On the last day with my Aunt Rita, Kate and I accompanied her to Annapolis. The weather was absolutely spectacular as you can see from the photos. We first went on a harbor cruise which gave details on the city, and gave a sort of aquatic tour of the Naval academy. Following the hour long boat ride we went to lunch at a pub called "Middleton Tavern" that had some side walk seating that I was eager to take advantage of. 
The state house can be seen through the trees in this shot. We tried going in, however it appeared to be too late in the day to get inside. 
After walking around the town for a while we headed towards the Naval academy in hopes of getting to see the campus. After passing through a security check point we strolled the grounds which were very beautiful. The green scapes of the grounds with majestic trees, paths, fountains, and gazebos was nothing like the cold granite-bricked campus of my imagination.
The two photos above are the chapel which is one of the more dominant structures on the campus.
It was a special treat to see hundreds, if not thousands of cadets march in formation. We assumed these drills were the end of some field exercises. This was exactly like something out of a movie, complete with the occasional politically incorrect marching chant.
After a beautiful day of walking around we rewarded ourselves with some ice cream from the Annapolis Ice Cream Company, which gave gigantic portions. My Aunt Rita, unaware ordered two scoops much to the amusement of Kate and I. 
We had a light lunch at the food court there which is something that has changed since I went. Gone is the cafeteria, replaced with several chains anchored by McDonald's. I can't complain, Kate and I split a ten piece chicken nugget meal, and Justin was really enjoying his first nibbles of Mickey D's cheese burgers (with his Mom, Hope below). He's going to be an addict now.
This unusual tree was on Mt. Vernon's back lawn. The view is spectacular and the location of the house is perfect.
After touring the house which in many ways was surprising quaint compared to some mansions I've seen, we took the bus back to Huntington to go to 
This next shot is on King St. Some of the old brick buildings are painted over, however the selections from the color palette may perhaps be even more striking than their original appearance.
Before leaving Alexandria I snapped this shot of the 
Kate and I next hopped aboard a train to L'enfant plaza station next to the D.C. mall. We had a couple of hours before we really needed to be situated for the fireworks so we walked around a bit and checked out the various cultural exhibits that were set up. There was a large section of the mall that was devoted towards Indian culture that was interesting. They were giving out free tastings of Indian food, but we had stuffed ourselves far too much for it to be worthwhile to wait in line.
The mall was packed with people, however it wasn't too tough to find a nice grassy spot to plop down on.
Kate had the camera work down for snapping photos of the actual fireworks. I'm not sure what she did different than me because all of my shots look like big blobs of light. As it got darker the dust that is kicked up from the Mall's gravel pathways became really apparent in the shots.
Following the fireworks we went back to Huntington and drove to St. Leonard MD. It was a bit of a hike from Huntington, probably taking over an hour. I had my mp3 player hooked up to the auxiliary jack which helped make the drive go by fast. 
