Baltimore Recap

[fullygoldy]

::cue studio announcer:: Previously, in Baltimore Bliss, goldy was on her way to a "low country boil" for Saturday's supper...

See, what had happened was, the host family intended to do the good ol' Baltimore crab dinner - bushels of steamed crabs on paper-wrapped picnic tables, accompanied by wooden mallets and cold beer.  However, one family of guests had crustacean allergies, so the hosts decided to do the crabs AND a modified boiled dinner of potatoes, corn, smoked sausages, etc, but no seafood.  It was a lovely, accomodating idea, but at the last minute, the allergic family called and canceled anyway.  Twits!  We, however, were treated to an excellent meal!  I think I only managed about 8 crabs myself (it was my first try!), but DH thinks he did closer to a dozen.  I also had one small corn cob and 1 hunk of sausage.  I was happy to drink two Backfin Pale Ales from Frederick Brewing (well within the 100 mile food radius, heh heh, but that's another story).  Backfin Pale is quite tasty in my humble, hop-lovin' opinion.  We also had homemade cookies and pralines for dessert.

Sunday morning, we stopped by Panera for real food because the Ramada's continental breakfast just doesn't cut it.  I had the new caramel apple pastry, and it was good but messy, with caramel sauce dripping through my fingers.  We didn't want to eat too much, because officially, we were meeting up with the baseball gang for "brunch" at Shuckers on the Inner Harbor.  We had to drive in on Sunday because the light rail doesn't start running til 11:00 am and the meetup was at 10:30.

After parking in the designated meeting lot, where we learned we'd need $26 cash to get back out, we headed over to the Water Taxi stand.  The WT is actually a good deal - $8/adult for all day rides.  Plus they give you a sheet full of coupons good for things like free drinks or appetizers or $$ of admission to various attractions around the harbor.  You just walk up to a stop, tell them which stop you want to go to, and they stick you on the right boat.  It was very convenient and fun.  We used an appetizer coupon at Shuckers, too, and then I gave the rest of them to our Sunday dinner hosts.

At Shuckers, they have a brunch buffet with eggs, french toast, sausage, bacon, biscuits, potatoes, fruit, and steamed clams, etc.  DH had that ($10.95) and I had an appetizer of 3 petite crab cakes.  They're actually more like balls, golf ball-sized and so YUMMY.  I stuck with water though, saving my beer calories for the ballgame.  We also got to try the fried calamari, and it was okay, but not as good as our favorite here in town.  After the return WT trip, we walked the 5-6 blocks to the stadium and went inside.  The stadium is really beautiful, and well laid out.  We rode a "private" escalator up to the special private box level where we had reserved seats in front of the box suites.  This section is too cool.  The usher finds your seat and wipes it down with a towel before he seats you! And there are menu cards in the cupholders.  You wave your card and an usher comes and takes your order, then delivers your snacks to your seat!  We didn't take advantage of that - the lines inside our level were never terribly long, and we weren't filling up on ballpark food anyway.  Inside the concourse, it's air conditioned and there are lounges with comfy chairs and plasma TVs on the walls.  There are full bars with bartenders in the lounges too.  I drank two City Pale Ales from Capitol City Brewing ($6 ea).  Eventually, DH got a bowl of Edy's Rocky Road for $4.  There were 4 scoops of ice cream in the bowl!  Too bad for the Orioles, they didn't repeat their win from the night before.  As the game was winding down, DH & I started conspiring about how to get close enough to the field to complete our special task.  We ended up going down on level and passing the security guards with the cover story that I was goig to take a picture of DH with the scoreboard in the background.  We found a spot to sprinkle some of  bzdchris's 1st son's ashes on the field, and we took the pic, and then the security guards came by and said "we're locking up!" So we let them lead us out the gate and headed back down to the expensive parking lot.

