Day 2: Baltimore, Maryland

Date:                   July 9, 2019
Distance:            As few as possible (walking)

Today ended up being a sleepy day for at least one of us.  Okay, I'll remove the suspense, it wasn't me.  I awoke at 8am and waited for Di to wake up, which eventually happened a little after 9am.  We watched the Tour for about an hour, then headed downstairs for coffee and breakfast, but mostly coffee.

Di at breakfast (not completely alone, but close)

Di desperately seeking coffee

We returned to our room to watch the remainder of the Tour. It was an exciting finish (Peter Sagan!) and when I turned to Di to talk about it I saw that she was now fast asleep! At this point it was a little past 11am, so I started reading, drank my coffee, drank Di's coffee (after asking in a very low voice, of course), and basically waited until she awoke, which occurred around 12:30pm.  By 1pm we were finally out of the hotel and on our way to the George Washington Monument, which is something I thought would be fun to see.
 

Di walking towards the George Washington Monument

 For some reason, Di felt like she hadn't had enough coffee (hmm, I wonder what happened to her coffee), so we stopped at David and Dad's Cafe for a supply of caffeine.

David and Dad's Cafe is in a former bank (pretty cool)

Di got her iced coffee to go and we continued walking towards the monument.  The monument is only a 17 minute walk from the hotel, but it was getting hot and Di insisted it was all uphill.

Walking uphill to the monument

Getting closer

Finally there

The statue in front of the monument of a crazed kid

The monument up close

Entrance to the monument is free, but if you want to climb to the top of the tower you must pay six dollars.  At least that's what the college kids who work there said.  I suspect they just slapped that $6 sticker up on the sign just to make a few extra bucks off unsuspecting tourists.

Di in the doorway to the stairs

Some helpful advice

Di starting the climb

   After climbing only a tenth of the way, we saw the following sign:

Translation: If you are having trouble at this point, turn back!

 The climb was tougher than I expected, made worse by the heat.  Despite that, this is how Di looked at the halfway point:

 And this is how I looked:

I guess we know which of us is in better shape!


Well, we finally made it to the top and the view in four directions was our reward.

 Was it worth it?  We were asked this question on our way down by a family on its way up.  Di responded something to the noncommittal effect that views did exist up there, but my unvoiced opinion was that it was too disproportionate an amount of exertion to view ratio.  We continued down the stairs and I confess I was a bit tired from the climb.

This is how one looks after climbing up and down the tower

George Washington sculpted to look like a caesar?

 Our next stop was the Walter's Art Museum.  Entrance to the museum is free and there were no college kids there to say we had to pay $6 to climb the stairs.  The Walter's looked small from the outside, so we were pleasantly surprised to discover it was much bigger on the inside (insert Dr. Who joke here).

Entering the Walter's Art Museum

Even the stairs were beautiful

I must confess that I usually can't stay in museums for long.  Eventually, no matter how much I enjoy the viewing, I need to get outside.   But this place was so eclectic in its collection that I had no problem sticking around.

I liked that many of the sculptures were of now unknown people (take that, Kubla Khan)

Cool looking pistols

  Obligatory paintings

Room with weird stuff

Interesting clock face

Swords in Di's back

Old locks and keys

Stained glass

An ewer (for all you crossword aficionados)

Leaving the museum

 We left the museum and stopped at a market for some lunch:

Di's on left (she didn't eat the bread)

Lunch at the market

We got back to the hotel about 4pm and Di promptly fell asleep and she stayed asleep until after 7pm.  When she awoke she said she felt well rested. Finally! That sleepless night on the train took its toll.  We headed out for dinner, with our plan to go to Fells Point and find a place to eat.  Fells Point is a 20 minute walk from the hotel, but after walking for only nine minutes we found Phillips, whose proximity to our own location just on its sidewalk made it the ideal choice for dinner.  Di and I first congratulated ourselves on saving 11 minutes of walking and then marvelled at our extreme laziness. I think the heat is bringing out the sloth in us.

Phillips propinquity won us over

More clam cakes for me

Seafood salad for Di

Ah, vacation

Tomorrow we ride to Annapolis