Wednesday, October 15, 2014
We were going to leave
Baltimore today, but the forecast was for thunderstorms all day. Since we don’t like either driving or setting
up in the rain, we stayed put.
We did manage to get to both
Ft. McHenry and the Aquarium yesterday.
We thoroughly enjoyed Ft. McHenry.
I didn’t remember much from history, except that the Star Spangled
Banner was written about the battle fought here during the war of 1812. I certainly didn’t remember that the war of
1812 was fought on several fronts, with the British attacking from Canada, as
well as all along the eastern seaboard and even New Orleans.
By the time the British
attacked Baltimore, they had already captured and burned Washington, DC,
including the White House. (I do
remember a story about First Lady Dolly Madison ordering George Washington’s
portrait cut from the frame in order to take it with her as they fled
Washington.) Baltimore heard about the
fall of Washington and got ready for an attack.
The fort geared up for an attack and citizens (men, women, children,
black and white) and soldiers built ramparts to protect the city from a ground
attack. The British needed to knock out
the fort to proceed with a ground attack.
They bombarded the fort for 25 hours, before retreating and leaving
Baltimore alone. Four American soldiers
were killed and 25 wounded. This is the
view from the fort over the river where the British ships were anchored.
The flag that inspired the
song was raised when the shelling stopped.
It’s 30 x 42 feet. A smaller flag
had flown over the fort during the battle, but it was the large flag that
Francis Scott Key saw when he looked for the flag at the dawn.
The original flag is at the
Smithsonian in Washington. They’ve gone
to great lengths to preserve it. It’s
worth a visit.
It was a beautiful day to
visit the fort and there were school groups there. Several groups were actually performing. The schools use historical music to teach
both history and music and were singing.
There was also a student fife and drum group that played quite
well. They were playing out on one of
the walls while I was in the quadrangle and the sound bounced around. The music was fine, but I can’t imagine being
there with bombs and canons going off.
We sometimes forget that the
fort was where people lived. This is the
center of the fort. The rooms were Spartan,
but typical for the time.
The fort was used for many
things during it’s active time, including a hospital during World War 1. It's definitely worth a visit if you're in Baltimore.
We left the fort and headed for the aquarium, which is located in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. They've done a great job of revitalizing this area and it has a number of attractions and lots of restaurants. We found a parking garage that the truck would fit in (with 2" clearance, kind of scary) and walked a few blocks to the pier the aquarium is on. We had lots of choices for lunch, but Steve chose the Hard Rock Cafe. We tend to visit them when we are near one. The food is usually good and it reminds us of London and our other travels.
This is a picture of the bridge that connects the two aquarium buildings. If you look in the background you can see some yachts docked. These were huge and drawled the ferry that went by.
We finally found the entrance of the aquarium and started our journey through it. It was an ok aquarium, but fell short of my expectations. They are dealing with odd space constrictions, having a small footprint on two different piers and rising to 5 stories. But it just didn't flow naturally and there seemed to be a lot of wasted space. They did have some great artwork. I particularly liked the jelly fish installation above one of the cafes.
They had a nice dolphin exhibit area, but had no dolphin shows. They don't do shows. If you were lucky, you might see a training or feeding session. They had a fairly normal set up of a big front pool and two back pools. There were two dolphins swimming in the front pool and about 4 playing with a basketball in on of the back pools. We watched for awhile and then left for the jelly fish. On our way back to the bridge between the two buildings, the worker who had told us there were no shows told us they were starting a training session and we could go in and watch. We went in and watched. A trainer was explaining what went on and Steve was excited that she was hooked into a loop for hearing aids and he could actually hear! Yeah for the aquarium!
On the way home, we picked Obi up from the kennel. We kenneled him for two days so he wouldn't be alone in the trailer and we could take Steve's dad to dinner. They had groomed him and he looked great.
Obi is having trouble seeing. Blindness frequently happens when dogs have diabetes, so this doesn't come as a total surprise. But it will require some adjustments for both Obi and us.
The storms have passed, so we'll leave in the morning. We're headed for Winchester, Virginia, where we will drop off the trailer to have the water heater replaced, and then head for Harper's Ferry. Another history lesson!
Deb
