Baltimore and Annapolis

McDonald's was such a hit yesterday that we started our day there again today, all except for Golda, who refused to buy into the hype, and Scott who took Golda to a fancy bagel place.  After all, it was her last day with us before flying home!

 I loved this.  Page two of Lucy's instructions on how to feed her beta fish.  Linus and I really bonded during our talks.  Krissy and Sin's kids are the sweetest.

 Inner harbour.

 Historic lighthouse.  Very interesting!

 Holding a Civil War rifle!

 Unconventional playground

Golda's flight left out of Baltimore, so we spent the morning there at the Inner Harbor.  I hadn't been to Baltimore for about 20 years.  It was just revitalizing then, and it's beautiful now.  Our family had a great time looking at all the ships in the harbor as we strolled along.  There were plenty of neat ships to take pictures of for Bill.

We used the divide and conquer routine so that Scott could take Golda, Ruby and Freestone to a sit-down restaurant on the water.  For her last day, Golda wanted crabcakes, and what better place to get them than the Chesapeake Bay?  They went to a place called Dick's, where the schtick was that the waiters act like "dicks."  Classy!  They walked in and the waitress said, "Welcome to Dick's!  Now SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!"  Freestone thought it was hilarious...later.  At the time, he was shocked.

Meanwhile, the little kids, Ari and I fed ducks and visited a Civil War Museum.  The museum had a little coloring table that I had to literally drag Ptolemy and Tziporah away from.  Sheesh, coloring??  No interest in holding a Civil War rifle or anything?  Like I said, whatever makes them happy, and those mimeographed coloring pages sure floated their boat!  (Because we were in the harbor.  Get it?  Ha ha.)

Too soon, it was time to take Golda to the airport.  I really wish she could have stayed longer, but she has a Dance Company workshop to be to, and besides, uh, we can only seat 8 people in our car.  Krissy's kids learned a new term while we were visiting with them:  "double seatbelting."  It's not as safe as it sounds, folks!

There she goes!  She was apprehensive about flying home alone, but I wasn't.  I knew she would be fine.

We dropped of Golda at the Baltimore airport, then drove south.  Scott is crazy (he got it from me and then took it to a whole new level), and he wanted to drive to Philadelphia or New York.  Philly isn't that far from Baltimore, but the traffic can be brutal.  We opted for a spontaneous detour to Annapolis, just to see the Naval academy so we could text more pictures to my dad.

Well, we had to idea how much we were going to LOVE Annapolis.  It's what all the other quaint little towns in the world wish they were.  Annapolis has an effortless charm that is just inherent in the very old brick buildings and cobblestone streets.  There was nothing contrived about the shops, inns, restaurants and museums.  The whole place is almost painfully cute, and then it has this amazing backdrop of the Chesapeake Bay full of yachts and sailboats.  Annapolis is like the girl you knew in school who just had it all; beautiful, thin, rich, smart and nice, without even trying.  It's got charm to spare, plus the Naval Academy!

We first went to the visitors' center, which I've found is a great place to start,  (Duh)  There is always someone armed with a map and a plan, just yours for the asking.  Two hours of parking was two bucks, and we left with a highlighted walking tour map.  First, the old capital building, which was the nation's capital for nine months in George Washington's time.  The senate and house chambers, which are used today for the Maryland state congress, were just beautiful.

Next, we walked to the actual Naval Academy and toured the grounds.  OK, we toured the gift shop and took lots of pictures for Bill.  The grounds were mostly too extensive for our little group's legs, and we had to get back before our meter expired.  Little did we know that we would end up renewing the meter and staying for another three hours, right after consuming a dozen Winchell's donuts.  We would have left, but there were so many fun shops to explore, too many cobblestone side streets strewn with sailing flags and "50% off" signs.  We had to stay!  It's a good thing we did, too, because we found a quaint little crepe place where we sat outside and were treated like royalty by the boys working there while we ate steaming Nutella crepes.  I love this vacation.  I am going to cry when it's over.

And this is a weird coincidence, but on the second Wednesday of each month, there are sailboat races in Annapolis.  Can you believe we hit that just right?  It would have been a mite more fun to watch the sailboats speed by if Ptolemy hadn't been teetering on the edge of the dock every two minutes, but he was having so much fun!  I just didn't want to have to jump in to save him.  That water looked pretty murky.  Tziporah also wanted to be a free spirit.  She loves to walk by herself, not holding anybody's hand, changing directions by 180 degrees at will and stopping to examine puddles.  If it were up to her, we would never get anywhere, but we'd have the time of our lives doing it.

 Tziporah taking off

 I think this was my expression for most of the trip.

 Tziporah dancing on the dock.

 Trading glasses.  Isn't Ruby gorgeous?

Scott and I kept seeing these cozy inns and saying, "Let's come back and stay here next time."  The sad realty is that we probably won't.  I told Scott I wanted to be from an old money sailing family and live in Annapolis in one of the mansions with the antique window glass, the overflowing flowerboxes and the miniature garage doors.  He said I was asking the impossible.  Darn.  The truth is, I would never choose anywhere besides Kaysville to live, but I wouldn't mind a weekend here and there in Annapolis!