Charm City

We just spent three lovely days in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. O.K. Three is generous. We flew in on Thursday evening, spent all day Friday there and left Saturday afternoon. So, whatever. It was three days of travel. I'm counting it:)

Baltimore's nickname is Charm City and charming it was. When telling people about our destination, I had several people ask me if we would go to Washington D.C. since the two cities are so close to each other, but I wanted to spend our one full day in Baltimore, as I'd never really been there before.

I'm glad I did. The harbor, where we stayed and where the marathon (see below) centered around, was really picturesque and serene. Like most East Coast cities, there is a lot of American history there. Unfortunately, outside of this particular area, there is also a lot of crime.

I think this is why Baltimore gets a bad rap. It has the second highest crime rate/capita for a city over 250,000 people in the entire country. While I didn't see any of it, several miles of the Baltimore Marathon goes through some of their roughest neighborhoods. Jay told me it was really sketchy - like every rough looking neighborhood you've ever seen on T.V or the movies only more depressing because he saw the downtrodden who actually lived there. I learned another nickname for Baltimore is Mob City.

I only felt nervous once, when we got off the light rail train with our luggage and had half a mile to walk to our hotel in the dark of the night. Suddenly, I felt like a hick and very unsafe. It was a relief to get to our downtown digs where we could watch the many, many sirens drive by from our protective 10th floor window.



Still, our one full day there was a lot of fun. We kept our sightseeing pretty low key as Jay didn't want to be foot tired the day before his race. We spent the morning picking up his race packet and shopping at the running expo and then had a delicious seafood lunch. I packed around my camera during all of this, but have a horrible habit of leaving my memory card in my computer when downloading pictures. After a quick trip back to the hotel, we were in photo business again.

We toured two ships they have docked in the harbor. First up, the USS Torsk. Its most interesting fact is that it was the submarine that sunk the last Japanese warship in World War II. It also has made the most dives of any American submarine at over 11,000.



Jay making his way down.

In front of the rear torpedoes.

Like a kid in a candy store, Jay enjoyed pushing all the buttons. They still worked. Not the torpedo launching ones...just the original light switches

Jay insisted on taking a picture of me since I complain I am in no pictures. You be the judge if this counts.

The USS Torsk from our next stop, the USS Constellation.

The USS Constellation was the last all-sail powered warship commissioned to be built by the US government during the Civil War. It's main job was to patrol for slave ships and to defeat the confederacy's attempts to interfere with the Union's trade from the Mediterranean sea.

Can you imagine sleeping this close to other people in hammocks?

They had a "hands-on" demonstration that moved the sail direction. I can't remember what it was called, but this guy took his job seriously and treated all of his participants like sailors. And he yelled at me for standing in an unsafe position to take this picture. Click on it. You can see his angry face.

So, I moved. This is what Jay's hard work produced....

See how the beam is turned?

This was the bottom of the four "floors" on the ship. It's where they stored the food and drinking water.


The USS Constellation

Next, we went on a 45 minute harbor cruise with historical narrative. We had to wait for just a little while and my hero went and rounded us up some refreshing beverages.


Diet Cokes in hand!


Pictures from the inside of the ship (Jay wanted to get out of the sun). The lighthouse where immigrants were sent if they were sick and needed to be quarantined. Did you know Baltimore harbor is second only to Ellis Island in number of immigrants landed?

Ft. McHenry where the Star Spangled banner was penned by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812.

Another courtesy shot.

We had dinner at Uno Chicago Pizzeria and Grill because Jay wanted to Carbo load and they offered gluten-free options. This was our view from our table.

I made our waiter take a picture of us, much to the chagrin of Jay. He didn't take a clear shot, much to the chagrin of me.

We listened to an a Capella ground after dinner that wasn't very good.

And the whole trip was made possible thanks to loving grandparents.

It was so nice travelling without the boys. They are great travelers, but when I watched the other parents running around getting their children breakfast and pushing strollers and convincing toddlers to stay out of the taped off race area, I really appreciated the fact that my boys were home, safe and sound and having a great time with Grandma and Grandpa. Plus, I got two books read (Wuthering Heights and Romeo and Juliet) which definitely couldn't have happened with Henry around.

We had a lovely time and I happily recommend Baltimore as a great three/one day destination.