Baltimore

We decided to play hookie this week. At breakfast Mike asked me if I had anything 'scheduled'. I had a long list, but no appointments. Neither did he. So after breakfast we loaded the kids into our rental mini-van and took off for Baltimore. We've never really been to Baltimore to play since we've had kids. Mike served his mission in Baltimore so he knows his way around, so we went.

We started with Fort McHenry. We all loved it. It was a very cool fort, with ramparts, trenches, underground rooms to hold the gun powder, underground 'safe' rooms, barracks, ect. They had real cannons, cannon balls, and a replica of the American Flag that had flown there at the time of the attack on Fort McHenry. The flag had 15 stars and 15 strips. This attack came a little while after we had won the revolutionary war. While witnessing the aftermath of this attack, Francis Scott Key wrote a poem that later became the Star Spangled Banner. I am about to step onto my soap box now, so if you don't want to hear it then skip down to the next paragraph. One thing that I learned about Fort McHenry is that Baltimore was the largest city in the union at that time. It was prosperous as a sea port and trading town. The civilians wanted to protect their property and prosperity so they hired and paid for an engineer to design the fort. One of the regiments serving at the fort was made up of volunteers from the city, the leaders of that regiment were prosperous and well known civilians that were looking out for their own good (and that of the city). The fact that Fort McHenry withstood the onslaught of cannon fire from English ships was amazing and partly due to it's design. It stopped the British cold in their attack on the United States (after having successfully attacked Washington DC). The whole reason the British attacked us in the first place is because we were so successful with our free trade that we were interfering with the British war with France. We were able to protect our freedom because of capitalism! To try to make the United States fit some mold or pattern of socialism now would destroy everything that our capitalist forefathers worked and died for all those years ago! Ok, I'm done!

After Fort McHenry we headed for the Inner Harbor. What an amazing little place! So fun! We went to the aquarium. It was so cool! We walked in and there was a huge 2-3 story waterfall into a fish tank. It was so loud and caused enough spray that Anna Elise refused to go in, she stood just outside and yelled that she didn't want to go. Sigh. My kids! We made her go in and she eventually got over it. It was a lot of fun. They had all the usual stuff, but bigger! The stingrays were huge, the sharks and other fish just seemed bigger then I've ever seen at other aquariums. The set up was a lot of fun too. Half way through we had to stop and go find the Dolphin Tank, we had tickets to one of the shows. It was really good. They had 5 dolphins that jumped and walked backwards and did tricks, they splashed the audience and just gave a really good show. Then we went back to our tour of the sharks and fish. At the end was a tropical rain forest with all the trees, plants, birds and spiders that you would expect to see in a rain forest. The kids had a blast and so did mom and dad!

The trip home seemed long, but it always does. We are now more behind than ever, but I'm still glad we went!

One of the cannons at Fort McHenry and the '15 State' flag

The kids and the cannon balls

Lilah checking out the cannon

One of the barracks

The entrance to the National Aquarium in Baltimore

There are no strollers allowed, so we checked our stroller and were given this backpack instead, Lilah loved it!

The kids standing inside a prehistoric shark's jaw

One of the dolphins at the dolphin show

Madeline watching the fish upclose

A jellyfish that Mike captured on film. They had a whole room full of jellyfish tanks!

The kids trying so hard to wait patiently while mom bought them a piece of candy from the gift shop. Click on the picture to see Anna Elise's eyes, while she asks if it's ok to move her eyeballs. Calvin has never sat that still for that long. Madeline didn't sit still, but did well enough.