First night we ate at Pad Thai, which was without frills, and had good soup and a hot green curry. A few steps beyond it is the Ram’s Head Tavern, a micro-brewery, with a restaurant as well. Our meals there were good to excellent, and their Copperhead Ale went down nicely, too.

The next day we landed up visiting Annapolis Mall, and tried Chipotle. Turns out to be like Subway, except creating Mexican burritos etc. to eat in or take away. Thumbs up from all of us.

Back in Annapolis near the harbour we had an evening meal at McGarveys. There I tried a “Panko encrusted mahi” – whatever that means – with excellent results. (You can tell the iPhone is getting popular: at the next table were 3 people each with their iPhones in different coloured protective skins …)

Trying to avoid Starbucks and give some trade to the independents, we had post-meal had hot drinks at the City Dock Coffee house. This was a great find – friendly (but not in the cheesy way we Brits tend to find), artily untidy and with good drinks. The only room for improvement would be to serve the drink-in customers with real cups or mugs, not plastic ones.

Continuing the theme, on Saturday I had lunch in 49 West Coffee house, where I had a fantastic Crab Nicoise salad, listening to a jazz band practising in the back. Then over a just-right Mocha, I started reading 360 degree preaching. I felt all this was deserved after going for one of my longest jogs yet.

Over the bridge we tried Rockfish, an up-market Surf and Turf place. Good decor, reasonable service, and more very good food. The only downside was getting asked for ID before they’d serve us any wine. As usual I’d not wanted to carry it and deliberately left it locked up in the hotel safe. I managed to blag my way around this, leaning heavily on my British accent in the process.

[Why don't I want to carry ID? I don't in the UK, so it feels very strange having to in the US. But that's not a good reason by itself. Certainly having to show ID when using credit cards should cut down on some kinds of fraud by. This happens in many stores, but not in restaurants or supermarkets. Makes no sense. But what irks me most is that often I'm told that it's for my safety or security -- when it's not. It might be for the stores' protection (reducing fraudulent use of credit cards) or avoiding a restaurant losing its license for serving alcohol to under-agers. But it's not directly helping me. Explanation over.]

I’ve not yet dug my camera out, but I chanced across a site who’d recently run an Annapolis photo competition. Here are some of the highlights:

(It’s not clear what the reproduction rights are for the photos; I’ll remove if necessary.)

First morning in the US, so I knew it would be easy to go for a run, as the body clock won’t have adjusted to a later wake-up. I was looking forward to seeing Annapolis again, as I remember it having the old-world charm (OK, it’s America; not that old-world) of Boston’s Back Bay. Sure enough, lots of redbrick buildings, and red-brick sidewalks.

I ran to the Harbour and back again (2 miles). Unfortunately the view wasn’t that great, as it was still dark, and the second half was all up hill, but I did at least some early morning dog walkers, runners and the delivery men starting. I chose different music to listen to for a change, and was interesting to see the effect. Picking some of my favorite worship songs made it easier to keep going, particularly up the hill, as I was joy-ful, literally. Nothing like having the focus on our amazing God and the heavenly future to keep from worrying about the current minute. The track ‘Oh to see the Dawn’ also gave me an idea for my next sermon