Baltimore Inner Harbor

We wanted to get away for a few days, so this past weekend we decided to spend two nights in Baltimore, Maryland.  We always enjoyed taking day-trips with the kids to the Inner Harbor, but haven’t been there for a number of years, so this was a good opportunity to get back, enjoy the harbor, and take some pictures.

The main selling point for the Inner Harbor is that there is plenty to do for every member of the family.  If you’re into shopping you can browse the shops at Harborplace right on the water, or take in the Gallery Mall just across the street.  When it’s time to eat, there are no shortage of dining spots.  The main cuisine of the area is seafood at restaurants like Phillips, McCormick & Schmick’s, and the Rusty Scupper, but you can find any type of food at any price level within walking distance, since every restaurant chain is represented.

Harborplace

Gallery Mall

Phillips Seafood (Express)

There are also many activities to keep the whole family occupied.  The main attraction of the Inner Harbor is the National Aquarium.  We spent most of the day on Saturday exploring the many exhibits – I’ll concentrate on the aquarium in my next blog entry.

National Aquarium

In addition to the aquarium, there are many other things to do:  visit the Maryland Science Center; tour the Civil War era USS Constellation tall ship as well as other ships and a submarine; plus tour the harbor area on various types of vessels and dining cruises.  If you’re into baseball and football, the Orioles and Ravens stadiums are just a couple of blocks from the Inner Harbor.

USS Constellation

Seadog Harbor Cruiser

Since our anniversary was last weekend, we wanted to stay at a nice hotel, so we stayed at the Intercontinental, directly across the street from the harbor.  The hotel was very elegant, the rooms large, and the breakfasts were very well prepared.  On Saturday night we dined at McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood restaurant.  The seafood was outstanding.

Intercontinental Hotel

McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant

Old City - Philadelphia

A few weeks ago I decided to hop on the train at Thorndale and head to downtown Philadelphia with my camera. My main goal was to walk around the Old City section and capture a few shots of the beautifully restored colonial townhomes in the area. Old City (sometimes spelled “Olde City”) is the area of Philadelphia along the Delaware River where William Penn and the Quakers first settled. The Old City district is loosely defined as the area between Front and Sixth Streets, Vine Street to the north and Walnut Street to the south.

I also wanted to see some of the usual historic sites, other than Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. The tower at Independence Hall is undergoing renovations; the scaffolding around the tower is covered with a picture of the tower, so, needless to say, I took no shots of Independence Hall this time. What I did see was the Betsy Ross House, Elfreths Alley, Christ Church, and Franklin Court. All of the sites were teeming with school classes, so I wasn’t able to get any inside shots, just outside.

Franklin Court

Betsy Ross House

Christ Church

Elfreths Alley

The rest of the day I spent strolling around Washington Square and the streets to the west. Washington Square is one of the five original planned squares laid out on the city grid by William Penn's surveyor, Thomas Holme. It contains the Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier and, as you can imagine, is a popular place to take the kids to play, walk the dog, or just sit and relax.

Many of the streets in the Washington Square West section are throwbacks to the colonial days of the city - Manning, Delancey, Clinton, Panama, Pine, Quince, and Camac, to name a few. Some of the streets are so narrow that I saw a workman in a pickup truck driving down the street with wheels on both curbs.

On my way back to Suburban Station to catch the train home, I also managed the capture a few shots of City Hall and Love Park. The two pictures included here were obviously altered in Photoshop to gain the desired effect.

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2011 Philadelphia Flower Show

Every few years we pay a visit to the Philadelphia Flower show.  This past March we made another visit.  The show is the "largest indoor flower show in the world" attracting more than 250,000 people annually. The show features large-scale gardens, which range from elaborate landscaped displays to individual and club entries of a prize horticultural specimen.

Each year there is an official theme, which serves as the inspiration for most exhibits.  This year the theme was “Springtime in Paris”.  Displays included a "Phantom of the Opera" tableau, a wedding at Notre Dame, floral carousel animals, a mini-Arc de Triomphe and Centre Pompidou, and a scene from the Paris cemetery where rocker Jim Morrison and composer Frederic Chopin are buried.  The centerpiece of the exhibit area was a partial replica of the Eiffel Tower that was featured in a music and light show every fifteen minutes.

