We left peaceful Amish country for Maryland to explore Baltimore. Yes, really. Baltimore. Just wait, you'll be surprised how nice it was.
To be specific, our destination was the touristy part of Baltimore, the Inner Harbor. On our way into the city, though, we stopped at a little museum I found online. The Fire Museum of Maryland. As most 2 years olds do, we have specific loves that come and go. Right now we love firetrucks, and we suspected they would love this pitstop, too.
Inside was a history of firetrucks. Old, old, OLD firetrucks.
We were happy.
Keith got a wee bit artsy here.
There was a kiddie discovery room with a real-deal firetruck to climb on. The boys were gentlemen and let that little girl play on there first.
Dada watched. And rested.
Grady did a good bit of steering on this wheel.
And there was a neat wooden firetruck for the kids to play on too. Would have been a whole lot less creepy to play on if that adult male wasn't sitting in the back of it while he texted up a storm. Put down your damn phone and pay attention to your daughter, please. She's not taking turns on the big firetruck. Grady did give him a stare-down, but the guy was too oblivious to notice.
The girl finally moved and we could get into the real firetruck. Even used the hats properly.
And then it was storytime. We went and sat for storytime at first, but quickly lost interest (both kids and adults) because the volunteer was not the best candidate for reading stories out loud. You can see him and the older (bored) kids in the background. We entertained ourselves with a train table that was not nearly as good as JD's.
And we pushed around small firetrucks.
And dressed up like firemen!
And a short while later ditched the jacket and decided the hat should be worn this way instead.
We played a bit more and went out into the main exhibit area and looked and pointed excitedly at more trucks. And then we remembered the Bore, the story reader, gave us coupons for a free ice cream cone each at the ice cream shop across the street. And we'd be fools to turn down free ice cream during a vacation right? Who cares if we gorged ourselves at a dessert smorgasboard the day before? Here we come, 31 flavors!
On the way there I asked the boys what flavor they wanted. Grady said "I want ICE CREAM!" which I think translates into "whatever flavor, it does not matter, just give it to me". Cole said "pink!". Alrighty then.
So pink ice cream we got. I don't know if Cole wasn't sure what ice cream was, or maybe his mouth is just too sensitive, because he took this one bite and then wanted his milk sippy. Strange kid.
Grady, on the other hand, was very happy with his pink ice cream and ate some of it. Not all, but some. Keith and I about licked our bowls clean, if you're wondering.
Our bellies full with frozen diary products, we decided to try to check into our hotel. It was a little early, but were hoping the hotel gods would be kind.
We had no such luck. Our room would not be ready that day until 45 minutes after the regular check-in time. So, we left our loaded car in the parking garage and set out on foot to kill some time. We walked along the water, carrying two very heavy, heavy sleepy children. We did get to stop and check out some ducks.
We needed to get into some A/C and stumbled into this museum. It's a long name, the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park. You've heard of Frederick Douglass, I'm sure. He was born a slave, and later became a freed man and went on to write books and fight to end slavery. Isaac Myers was born a free man, and his life had many similarities to Douglass'. This museum showed the role of water, ship-building and the harbor in these two men's lives. Since working in a museum I've become very critical of museums, and this small museum passed my critique with flying colors. Very well done.
We watched a short intro video. Or, we watched a bit and glared at our kids running around.
Explored the exhibits. Whilst carrying a baby.
And headed outside for snack-time. See the eager little faces looking at the backpack o' snacks. Grady now refers to snacks as "something" because during the trip I kept saying, "oh, I have something in the backpack for us to snack on". Behind us is a cool sculpture of Frederick Douglass's head.
After snack we peeked into the final part of the museum, where there are people actually making boats. the crew had gone to lunch, but they left the shop open so we could peek inside.
This was the view from the museum.
We hoped our room was ready by now and headed back to the hotel. Again, carrying the heavy loads. We thought we were clever when we got them to run along this low wall.
Until a local lady told us the area just past the wall was riddled with rats and there was poison put everywhere to kill said rats. Oh. Not the best place for the kids to play.
Cole is now on the prowl for rats.
Back at the hotel we waited another hour for our room. The hotel was having all sorts of issues, and we paid the price. I showed them, though. Or Grady did, rather, as he had a major meltdown while we waited in the lobby. I'm used to them, but the front desk staff seemed shocked at the decibel level. But our room was mysteriously ready a few short minutes later...
We got settled, napped and set out to explore for a Inner Harbor for a few hours before bedtime.
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