Day 16 - Baltimore Day 2 or Are We Home Yet?

Howdy folks! After yesterday's review, you may be surprised to know that we had breakfast at Bob Evans. Well, we didn't have too many options, and I reasoned that they may be like Denney's where their regular food is so so, but they do breakfast fine. This was the case. They actually had lots of choices and were cheaper than Denney's. We had to turn in the rental car by 9 AM, so we needed to get up, get breakfast and get the rental car to the drop off spot at the airport. Dwayne had a biscuit bowl. He enjoyed it and I had a bite with some biscuit and gravy and it tasted pretty good. I like biscuits as much as the next guy. Using them as a bread bowl, while calorically insane, is a tasty idea.
I went for broke and had this breakfast with two eggs, bacon, potatoes and a blueberry crepe. Everything was well done. Strangely, the potatoes were not at all crispy, but they tasted very good. I wonder if the seasoning on them included MSG because they tasted a little addictive. One nice touch is that they offered me a cup of coffee to go.
After turning in the car we found our way to the light rail station and headed into Baltimore for the day. It was actually a very pretty ride through lots of greenery. We disembarked a little south of Inner Harbor so that we could check out a book store and comic book store Dwayne found in the phone book. After some browsing, he sat down to figure out our course. I saw him sitting in front of this historic fire house and just had to get a picture.
Note the message on the bench.
Here's the view from the fire house towards downtown.
Here's another wooden ship.
Another bird who was kind enough to pose for me and to sing a song.


The good news is that we found two Triple D sites in Fells Point, the neighborhood east of the Inner Harbor. The bad news is that we didn't get to actually eat at either of them. We found Blue Moon while looking for a lunch place. The food looked fabulous, but it was very crowded, with a long wait. Also, we had already eaten a big breakfast type meal, and that is their specialty. I'll just have to try making Cap'n Crunch french toast at home.
While walking on in search of lunch, I spotted this helpful building. I don't think it was functioning as advertised, but I was tickled to see this historic public restroom.
Here is where we ended up for lunch. Alexander's Tavern. They had lots of historical pictures of Baltimore, including a few from the big fire of 1904. I didn't know anything about this, but it looked pretty devastating. The photos reminded me of those I've seen after the SF earthquake of 1906. So many of the eastern cities seem to be made of brick and this photo showed mountains of crumbled bricks where buildings used to be. For lunch we had a slider platter with tater tots. The sliders had crab cakes, cheeseburgers, pulled pork and roast beef.
This is the second Triple D site and we came across it by accident after our lunch. Sigh. Our mission of eating at Triple D sites was not thoroughly accomplished. Sometimes we just sat down and ate what we could when we could.
This is an old building that was used to film Homicide. One funny side story: there is a water taxi station right next to this building and we didn't know it because it wasn't indicated on the map. We walked about a mile to another neighborhood to catch the water taxi, which promptly came back to this site to transfer us to another water taxi for our destination.
While walking through historic Fells Point, we discovered another comic book store. A good day for Dwayne!

I saw baby geese on our long walk to the water taxi. We've seen tons of Canadian geese all over the east, but these are the first babies I've seen. They were very cute, but I was a little sad because this bay water is absolutely putrid. I'm very thankful for our clean(ish) rivers, especially the American. The Sacramento never thought of being this dirty on it's worst day. It is the color burnt umber. No kidding. Not even close to being a color water should be. Also, there is trash everywhere. In fact, they actually had a water drain explode because it got plugged up with trash. There are plastic bits and bottles floating everywhere. There were people kayaking and renting paddle boats. Yuck! I would not want a child to touch that water.
Here's Dwayne on the water taxi. The crew was very friendly and gave us lots of directions.
Our intrepid captain.
Happy but tired. After the water taxi, we headed for the light rail so we could go back to the hotel. Dwayne used his navigational skills to help us get off the light rail early (before the airport) and we took a walk to our hotel on a lovely bike trail that runs around the airport grounds. We saw an adult rabbit, a baby rabbit and a wood chuck! I also saw these beautiful flowers. I wasn't fast enough to get photos of the little mammals, but it was fun to see them.


