The Journey: Baltimore and Beyond
Sunday, May 20 – Monday, May 21, 2012
Sunday, May 20
Today we set
out to tour Fort McHenry and Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.
Several years
ago, when we were still teaching and working with Odyssey of the Mind, we had a
sixth grade team from West Middle School that advanced to the World Finals
(and, for the record, placed second in their problem) at the University of
Maryland. When the competition was
completed, we drove to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor for a half day of sightseeing
and winding down from a long year of working on the Odyssey problem.
We were all
quite impressed with the Inner Harbor and all the shops and enjoyed wandering
around and looking at all the sights. I
thought the kids might enjoy a water taxi ride out to Fort McHenry (we’d never
been there), but they chose to do other things.
Barbara had to stay close by because one of the boys was going to be
picked up for a flight somewhere else rather than returning on the bus with
us. Since all the kids were with adult
sponsors, I purchased a ticket and rode out to the fort to see what it was all
about.
I don’t
remember much now about that first visit except that I saw the most marvelous
film about Francis Scott Key and the British bombardment of Fort McHenry and
Baltimore. At the end of the film, when
Key was standing on a British ship and looking toward land to see which flag
was flying over the fort, the music of the Star Spangled Banner began playing
and a screen rolled up in a large window, displaying one of the largest flags I
have ever seen, waving proudly over the old fort.
I was so
blown away by the presentation and sights that I couldn’t wait to tell Barbara
and put it on the agenda for a future trip.
Alas, even though we came close to Baltimore on a few occasions, we
never returned until this morning. Based
on what I’ve talked about over the years, we decided that a morning at Fort
Henry was a priority.
As with so
many things that we once enjoyed, things had changed at the park, some for the
better and some maybe not. The old
visitors’ center was completely demolished and a new one has been built on the
site. The new center is extremely nice,
and since I don’t remember much about the old one, I’ll count it as a change
for the better. We went in to watch the
movie, but they did away with the old one, which concentrated on Francis Scott
Key and how he came to be captured by the British and taken to one of their
ships during the battle. Instead, the
new focus is more on the actual bombardment of the fort and the city. Still, the movie ends much as the original,
with Key standing on the ship out in the harbor, searching through the smoke to
see which country held the fort. And, as
the music began, the large window opened to the sight of the huge 15-star flag
flying over the old fort. And, my heart
was in my throat again at that beautiful sight and the thought of what those
early patriots endured to not only gain, but to maintain our freedoms.
When the
movie was over, we walked around the area and over to the old fort to see what
we could see. It was a beautiful, breezy
morning, providing a myriad of photo opportunities; and you know us...if there
are photo ops, we aren’t far behind!
Much could be written about the
history of Fort McHenry, but in this posting we’ll mostly let the pictures do
the talking.
Readers will
notice a lot of focus on the flag, but after all, that is what Fort McHenry was
all about. Some of our focus was on sore
feet, as Barbara shows in this collage.
After we had
done all the walking and climbing we wanted to do at the park, we returned to
the visitor center to do some serious souvenir shopping for grandkids (and got
a couple of things for ourselves.
A first
glance at Inner Harbor will immediately let one know that it is all about
tourism and money. It’s a beautiful and
fun place, but the shops and restaurants are definitely high-dollar. And in case on should forget that it is about
money, all he/she has to do is look at the boats and yachts tied up in the
harbor.
After we met
Heather, we wandered around a bit until we decided on a restaurant for
lunch. We settled on the Kona Grill and
were seated in an area where we could enjoy beautiful views while we ate our
meal. Needless to say (even though we’ll
say it anyway), there was lots of talking, photo-taking, eating, more talking,
more photos, and on and on. It was a
thoroughly delightful visit with Heather and she was a most gracious hostess
for our short visit.
We also found
some things we liked for the older grandkids.
There really is something for everyone in the Inner Harbor shops.
We were full
from our dinner and our feet and legs were telling us it was time to let them
rest for awhile, so we slowly made our way back to where we had parked the car,
paid our toll, and made the 20-minute drive back down I-95 to our motel to kick
back and relax for the evening.
