John & Julie from SV Maia, after cruising Mexico, sailed their boat south and spent a season in Panama before making their way back to the US and to Annapolis, which they have made their new home. The neighborhood association that they belong to owns a marina and they are able to dock their boat there very inexpensively.
John and Julie had passes for us to use to get into the US Sailboat show in Annapolis. It is the largest sailboat show in the world and one that we have always wanted to attend. We drove to their home to pick up our passes and also to give a ride to Elizabeth and Alan from SV Vivacia, another couple we had met while we were cruising Mexico. Alan & Elizabeth had since sold the monohull that they had owned when we met them, and bought a beautiful catamaran, which is now their full time home. It was fun touring all the new boats at the show. That evening we all went back to spend the evening at John and Julie’s home, where they had prepared a nice dinner for us. The rest of us all brought along some beverages, appetizers and dessert.
The next day we were pretty exhausted so we stayed close to home around the campground. We did take a hike through a trail system that started in the campground and went into the city of Reston. We wanted to have a look at the train station and parking facilities, as we would be riding the metro into DC the next couple of days to meet with Cindy’s cousin John and to tour our nation’s Capitol. The path was a very nicely maintained multi-use equestrian, bicycle and hiking trail through a lush green forested area. Surprisingly, the trail was very well marked on Google Maps, possibly because there is a Google office nearby in Reston with over 400 employees. They would not want any of their employees getting lost in the forest and late for work! It would have been fun to just walk the trail to and from the metro station when we went to DC except that we would probably be getting back home after dark and we had been warned that there were lots of copperheads about.
We found the Google building right next to the metro station and both facilities looked very new and impressive. There was a large open parking lot with free parking available for metro riders or you could park in a garage facility for a fee. We planned on parking in the outside lot because we checked and found the truck was too high for some areas of the garage.
That night we treated ourselves to a nice dinner for Cindy’s birthday in Reston in an area known as the Town Square. It was very modern several block area full of restaurants, retail outlets and condos. We felt like, and probably were, the oldest people in the area, with all the young techies out on the town.
The next day we were up early and drove out to the metro station where we picked up Metro passes and got on a train to DC. Cindy had arranged with her cousin John to meet is at a Metro station in DC. Then we would be going to go back to his flat for a visit and to have lunch together.
I had been looking forward to meeting John for many years. He is a retired attorney who spent his career working for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commision in DC. He has been retired for longer than Cindy and I have been married, and during his retirement he has been extensively traveling the world, pursuing his passion of wind surfing. He has sent us post cards from the many countries he has traveled to, and it has always been fun to receive a card in the mail highlighting his latest adventure.
After we met up with John at the metro station, we walked to his car and he took us on a short tour around DC before heading over to his apartment. John showed us the location of the DC home of Hilary Clinton. He drove us along Embassy Row on Massachusetts Avenue, where the embassies and diplomatic missions are all concentrated. He also took us through the campus of American University, where Cindy’s father went to school. Finally we arrived at John’s apartment building, which is a very old and stately complex on Cathedral Avenue. His living unit is very small but adequate for his needs as a lifelong bachelor. He has decorated the place with unique treasures from his travels around the world. He replaced all of his light fixtures with unusual ones from the Middle East, and some that have been converted from originally using candles. He has some ornately carved side tables and Persian throw rugs. John has a cuckoo clock from his childhood home that he has restored, and it is clearly one of his prized possessions. He told us of his search to find someone that could do the initial repair work on it and about his maintenance routine to keep it working.
After lunch, John drove us down to the National Mall and dropped us off. We visited the Lincoln Memorial, the Korean and Vietnam Veterans memorial and the Washington Monument. We walked past the Washington Monument and through the Ellipse, where the January 6th insurrection began following a Trump rally amidst lies and angry words about a stolen election. We took our photo in front of the White House.
Korean Memorial 
Sculpture near the Vietnam Memorial 
From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial; the cloud over the Washington monument seemed apropos given the state of our union
As we walked through the Ellipse, there was a lone Trump supporter standing guard over a huge banner that read “Trump Won! Save America.” Interestingly, at this same time, the Cyber Ninjas hired by Arizona state Republicans were still accomplishing a recount of Arizona’s Presidential Election. In the end, both the state and the independent Cyber Ninja recount, at a cost of millions to taxpayers and the Republican Party, confirmed an even larger win for Biden.