Tonight's dinner was from the Quizno's next to the hotel and we spent the evening relaxing and packing. It will be a challenge to keep our luggage in proportion because we've done a bit of shopping. This was a big trip for books and Dwayne's suitcase got most of them. Tomorrow we have to get up at 4 AM to catch the 5 AM shuttle so we can catch our flight at 7 AM. Due to the time zones, we'll get home about noon. We're both ready to resume our regularly scheduled life, already in progress.

Day 15 - Heading Back West via Baltimore.

This is another day where the text will have to follow the pictures. I met the sun this morning at around 5:30 - that's 2:30 back home. Got to get some sleep. We have to turn the car in by 9 AM tomorrow, then we will head into Baltimore via light rail for the day. I'll miss the car and the Lady Box. The car has been our most consistent home for the last 15 days. But, we're both tired and are looking forward to returning to our own home on Sunday.
OK! I'm back. Here is the breakfast I had on the boardwalk at the Atlantic Stand. These eggs were large and fresh, and I just had to try scrapple. I know my Grammy used to make scrapple when she lived on a farm. I've had corn meal mush. This is kind of like that, but it has pork with sausage seasoning mixed into the cornmeal. I had it with syrup. It was pretty good.
The Atlantic Stand has been on the boardwalk since the 20's. It has a stand outside for people to walk up and a diner section in back.
We sat in the diner section.
This is what Maryland looks like from the highway, only there are farms and fields in cleared areas between the woods. It is really beautiful and green out here. I saw a deer grazing at the edge of one of these wooded areas.
We stopped at two farm stands. I got some black raspberry jam at one and we had lunch at this one. They had dozens of different pickles and relishes here. I was so tempted, but I fear broken pickles in the luggage, and they are too much liquid for carry on. I got lots of inspiration for future canning projects.
We had sandwiches - pulled chicken and sliced ham. The sandwiches were just competent, but this was a lovely setting across the street from a wheat field.

There's the wheat field.
Dwayne discovered Red Cream Soda. He really liked it, but apparently it is an East Coast thing.
We went to the Inner Harbor area of Baltimore. There are several ships set up as museums for visitors to explore. There are two wooden sailing ships, a submarine and several large military ships, including one that survived Pearl Harbor. We had fun viewing them, but didn't board any of them.
Baltimore has a helpful Visitor's Center that is manned by very enthusiastic senior volunteers. We got lots of help and maps here. This doggie part of their kinetic sculpture parade.
There are two sports stadiums right by the Inner Harbor - Camden Yards and M & T Stadium.
Right next to Camden Yards is the Geppi Entertainment Museum. This is owned by Stephen Geppi, the guy who owns Diamond Comic Distributors. Dwayne was thrilled to see this place.
Look! It's Action Comics #1! It's Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #1! and All American Comics #16, the origin of the Green Lantern! Woot!
This museum has all kinds of popular culture items. Here are games and toys from Buck Rogers.
Tarzan!
Tarzan again!
Dwayne liked this print because it has many of the characters from the Sunday morning line up.
Honey West - TV Private Eye Full!
We'd been seeing Bob Evan's restaurants all over the place. Dwayne looked it up and it seemed to have a good menu and be based on farm foods, so we decided to give it a try. I decided to try the meal advertised on the place mat. Here's what it said about this meal (copied from their web menu) "Two bone-in chicken breasts are spice-rubbed Memphis style, then oven-roasted to seal in the flavor. Served with our seasoned sweet potato fries, special recipe macaroni & cheese and freshly baked rolls." I just realized I never got the rolls. Oh well. The server (who was very nice) told me they were out of this chicken and brought me the menu. I really wanted to try their special recipe macaroni and cheese so I asked if I could have this meal with fried chicken as a substitute. "No problem." He said.
Here's what I got. Now, just because I'm going to criticize this meal, don't think I didn't enjoy it. I can only conclude that they don't actually do any cooking here. I'm sure the fries and chicken were frozen and dropped in the fryer. The thing that cracked me up is that the "special recipe" mac and cheese is Kraft Macaroni and Cheese! No kidding! Hilarious! I didn't end up eating it. Dwayne ate some of it and took a walk down memory lane. I used to make this a lot when Madelyn was a toddler, but I always put peas in it.
Dwayne had "Pot Roast Stroganoff." It was pretty tasty. Again, I really don't think they are roasting meat back there. I think they heated this up real good. We decided to give dessert a try. The server recommended the peach cobbler with ice cream. It was just OK. The peaches were not canned, which is a plus, but there was too much of the gooey stuff people seem to like in pie. (I hate that stuff!). Again, I'm guessing it came to this location frozen and was baked off on site.
This very picturesque barn was just across the street from the Bob Evans.
I poked around the wild area behind our hotel and found these berries. They look like the photos I've seen of red currants, but the leaves are different. I was really temped to try them, but know better. Considering this area is swarming with song birds (such beautiful music!) and they aren't eating them, I knew I better hold back. (I remember in 6th grade when my teacher accidentally ate poison oak and shared it with a student and they both ended up in the hospital! Talk about a lesson on nature.)
There are honeysuckles growing everywhere out here. They smell very sweet.

