Susan Walters' "Crabby Cruise" Birthday

My ever-lovely wife Kristin and I helped our friend Susan Walters celebrate her birthday (this has been a month of birthdays) by cruising down the Potomac River from Georgetown to Old Town Alexandria and back.

We met the boat, the Nightingale II, at the Georgetown Harbor around 11:30 in the morning. It was a beautiful day: sunny, warm ... not a cloud in the sky until late afternoon.

Susan's daughter Renee, who lives in Michigan and goes to school there, was able to come down for the event, too. We hadn't seen her in a long time ... she visited while Kristin and I were living in VA at the house on Shropshire. As I recall, Sarah was still in High School at the time.

Here's some video:




Here's Kristin with Susan (in blue) and her daughter Renee waiting on the dock before the boat arrived.

Here's the boat ...

Kristin and I used to see these (there are others like it) run past the dock in Old Town when we lived there, though we never got on board or took any one of the other touring boats. It's a long trip on the water, but is a great place to have a party.

Once it got there, we all piled in for the usual meet-and-greet ... I had met a few of the folks before, but most of them were new to me.


After a few minutes the boat revved up ... and then headed out into the river.

As you may have guessed, this is called the "Crabby Cruise" because we were served large aquatic insects. For food. There are people who actually eat these.


Susan and Kristin have been friends since College ... they both attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in the 1980s. Susan and her family then moved to Grand Rapids and lived there for quite some time, I think. In any event, they've lived there since I've known Kristin (12 years) and we visited them a couple of time. Susan recently was divorced and moved into the DC area to find work as an architect.

This is Susan's friend Fred.

Instead of the usual cake we had pie ... both lemon meringue and chocolate meringue.

The cruise was lovely ... lot's of good people.

This is going to be a busy month for us ... next weekend we head to Rehoboth for a weekend at her boss's beach house, and then after that it's our 10th wedding anniversary. Ten beautiful years, each day better than the next.