Trip 08: Baltimore, Maryland

After our stormy stay in Virginia, it was time to head northeast to Baltimore, Maryland.  I drove for most of the way, so I wasn't able to record as many sights in my "to investigate later" list, but I did have two points that I remembered long enough to jot down in my journal later: Why is the National D-Day Memorial in the middle of inland Virginia?  Also, Carl's Jrs. are called Hardee's here, but otherwise appear identical.  (I still don't know the answer to that first one yet, and Hardee's are clearly inferior to Carl's Jrs. as they do not have Western Bacon Cheeseburgers.  No contest.)

I loved Virginia - it remains so far my favorite state to have visited this summer (Tennessee and Wisconsin currently round up my top three, as of the end of July).  It was so green, with all the rolling hills and mountains and rivers that you'd expect of John Denver country.  We did, in fact, listen to "Take Me Home, Country Roads" in Virginia, and it was awfully cool to drive past signs pointing out various locations in the song: Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River...

But it was onto Baltimore for the next event.  We arrived and settled into a hotel that was far too downtown for my liking - I do not like downtowns; I have had this point hammered home many times this trip!  I maintain I'm a country girl... or at least, a suburban girl! - but the plus side of the very downtown-ness was that we were just a few blocks from the harbor.

Aside from the Constellation, which was at dock, we weren't amazingly impressed with the harbor, though seeing a submarine docked by the aquarium was pretty cool.  But we decided to do dinner together for J's birthday at a sushi place overlooking the water, and had an added bonus when we sat outside on the balcony.

There are two important things to note in this photo: first, those dark and very threatening clouds overhead.  I'll get back to those!  Second, see that obviously-man-made fortification directly across the bay?  That would be Fort McHenry.  For those not completely obsessed with history like me, think the War of 1812 and Francis Scott Key - when the British failed to bomb out the fort, the flag flying from the fort's flagpole inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner".  Not bad for a dinner overlook!

We had some really tasty sushi out on the restaurant's balcony, the only people brave enough to sit outside in the face of those nasty clouds.  We were treated to another spectacular lightning storm over dinner, complete with another torrential downpour!  We just cracked a lot of jokes about being from Seattle and thus used to rain and stayed right where we were (thankfully under a canopy!).

It was a great show with dinner.  We could watch the rain as it came towards us over the water, and see lightning striking all around.  We even had a rainbow come out over the submarine by the aquarium, and we timed our dash back to the hotel for when the rain let up slightly.  Still, it was a crazy storm - the tv and radio played warnings to "take shelter within sturdy buildings".  I was slightly amused at the "sturdy" part of that warning... shouldn't it be understood?  We wound up losing the tv signal because of all the interference back at the hotel from the storm.

I went to bed fairly early, but woke up to add to my journal: It is incredibly freaky to see lightning out your window - like an actual line of lightning, not just the flash - when you know darn well you can't even see the sky out that window, just the many-storied building across the street.  It was an intense storm!

Still, storm or no storm, we had an event the next day.  The rain actually held off until about a half-hour before the event ended, but we were set up in the stadium lot in Baltimore and were able to put everyone under a freeway overpass (which actually had a waterfall going for a while, it was raining so hard!).  Luckily, the rain only lasted about forty minutes - once everyone left and we started cleaning up, the rain stopped and so we were able to remain relatively dry.  Which was definitely a blessing, since L, D and I went straight from the event back to shower at the hotel and run to the airport for a flight back to Seattle for another event!

Ah, but this was our very long Friday!  We left the hotel for the event at 4:30 am.  We left the hotel for our flight at about 3 pm.  After a bit of a worry in the airport because of weather (that same storm shut down the airport for about an hour, and there were lots of canceled flights), we were able to board our flight back to Seattle, where we arrived at about 12:30 am on Saturday.  But because of the time change, it was really 3:30 am to the rest of us... a 23 hour day!

Luckily, we had that Saturday off, but then we ran a full day event in Seattle on Sunday.  No time to really do much afterwards - we were on a red-eye flight to Long Island Sunday night for our next event!

-Beth