Once we were at the car, we called our friends who had surprised us with a dinner invitation.  Sometime during the 5th inning, I noticed I had a voice mail.  Upon checking, I was greeted by J,  old_man_summer's DH, saying they'd seen my "Bliss" blog entry, and were nearby and wanted to get together for dinner!!! 0.0 I finally figured out that they had relocated to Annapolis and were inviting us to their new place for a non-restaurant dinner! Yay!  I had the directions, and a map, and a willing partner-in-crime, so we were on our way.  It was a 30 min drive, but it took that long just to get out of the dang parking lot and onto the highway, LOL!  We only made one wrong turn, and we were only 5 min away when it happened, so it can be counted as a successful navigation.  So the scoop is,   old_man_summer accepted a one yr position with U of MD at College Park.  They officially moved in just two weeks ago!  They've rented a tiny little former cabin right on the water, and they can run down the steps to their dock and catch crab right there!  Unfortunately, the crab were not biting on Sunday, so J went to the local fishmonger for really fresh salmon and also picked up a bottle of reisling and a bottle of Ommegang Abbey Ale.  Dinner was rounded out with buttered rice and broccoli dressed with parmesan shavings.  Dessert was ice cream with dried plums (aka prunes) and apricots.  This is proof that very fresh food, simply prepared, is just as good if not better than restaurant "gourmet."  I practically licked my plate!  The little house is just as quirky as the family, Floppy is growing like a weed, and such a little flirt! He got along swimmingly with B.  We had to tear ourselves away at 10:30, knowing the trip back to Pikesville was likely to be an hour long, and knowing that our hosts had to actually work on Monday morning!  But it was so much fun to see them in "their" setting.  We had a great time swapping camping and canoeing tales, looking at photos, discussing parenting styles and catching up.  The serendipity train was in fine form that night!

 

Monday morning, we slept in, packed, and decided to stop for food before heading to the Inner Harbor for last minute souvenirs.  Unfortunately, the only thing edible looking we could find quickly was Applebee's.  We both ordered a lunch of tomato-basil bisque and spinach salad with grilled shrimp - stretching our seafood diet to one more meal.  It was actually a decent lunch, but it would have been more fun to get something at the IH if we could have held out until then.  When we finally got down there, we had a hard time finding where we wanted to be, and ended up in the parking lot under the Gallery mall, where we spent $13 for 1 hr 5 min of parking. Oy Vey!  We were out of things to do quickly down there, with only 40 min left to kill, so we headed for the airport.

Hanging around BWI for an extra hour isn't so bad.  They have some shops and restaurants to keep you occupied, but we were tired, and I was crabby, having unexpectedly started my period.  We finally ended up in the waiting area, after another beer and some cheesy fries.  PMS makes me want to eat all the time.  Then our plane was delayed taking off, so we sat on the tarmac for an extra 30 min.  Which meant we barely made our connection in Detroit.  Thank goodess for the express tram - it spit us out in sight of our gate, and we ended up being the next to last in the boarding line.  But that also meant no time for pit stops or picking up dinner.  The new style of boarding - all the elite folks go first and then it's just a cattle call for the rest of us schmucks - has it's pros and cons.  I guess it wasn't actually any worse than the orderly row-by-row style we used to do.  Hated dealing with the security gate - ended up throwing away a tube of 50 sunblock that had been used once because it was double the 3 oz limit. ARrggh.  I noticed the vast majority of travelers now wear slip-on shoes of some sort - flip flops, tennies, and loafers were in abundance.  I only saw one guy wearing lace up boots.  With the new restrictions on what you can carry on and what you can check, I'm betting people are going to be forced to check more.  I bet the airlines will soon be cutting back on the quantity you're allowed to carry on.  Either they'll make each piece smaller, or they'll cut us back to one carry-on item apiece.  They better get a damn sight better at handling our checked luggage if that happens!  The kids picked us up at the curb when we arrived, and we came home and ate soup and sandwich melts for a quick late dinner.  Bed by 9:30!  (I stayed awake till 11 though).  Oh Bed! Delicious Bed!

When it's all said and done, I managed to have a pint put out by each of the three local breweries:  Yeungling, Frederick and Capitol City.  I enjoyed all of them, but the Backfin Pale Ale was my favorite - I even brought home an empty for the souvenir shelf.  The most memorable moments for me were the oyster lunch and dinner in Annapolis, but it was all fun.  I'm glad we got to go.

Also, even though I thought many times over the weekend that I'd like to investigate living there - the traffic situation alone would keep me from wanting to make the move.  Way too many cars on the road.  The lanes seem narrower than here at home, and the curves are sharper - I'd hate to negotiate them during winter.  The parking is atrocious - both scarce and expensive.  The light rail was a relief, but I was disappointed about not being able to take advantage of it Sunday.  OTOH, if we'd taken the light rail, we probably wouldn't have been able to make it to Anapolis for dinner.  Everything works out the way it is supposed to in the end.  The prices at the Inner Harbor were mostly way too high, but we did find deals by being creative.  Outlying areas were either obviously old money or they were obviously very-low-income.  That made me uncomfortable.  And the crime rate! I normally feel safe wherever I go, but the really obvious police presence everywhere actually bothered me.  They wouldn't be there if they didn't need to be, right?

I'm supposed to be driving to Moline right now, but my hotel didn't have a room available, so I'm heading out at 0500 tomorrow instead.  I'll be back home again Thurs night.  It looks like I'll be T-W-T in Moline through October.  The bank account will like the schedule, even if I don't.