The black dog bobbing after the ball doesn't even notice me as I drop the inflatable yellow Sevlor "Tahiti K 79 Classic" kayak into the shallow muddy water down here by the park. I just got through carrying it down the hill from my house in Old Town, it was 25 pounds balanced on my head like a giant hat, provoking conversations from passing motorists like this:

"Hey Boat-head!"

"Yeah, what's up?"

"How's it going, Boat-Head?"

"It's alright, and you?"

"Doing fine... Boat-Head."

The tide isn't completely out, and I don't scrape the bottom as I get adjusted in my seat, wiping mud off of my sandals before chucking them up inside the front. A few strokes of the double-bladed paddle takes me out into the river, almost a mile wide here.

I can see the Woodrow Wilson drawbridge towering above me to the right and far past it, sailboats floating like moths in the distance where the Potomac gets wider yet. Here it is mostly motorboats, small yachts, and a blue double-decker tour-boat chugging down towards Mt. Vernon loaded with tourists, looking like something from a Popeye cartoon.

The wind blows me upstream past a couple lounging under a gazebo that sits at the end of a dock. I am going upstream so steadily, in fact, that I quit paddling, kick back, and catch up on a few cell phone calls. I relish the fact that somebody, somewhere, will spot me with that thing held to my ear, nudge his neighbor, and say:

"Look at that jerk."

This is a good perspective for a look at Alexandria, the original Alexandria from the mid-1700s. It was a shipping town, the farthest point inland in British America where you could sail a ship, presumably coasting in with the tide, settling into the mud when the water-level dropped while you unloaded cargo, then lifting up later and coasting back out again.

The Old Town still shows the look of that time, tall narrow buildings waiting for the next load of scurvy sailors to trudge up the hill from the sea.

The tourists mostly come from inland now, and they are all over the main docks by the Torpedo Factory, a former, well, torpedo factory converted into three stories of artists' workshops. Outside there are trained parrots, balloon-benders, musicians (fairly good ones in fact), and restaurants and tour-boat offices.

Over in the corner of the tourists is a family actually fishing. They just caught a big catfish, and put it on the stringer with the one they already had. No catch and release here, it's dinner. The balloon-bending man stops in his work to come over:

"That's a BIG fish!"

---

"Hey, are you tired?"

"I said, hey, are you tired?"

I hadn't been paying attention, just bobbing here in the slip by the Torpedo Factory. It's two ladies talking to me, leaning over the rail.

"Tired? No, I'm just lazy."

Time to start paddling again.

---

I paddle up-stream some more until I can see the Capitol Dome and the Washington Monument blue in the distance. Lots more boats, and many people boarding the large paddle-wheel "Cherry Blossom". I steer clear of those green mossy paddles.

It's clouding up. I start to fantasize about pulling my kayak out of the water and carrying it up King Street on my head until I get to the coffee-shop on the corner, where I will sit inside dry and warm drinking my brew, regaling the locals with my tales of the sea.

Problem is, I can't find anywhere to take it out here, not without trespassing on somebody's private dock. They've got the old waterfront sewn up.

I pass a long sleek tour-boat called the "Nina". It looks like a floating restaurant that is starting to fill up. I make eye-contact first with the table of retirees at the front corner, then with the bartender amidships. On a whim I make the "one-more-beer-bartender" hand-gesture at him, and he starts frantically waving me over to the ship while lifting up a bottle of grog.

I look up at him. He's serious. The wait-staff come running up to the windows, waving. I paddle over, but one of them, a pretty, laughing brunette, gestures that the windows don't open. Then she makes wide "get-out-of-the-water-and-come-around-from-the-dock-you-fool" arm-motions.

Not this time. I smile and wave, and paddle off.

I look back in a minute, and she is still watching, laughing. We wave again.

The bottom falls out of the sky and the grey Potomac erupts like it's getting machine-gunned with cool rain. Up ahead, the couple under the gazebo stand up, hug, and walk back up the dock. My paddle makes no noise as I shoot back downstream.