Baltimore, Maryland was our main stop for today. We started at the Chesapeake Harbor where there's a floating nautical history museum consisting of 4 different ships that you can board and look around at. We didn't get on them, but we were able to walk alongside and look at a submarine (the USS Torsk) and an old Lightship. I didn't even know lightships were a thing, they were basically floaghting lighthouses. Pretty cool.
We walked a bit further along the harbor and got to the visitor's center. Outside of the visitor's center is a 9/11 memorial that on 9/11 every year acts as a sundial, illuminating several key events from that day. Beautiful, and tragic.
We walked a bit further down and put some life jackets on - it was time to explore the harbor. By PADDLE BOAT! The boats would only fit 4 people, so we split up. "B" and "Z" were with me, and "B" did the vast majority of the paddling and steering. She took us all over the area of the harbor that we were allowed to paddle in. I didn't paddle a ton, but I did help out some, She seemed proud of being able to drive the boat by herself. We celebrated surviving a hot day on the water (did I mention it was 92 and humid?) with some ice cream from Lucky's Ice Cream which "T" managed to get ALL OVER himself once again. I had a black cherry chunk ice cream that was divine.
Next, we went to the Maryland Center for History and Culture. This was a super cool little museum that had exhibits dedicated to all sorts of random things like Maryland furniture, African American heritage, the Revolutionary War, a fashion designer, and of course the marvelous Jim Henson. Jim Henson was what brought us here, but the entire museum was worth seeing. Quite a bit of interesting sights, and some interactive things for the kids to do, particularly in the Jim Henson exhibit - "B" made puppets and did puppet shows, and all the kids got activity books to take home.
Our last stop on the way to our hotel was for dinner. I still had a hankering for a cheese steak, so I settled on Johnny's Sub Shop. There were rave reviews for their "steak and cheese" sandwich, so we let the kids decide if they wanted a cheese steak from there or Wendy's. It was just "A" and I that wanted to try the cheese steak shop. I ran in, and was quite surprised to see that Johnny's Sub Shop was essentially a chinese restaurant that also happened to make a couple (like 3) kinds of sandwiches. This was definitely not an authentic Philly cheese steak, but we were in Maryland so I guess that's to be expected. But it was acceptable. I was whelmed.
Johnny's Sub Shop - Steak and Cheese