Monday, May 21
Before we
left Mineola on this trip, Aunt TJ suggested that we might consider going to
Dover Delaware to see if we could get information on some of my ancestors. TJ is really big on genealogy and has traced
our family back to a family of Rodneys who settled in Delaware along with
William Penn. Caesar Rodney was a signer
of the Declaration of Independence, but was not in our direct lineage.
The Rodneys
established the Byfield Plantation just outside of Dover and we found through
some internet searches that there is a prominent marked displayed on the
property close to Dover Air Force Base, so we decided a picture of me at the
marker would fit in somewhere in the genealogical studies.
We figured
that we weren’t all that far from Dover and it might be interesting to see what
we could find, so we got up early this morning, had breakfast, packed the car,
and left Baltimore in a driving rainstorm.
Since it was Monday morning and we picked the rush hour to leave, it was
a little dicey in places, but we soon found our way to U.S. 301 and headed east
to the Bay Bridge over Chesapeake Bay.
We’ve driven
over the Bay Bridge several times in previous trips to the DelMarVa peninsula
to visit our friends Gary and Joyce Whitaker, but it is always a thrill to make
that approach to the tol
l booth and then begin the ascent that
takes us over the wide waters of Chesapeake Bay. As Snoopy might say, “It was a dark and
stormy morning,” but Barbara was still able to get some good photos along the
way.
It took quite
awhile before we got out of all the rainy stuff and felt comfortable getting
back up to standard highway speeds, but we finally ran out of the really wet
stuff as we neared one of our favorite stopping places on the peninsula, a
large outlet mall.
Back on the
highway, we wandered through Maryland and into Delaware (couldn’t tell the
difference) on narrow back roads. We
were sure at one point that we were totally lost, but when we stopped at an old
tire repair shop, we found that we were just where we were supposed to be. All we had to do was to keep on keepin’ on.
We finally
found all the connecting roads that led us around Dover, past the main gates of
Dover AFB, and out to the area that was once the Byfield Plantation. We managed to get some good photos of the
marker and the surrounding land, but found that all the land has now been sold
off and no one knows for sure where the old family cemetery is located.
What we
didn’t know was that the information center was not the typical visitor center
we were expecting. Instead, it was the
building that housed the state archives.
We went inside and found that we could have access to the archives, but
there were some very stringent rules.
Once inside, we felt like kids going to the library for the very first
time and not understanding anything at all about how we were supposed to get
information.
Luckily, we
did find someone to help us (although we kept making lots of mistakes and
getting semi-politely reprimanded for them, and after three hours of digging
through books and files, came away with a treasure trove of material to take
back to TJ to help in her search for our ancestors. It was interesting to find that there is a
more or less direct lineage for the Faulks (Mother’s family) back to Jane
Seymour, one of the wives of Henry the Eighth.
After paying
for all the copies of reports and letters, we went back outside to get in the
car and continue our journey back to Richmond.
We had told the kids we would take them to dinner at Thai Diner Too
tonight, but had to call and tell them we had no idea when we would arrive in
Richmond tonight and we’d just have to reschedule our dinner date.
The rest of
the day was spent traveling and sightseeing.
We had already decided that we didn’t want to return to the D.C. area
they way we came in this morning, so we headed south instead, driving through
Delaware and back into Maryland on the peninsula. The route took us through one of our favorite
cities, Salisbury, Maryland, where Gary and Joyce Whitaker and their girls
lived for many years. We have fond
memories of trips we took to see the Whitaker family and adventures we shared
in the area.
Gary and
Joyce followed their daughters to the Houston area several years ago, so there
was no point in stopping to see them today, but as we got into town, Barbara
called Joyce to say that we were just minutes away from their old house and we
wished we could stop to see them. Joyce
got a big kick out of that and then she and Barbara got in a long discussion
about when we had come to see them and what vehicles we used. Barbara and I are both convinced that we
drove our first motorhome, Winnie (short for Winnebago) to Salisbury one
summer, but we can’t pinpoint when it might have been...guess we should have
started journaling before we retired, because many of those memory cells seem
to have gone into a witness protection plan.
At the south
end of the peninsula we came to one of our favorite travel spots, the Chesapeake
Bay Bridge and tunnel system, a 17.6 mile system that bridges the mainland and
the peninsula across the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.
We stopped
before we reached to toll booth to look at the scenery and get a breath of salt
water air (and, of course, take some photos).