We always enjoy the spectacular displays from the local landscaping companies and my personal favorite - the display area featuring the extensive array of bonsai trees.  Another popular part of the show floor is the very large Garden Marketplace where you can buy plants and seeds, cut flowers, craft items, and other flower, landscaping and horticulture-related items.  However, there’s one thing that we don’t look forward to, which keeps us from attending every year, and that is fighting the big crowds.  In past years we’ve always tried to get there in the morning, but it has always been very crowded.  This year we thought we would try getting there late afternoon, but the result was the same. 


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U.S. Naval Academy - Annapolis, MD

As I mentioned in my previous blog entry… Last month we decided to get away for a few days and took a trip down to Maryland.  The plan was to spend Tuesday and Wednesday nights in Ocean City, then make a stop in St. Michaels on Thursday afternoon on the way up to Annapolis where we would spend Thursday night.  Everything went according to plan except it was pouring down rain all day Thursday.  So our stop in St. Michaels turned out to be very short, since walking around town in the rain was not a good option.  It also curtailed some of our planned sightseeing around Annapolis on Thursday afternoon.

We decided to spend Friday touring the U.S. Naval Academy, and it turned out to be a beautiful day.  We didn’t realize it, but this happened to be the weekend of a major powerboat show in Annapolis.  On the downside, the town was packed with people and cars and the harbor was literally packed with powerboats of all kinds and sizes.  On the upside, because of the show our hotel was running a regular shuttle service to the harbor, which was only two blocks from the USNA entrance - so we didn’t have to worry about driving down and finding parking.

The Naval Academy grounds are open to the public – you just have to show your driver’s license to security at the visitor’s entrance.  The Armel-Leftwich Visitor Center is the place to start.  It houses a very extensive USNA gift shop as well as many exhibits depicting life at the Academy over the years and honoring many of the famous midshipmen who attended.   The centerpiece of the museum is the “Graduates in Space” exhibit honoring the 51 astronauts who graduated from the USNA, the most from any institution.  To me the most impressive exhibit in the entire center is the actual Mercury Freedom 7 space capsule flown into space by Alan Shepard in 1961 - a real part of history when I was growing up.

Visitors are free to walk around the grounds and enter the buildings on their own, but we decided to take one of the escorted walking tours.  The $9.50 per person fee is worth it, just for the narration and background information provided by the guide.  The walking tour lasts about 1.25 hours.  The campus is totally isolated from the town and is very beautiful.  The sense of history is everywhere.  The architecture of the halls, classroom buildings, and officers’ quarters is very impressive.

Homes for Ranking Officers & Professors

Our tour started in the Lejeune Physical Education Center, which houses an Olympic-class swimming pool, a mat room for wrestling and hand-to-hand martial arts, and the Athletic Hall of Fame.  There are many trophies in the hall of fame but those that stand out are the two Heisman trophies won by Joe Bellino in 1960 and Roger Staubach in 1963, plus the game balls from every Navy win in the Army-Navy football game dating back to 1890.

Tecumseh Statue

If you have a chance to visit the USNA, make a point to be there at noon.  Every day at noon the entire Brigade of Midshipmen forms for uniform inspection and a march into the mess hall for lunch, complete with marching band.  There was quite a crowd gathered by the time we got there from our tour, so it was difficult taking pictures.  The formation takes place in Tecumseh Court at the entrance to Bancroft Hall.  Bancroft Hall is actually a complex of halls that comprises the largest college dormitory in the world and houses all of the 4,500+ midshipmen.  At the entrance to Tecumseh Court is the statue of Tecumseh, which is decorated and painted by the midshipmen for special occasions.  There are also two bells in the court which are rung for each win of Navy over Army in all sports.

                       

                             Japanese Bell

U.S.S. Enterprise Bell

Another highlight of the tour was the Naval Academy Chapel.  The architecture of the chapel is stunning – from the distinctive green copper dome on the outside to the beautiful stained glass windows and high domed ceiling on the inside.  The chapel is used for both Protestant and Catholic weekly services and, as you can imagine, is very popular for weddings.  The lower level of the chapel also houses the remains of John Paul Jones in a beautiful marble sarcophagus.  The interesting story of John Paul Jones’ life and death is told around the perimeter of the display.

John Paul Jones Sarcophagus

As I said earlier, we didn’t get to see much of the town of Annapolis due to the rain and the crowds, so I’d really like to go back for a visit in quieter times so we can walk around and photograph the town.

If you have a chance, please check out my ImageKind Galleries and Flickr Collections.  I also have two new shops - Zazzle Gifts and Zazzle Prints & Posters.