During the trip, several Acela trains passed us going the opposite direction. The Acela trains used the center track, which as you watch it through the window appears to be very carefully set, leveled, and aligned. On the other hand, the outer tracks (one northbound, one southbound occupied by our train) are less carefully set and occasionally have visible bumps or slight waviness. You never see an Acela coming—as you're looking out the window, all of a sudden there's a startling whoosh and after a few seconds of speed-blurred clattering it's gone, far gone.
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| An Acela train in the station at Wilmington, Delaware. Click on the picture to see a bigger version; use your browser's "back" command to return here. | People on the platform at Wilmington. |
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| The Amtrak station at Aberdeen, MD. | Beautiful downtown Baltimore, Maryland, just before we got to the station. As decrepit as the boarded-up buildings look, one of them had a couple of DirecTV satellite dishes on the roof. Click on the picture to see a bigger version; use your browser's "back" command to return here. |
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| The MARC train on the other side of the platform at Penn Station, Baltimore. Click on the picture to see a bigger version; use your browser's "back" command to return here. | Pulling out of the Baltimore station, you get a view of the ghastly post-industrial ruins that constitute a large part of the City of Baltimore. "Charm City" it ain't, at least viewed from the train. |
I got off the train at the New Carrollton station, which has convenient connections to commuter busses and the Washington Metrorail / Metrobus system. After a short wait outside at the bus stop, I boarded the MTA 921 bus to Annapolis, which cost $3.50. The driver kindly let me stow my luggage in the storage compartment under the bus.
Back in Annapolis, I caught a cab from the bus stop at West Street and Lafayette Avenue over to my marina, and was back aboard my boat by 5:30 pm. I have to say, after several days of living on Jerome's spotlessly clean yacht, I was shocked and disappointed to see that I hadn't even washed the dishes before I left.
Later in the evening, I called Jerome to see how he was doing. He sounded very happy, because he was settled into a nice mooring at City Island Yacht Club (Walter Cronkite's honorary mooring, no less) and was looking forward to attending the club's 100th anniversary, which is coming up shortly. It's good news that he was able to arrange the mooring at City Island, because it's a much nicer place than the 79th Street Boat Basin on the Hudson River. But it required that he travel from Jersey City all the way to the westernmost portion of Long Island Sound, navigating the very tricky rivers and channels through the heart of New York City. Jerome was very pleased that he timed the passage through Hell Gate on the East River just right, so he didn't have any problems with the tides or currents. Anyway, I was glad for him that he was now settled in for a nice summer of hanging out in New York City, which he still considers to be his home town.
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