03/26/2010 - 03/31/2010: Charm City

Okay - I'm cheating a bit.  Weather was only nice one day in Baltimore or I would have taken far, far more photos.  I was also really busy with the conference so I'm going to post several of the shots I took on the 26th here for that entire week.

I've never visited Baltimore, Maryland before.  I know a bit about it as I'm a fan of the tv show Charm City Cakes which is filmed in Baltimore but this was my first chance to visit.  I had most of the day of 3/26/2010 free thanks to a VERY early flight and the fact that my conference didn't start until very late afternoon.  So, after settling into my hotel at a very early 8:30 a.m. (I told you it was an early flight) I headed off with my map to the Inner Harbor area.  I knew I wanted to visit both the National Aquarium and the Maryland Science Center - both of which sit on the inner harbor.  I was also hoping to find some decent seafood for lunch.

I arrived at the inner harbor area and went to the visitor's center to get some details on restaurants, etc - plus it was so early I still had a bit of time to kill before the science center opened.

Cool sculpture just as you approach the inner harbor

View of Camden Yard from just outside the visitor center  - the hotel I stayed in was just off to the right in this photo.  I could have gotten some great photos looking down into the ball park on later days had it not been for the buckets of rain falling.

 Inside the visitor's center, the nice lady told me if I was going to the aquarium to GO NOW - as it gets very, very busy and you need to be in line when it opens.  Okey dokey...off to the aquarium I went.  And, was she ever right - the line was already through all the queue area and out into the main sidewalk.  Ugh!  It took me a minute to figure out that if I just wanted to see the aquarium and not do the 4D immersion underwater spectacurama (and yes - I made that word up) then I could actually get in rather quickly.  I got my ticket and headed in.  To say I was less than impressed with the National Aquarium is an understatement.  You are forced to proceed through nearly the entire building in what seems like a single file line.  While you can exit the line and view exhibits a bit more closely - you essentially follow the leader all the way through the place.  The layout just never made much sense to me.  I also LOVE the dolphin dome at the Indianapolis Zoo here in Indy - it's the most beautiful way to view dolphins other than to be lucky enough to see them in the wild.  The dolphin exhibit at the National Aquarium was less than spectacular.  Regardless, I have some interesting and still beautiful photos to share with you...

When you enter the aquarium you have no choice (at least not that I could figure out) to start out in this grade entry way that overlooks a tank of sharks, rays, and one very big turtle.  The turtle (whose name sadly I've already forgotten) is missing a flipper as you can see in his photo.  According to a couple of the aquarium employees I was chatting with it's kind of rare to get a photo of him as he tends to hide out of the way so I was pleased to get a few shots of him...

Overlooking that huge tank is this fella - I never did find an angle that I liked for him.  Part of the problem was the moving walkway you're forced onto (do you get the idea I didn't enjoy the traffic flow in here - I'll stop my grumble now - I promise)...Needless to say he hung down at least three stories of the building and was enormous.

I stopped for a while and took several pictures of the anemones.  This was a pretty cool tank which was getting a lot of attention so I had to stay here for a while to be able to get close enough to get some nice up close shots without glare on the glass as well as the full tank shot below.

This guy was just begging for his 15 minutes of fame so I decided to oblige him...

I enjoy the movie "Finding Nemo" - it's cute and the story is sweet plus the characters are kind of endearing.  I'm a bit like Dory sometimes.  Anyway, the museum had two nice "Nemo" tanks set up - something you see in a lot of aquariums nowadays.  These were from my favorite of the two tanks. 

Aquariums aren't all about what happens under the water - sometimes what happens on land is just as interesting and these two birds were a part of my trip.

One of my favorite exhibits was the jellyfish exhibit.  While the exhibit itself was rather depressing - there were some opportunities for some beautiful photos.

In all I spent about two hours at the aquarium.  You could easily spend five or six there - especially if you take in the two shows.  I wouldn't recommend going on a Saturday during prime spring break time if you want to take your time and enjoy the visit leisurely.  However, I enjoyed my visit and got some fun photos.

After the aquarium I stopped at McCormick and Schmicks for some lunch.  I really wanted a local place but both the concierge in the hotel and the nice lady in the visitors center told me to stay with M & S.  Not sure why - even when I asked for a local, non-chain location, but the food was good.  I had great broiled shrimp in onions and butter as well as a crab cake - YUMMY.

After lunch, I knocked around the inner harbor area for a while and looked at all the ships then it was off to the science center.

Ordinarily a science center wouldn't be a place that would draw my attention while visiting a city like Baltimore.  However, there was a traveling geocaching exhibit that I wanted to see that was housed there while I was visiting so the timing worked out.  Overall the museum wasn't even close to on par with the Indianapolis Children's Museum which I still think is one of the world's best - but it was fun place to spend an hour and the geocaching exhibit was fun.

GPS Satellite model

Entrance into the geocaching exhibit

All in all, I wish I'd spent more time out and about on Saturday as the rain came in a day early and stayed a day longer than expected so I didn't get any nice weather again until I left Baltimore to head to DC, but that's for a later post.