Oh really? 
Lincoln Memorial 
Hey Joe and Jill, you home? 
Rick’s “bible” (AKA his cell phone). No one was forcibly removed in the taking of this picture 
Hong Kong protesters, like many other groups, stated their cases across from the White House
We returned the next day to see more of DC. In the morning, we had made reservations to see the Holocaust Museum, where we spent hours. In the afternoon, we visited the Smithsonian air and space museum, where they have on display the Lunar Lander that was built to the exact specifications of the one that made the actual moon landing. The Lunar Lander on display was used for testing functionality on earth.
Looking at the lander up close, it seemed so fragile that it was hard to believe that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin entrusted their lives to accomplish that amazing feat of landing on the lunar surface. There was nothing aerodynamic looking about it, but then, I suppose aerodynamics do not apply to operating in the environment of space, as there is no air! It just seemed incredible to me that this fragile craft could achieve a controlled landing on the surface of the moon with two astronauts aboard, and be able to return to the Apollo 11 space craft that remained in lunar orbit above them.
Seeing an Apollo capsule up close in the Smithsonian, I gained an appreciation for just how small the capsule actually was, and how difficult it must have been for the astronauts to fit inside, let alone wearing their bulky space suits. All of the controls of course were analog, with rows of mechanical switches and T handles to operate the various functions of the spacecraft. Just the thought of being strapped inside that capsule on top of a rocket and blasted into space gave me chills! It was hard to imagine the bravery and trust it took to be an astronaut in those days.
We took a long walk to the capitol building and though we could not go inside, we walked all around it and spent some time sitting on the park side of the building.
The steps of the Capital Building, which had been stormed only a short nine months earlier 
The Washington Monument from the Jefferson Memorial
We visited Arlington Cemetery and walked what seemed like miles past the neatly placed headstones and tombs of fallen American service men and women. We watched a changing of the guard ceremony at the tomb of the unknown soldier, and visited the gravesite of John F Kennedy and his wife Jacquelyn. I remember seeing the eternal flame at the gravesite when I visited there as a child, and I was happy to see it still in place. We took a self guided tour through Arlington House, the first Memorial built to honor George Washington. Interestingly, it was built in a classic Greek revival style. It was built by George Washington Park Curtis, our first president’s step grandson.
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
We ended the day by taking the subway and a local bus over to see the Jefferson Memorial. By the time we were once again on the train bound for our campground in Reston, we were both exhausted but happy we had visited most of the sights that we had set out to see. That said, I know there is so much more there yet to see but that will have to await another trip, or perhaps another life.
While we were in Reston, I had been looking for a place to get new tires for the trailer. I had been getting apprehensive about the existing tires even after we had replaced the valve stems while we were in Maine. Though the tires looked fine, by the date stamp on them they were about three years old and we had already put over 7000 miles on them just since we left California in June. I had no idea how many miles they had seen before we purchased the trailer. Cindy had been reading about some rough road conditions further south where we would soon be heading, and I wanted to start that leg of the trip with some new rubber.
The problem was finding somewhere to buy a new set of tires. I had called all the tire shops in the area and no-one would replace tires on a trailer. Going to an RV supply was useless because I knew they were all booked out a month or more in advance. Just by chance I found a mobile tire repair shop that normally services big rigs when they have blowouts on the road. I gave them a call and asked if they could replace our tires, and happily they said they could, and that in fact, they do lots of travel trailers. They needed to order the tires, which would take an extra day, and suggested rather than using their mobile service, we could bring the trailer right to them, which would save a lot of money. So we set up the installation appointment for the morning we were planning on leaving, and got on the road with a brand new set of tires.
Our next destination would be Washington, North Carolina, where we planned to take a tour of the Pacific Seacraft manufacturing facility. This is the same company, which had since relocated from California, that built our sailboat Cool Change that we have owned and adventured on since 2011.