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.