olverson's.

from price cove at st. george creek, we decided to cross the potomac from MD to VA and head to olverson's lodge creek marina on the yeocomico river.  the weather was not looking good for later in the day and we were running a little low on water and well, let's face it, i was starting to have withdrawal symptoms from not doing laundry!  for those who don't know, if  you are an MTOA member, you get one night free at olverson's and we decided to take advantage of that. olverson's is not high end but they call themselves the friendliest marina in the bay and they certainly are friendly and helpful. most of olverson's consists of covered slips and even if you have a slip without a roof, the walkway is still covered which was really kind of nice since it rained a lot while we were there.

there is a unique culture here in virginia with respect to the covered slips and it's not just at olverson's. people start decorating - you have the standard "it's 5 o'clock somewhere" and "margaritaville" signs and posters, strings and strings of little colored lights, flags, mobiles, plaques, and then some people really start going wild with stuffed deer heads, stuffed fish, giant clocks  and other weird things hanging from the ceiling, nailed to the posts, etc.   for these people, their boats in their covered slips ARE their vacation homes so they start adding furniture, basically extending the inside of their boats to out on the docks to better socialize with the neighbors.  you have the usual chairs and tables, some couches, and grills and smokers, but then the more creative ones start building - dock boxes to hold more stuff, bars and bar stools,  whole kitchen counters with cabinets and sinks and then they bring in the appliances - electric fans, TVs and full-size refrigerators!   those who had big boats in their slips that they eventually replaced with a smaller boat, will build over the slip to extend the dock so that they have more space to put stuff.  it's really quite incredible - you walk down the dock and feel like you're walking through someone's living room!  i think that for anyone who has never been, a visit to olverson's or D dock at norview marina in deltaville, if you are ever in the area, should be mandatory!  it's a unique experience.

we didn't expect to stay as long as we did at olverson's but since they had a courtesy car we could use, we decided to drive down to deltaville the next day, pick up some stuff at storage, three weeks worth of snail mail, including tom's new folding bicycle, a special order at west marine and then go grocery shopping.  all of that took pretty much the whole day.  we had a huge thunderstorm that night with lots of lightning and the next day was pretty wet and miserable, too, so we decided to stay one more day and ended up borrowing the car again and driving to colonial beach for lunch.  that was nice because the last time we were there, we were just passing through, only spent the night at the marina which is a couple of miles from town, then left the next day so we never got to see the place. while walking in downtown colonial beach, through a pottery shop window, i saw a woman carrying THREE beagle puppies so i had to go in.  the one little female was just absolutely adorable but i had to walk away.  consuelo, who was waiting in the car, would NOT have been amused.  the lady said she found the puppies by the side of the road in la plata, MD.  someone had just dumped them there.  she was looking for good homes for the puppies but, well, we weren't in the market for a new puppy.  i have done the geriatric to pediatric thing before and let me tell you, it is not for the faint of heart.  beagles are especially difficult because they require more entertainment than normal to keep them focused on you instead of following their noses.  even tom said he was tempted.  please....  one dog is enough!  it was hard to walk away though - she was just so soft and sweet. 

we also stopped at a couple of obscure marinas/boatyards.  this is something tom and i both enjoy doing - just walking through boatyards and poking around.  other people do antiques, yard sales, or whatever, but we do boatyards.  the one at coles point has a spectacular view of the potomac.  anyway, it was fun to play hooky from work.  we had originally planned to cruise to colonial beach but it really was too far away by boat for this trip and the land cruise in the rain did us just fine.  i also enjoyed the sight of "amber waves of grain" although not all the fields were quite amber yet.  just seeing those grasses undulating in the wind and the rain as we drove by, i thought it was beautiful.  since i grew up in the suburbs, farming has always been something pretty foreign to me.  i'm not very good with plants either - i manage to kill most of them - so it is probably best that i just look at other people's work. in any case, it was a fun day despite all the rain. 

not too many photos for this blog entry.  the rain just killed all the light.