Day 14 - Ocean City at Last!

Hi There! We drove the last 150 miles to Ocean City today. I was surprised at how much of Maryland is agricultural. In fact, I'm hoping to finally get to stop at some farm stands tomorrow as we head to Baltimore. I saw mostly wheat and corn. They also have crazy beautiful masses of wild flowers in on the road side. I think they must have spread seed because it's not everywhere. It's hard to get photos of things like that, but I'll try again tomorrow. There should be less urgency tomorrow, as we've already reached the finish line.
The bridge over the Chesapeake Bay is enormous and has multiple spans.
We stopped in a little town called Salisbury and had some lunch at Jimmy's. Dwayne had one of the specials - hot roast beef sandwich.

I had a fried oyster sandwich and fries. This was yummy!

I had my oyster fritters on good old fashioned white bread.
As we rolled into Ocean City, we were searching for the sign and there is was! It is just as the bridge is coming down into the boardwalk area.
When we got settled in, Dwayne caught up with his dad and found out how rainy and cold it has been back home.
This is the view from our hotel. We're right on the boardwalk! We'll see how we like it tonight when we're trying to sleep. It seems fairly sound proofed right now. The ocean is pretty loud because it is so windy. According to a shop lady, it was in the 80's yesterday, but it was 63 today. Yesterday in DC it was 91! We got kind of shivery out on our walk.

There is Dwayne, pointing at the sign.

See the sign between our pointy little heads.
We discovered this monument to fallen fire fighters.
Lots of little shops and snack places.
I really like this add. We kept wondering what boardwalk fries were, and apparently they are like the fries I had at lunch - from raw unpeeled potatoes - only they come in giant buckets like movie popcorn.
The rides weren't going today. We saw lots of evidence of the businesses preparing for the big weekend. Right now there are warnings for severe thunder storms slightly north of us. Rain is expected for tomorrow. I think the merchants are hoping for a warm opening for their summer business this holiday weekend.
There are so many restaurants around here, and we had a hard time choosing, so we just walked a little ways and found Flavors of Italy. It wasn't quite Italian in the sense that it was run by Russians and Russian pop music was rocking the house, but it was pretty good. Dwayne had shrimp Alfredo.
I had crab cakes and mashed potatoes. The crab cakes were yummy and I really enjoyed them. I'm told I didn't have the best in town, but I'm happy. The big winner for me was the mashed potatoes. The potatoes were very flavorful and well seasoned with garlic and herbs and they were baked on a puff pastry. This is genius and I'm already dreaming up ways to repeat this at home. I think this will be especially good for some of my non-meat eating friends.
We enjoyed our after dinner walk a lot more because we were dressed for it. I had to get my toesies in the Atlantic.
Yay! We did it!
View of the boardwalk from the waterline.
These ducks got out of the wind and cold and settled in a hotel pool.
Look at all the snacks!
A fishing boat just off shore.
There was one of these just about every other block. We bought some salt water taffy for the folks back home.
These crazy girls were even more determined to visit the ocean than me. It was somewhere between 60 and 63 and blowing a gale. The few surfers were in wet suits.
Here's our hotel.
Our gifts from the sea. There were tons of shells out here, much more than on the beaches I've visited in California.

We're going to visit the harbor part of Ocean City tomorrow morning, then heading to Baltimore in the afternoon. Baltimore is currently under a severe thunderstorm warning, so we hope it will have blown over by the time we get there. Baltimore is loaded with good restaurants, including many Triple D sites. We will be staying in Baltimore Friday and Saturday and then we will be flying home early on Sunday. We've been having the time of our lives, but I think we're both looking forward to getting home to our little house.