Day 2 - Money Well Spent

Day 2 found us spending the day in Baltimore.   After getting everyone ready by around 9:00, we headed out for the day, with the first stop being someplace for breakfast.  Most of the hotels we stay at serve some sort of complimentary breakfast, but not this one.  There is a Starbucks around the corner, so we started there, but the idea of a bagel or muffin really didn't appeal to the group, so I just got my venti iced coffee and asked where we could get a decent breakfast.  The guy at Starbucks recommended a place near the hotel so we headed there.  Turns out it was an excellent suggestion.  Everyone has some sort of eggs dish, and all plates were clean by the end of the meal.

The next stop was the National Aquarium, which entailed a walk of about 15-20 minutes along the waterway by the harbor.  The weather was overcast, which was perfect as it kept the heat away.  We got to the aquarium around 11 am, and ended up spending around 3 hours there.  We saw sharks and turtles and dolphins (oh, my).  There were a lot of other neat creatures, like colorful frogs and eels, and a short but fun dolphin show, which if I could figure out how to put pictures in this blog you could see them now (but they changed the way this works from last year and I don't yet know how to do it).

By the time we finished with the aquarium and the obligatory purchase of clutter, er, souvenirs at the gift shop, everyone was once again hungry.  I know, stunning.  So we went in search of a truly original Baltimore restaurant - Chipotle.  Even though we have one around the corner in Great Neck, no one complained about eating there.  They even had a kids' menu (the one at home does not) so Amanda could get a very fancy cheese quesadilla.

While we were eating I glanced through the Baltimore magazine the hotel gave me at check in to see what else we could do before we headed to the ballpark for the game, and saw that there was a pinball museum nearby, where not only could you look at old machines you could play there as well.  A little background.  Debbie LOVES to play pinball.  There were way too many hours spent at Houston Hall playing pinball in their little game room.  I blame that time away from studying for the fact that I didn't graduate anything cum laude.  Yeah, that was why.  Anyway, I don't think she has played in many years, but it is something she loves to do, so we figured we would check it out.  It was about a 10 minute walk and when we got there it turns out that the museum is only open on the weekends.  Would have been nice to mention that in the magazine, but I guess that slipped their minds.

So after hanging out in the area near the pinball museum for a little bit to recharge ourselves, we headed out towards the ballpark.  Near Camden Yards there are two museums - the Sports Legends Museum and the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum.  In reading about the two, the Sports Legends Museum seemed to be a lot about the Orioles and other Baltimore sports teams, while the Babe Ruth was mostly about Lou Gehrig.  I kid.  It was at the home where Ruth spent his childhood.  After considering the odds, I decided that we would have more luck and interest at the Ruth museum, so we headed there.

I know I have used this joke before, but when I say the museum was small, I mean it was small.  We are talking 50 cents in a cab small.  The good news was that it wasn't too expensive to go in, so we spent about 20 minutes looking at a bunch of Ruth pictures and reading some info about him.  While we were looking at one of the exhibits, we overheard a woman say "I know they make museums out of the places where presidents lived, but I can't believe they made one for some baseball player."   Really?  "Some" baseball player?  That's like saying Thomas Edison was some guy that liked to tinker with things.  Or Ben Franklin was some guy that liked to fly kites.  What world did that woman come from? 

After leaving the museum, and yes, we bought more clutter there, it was about 5:00 so we headed around the corner to Camden Yards.  We figured we would get in early, maybe see some batting practice and hang out.  Plus, the son of my high school baseball team (Ryan Flaherty) now plays for the Orioles, so if we got there early enough while the Orioles were on the field I was going to try and get his attention to come over.  But alas, two things conspired against that plan.  One, by the time we got in the Orioles were done with BP and the Red Sox were using the field so there were no Orioles out, and two, Ryan is on the DL, so I don't even know if he is with the team.  The only exciting thing was that the big screen all of sudden showed the last 2 outs of Felix Hernadez's perfect game, which was cool to watch at another ballpark, with all of the players watching along.

Once we found our seats, Brian, Ethan and I went down to the front row by the Red Sox dugout to watch BP and see if any players would come by to sign autographs.  Again, no luck.  One player, the immortal Pedro Cirriaco (no clue if that is the right spelling) stopped nearby, but not close enough to get his autograph.  So when BP was over the boys and I headed back to our seats, which were in the mezzanine level under an overhang.  The good news was that if it rained, as the forecast said it might, we were covered.  The bad news was that the overhang obscured much of the big screen in center, and it was also a little stuffy there.  By the 4th inning, Ethan, Brian and I decided to move to a section behind home plate near the press boxes where there were a lot of empty seats.  It was delightful there, with a little breeze and a full view of the stadium.  I texted Debbie that she and Amanda should join us, but as soon as they left their seats and were half way to us, we got booted.  We put our tails between our legs and headed back, but the usher had mentioned to Debbie that we might have better luck if we were past the dugouts, so we passed our official section and found seats in the lower section by third base.  No one bothered us there for the rest of the time we were there.  As for the game, the Red Sox pitcher had a no-hitter through 5 innings, so we thought we might be in for a special night.  But in the bottom of the 6th all hell broke loose and the Orioles scored 5 runs to take the lead for good.  Oh well. 

We decided to leave in the 8th inning because it was getting late and I wanted to see if we could catch a cab home and didn't want to fight the crowd for a cab.  We had walked all the way from the hotel to the stadium, but did it over a few stretches, so we didn't really have an idea how far it was back to the hotel.  That is, until we got into the cab and rode back to the hotel.  Let me say, thank freakin' god we took a cab.  There is no way we would have made it all the way back at 10 at night without a serious amount of whining and complaining by the group.  With tip the ride was $11.00, and let me tell you it could have been $1,100 and I would have been fine with it.

We got back to the room and the kids began the shower processing as Debbie and I booted up the laptops.  But the problems with the mifi yesterday reared their ugly heads so much so that we never got the mifi to work (I am connected to the hotel wifi for this blog post).  After a lengthy call with Verizon, it appears that something is wrong with the mifi, so the first stop tomorrow will be the local Verizon store.  Nice.

Once we get that out of the way, it's on to Delaware and hopefully (and likely) a few days of R&R on the beach.  Til then.