Annapollis Maryland for a day.

Annapolis, the capital of Maryland, is a short 30 mile drive from Washington. The hardest part is getting out of Washington. With our trusty rental cars, we set off after breakfast and were soon parked at the Chesapeake Children's Museum on the edge of the small city. This little museum was obviously someone's dream and has become a ragtag little building beside a polluted stream. It had fish tanks and areas where kids could dress up and play with artifacts from bygone days. The girls loved it, and would have stayed there, very happily for much longer. Grandad, however was getting peckish and wanted to find a reastaurant for lunch. The crab cakes were delicious.
The historic downtown is busy and parking spots are rare, but we parked and had lunch and began to explore Annapolis. This has been a city from the 1600's. The buildings range from the little shiplap sided cottages, to the grand red brick mansions. The wealthy class built around a large traffic cirle that runs around St Anne's Church. The largest of course is the Governor's Mansion which stands beside the Capital Building. The Capital is perched on a hill looking over the business district running down to the harbour.
Annapolis Naval Academy has a long and proud history. It began in 1845 and has had many famous graduates, including Alan Shepard the first US astronaut. The girls enjoyed running as hard as they could across the sprawling lawns. They sat on the canons and looked in the beautiful chapel.
After we had really good icecream cones we tried one more picture and promptly dropped our camera on a brick sidewalk. The picture of the family gathered around the statue will be the last one from our poor old camera.