[Part ONE of the trip I took with the twins back east over Spring Break]
Since I started the tradition by taking Ammon on a vacation during his freshman year of high school, I planned on doing the same with the twins. I started asking them last year where they were interested in going somewhere in mainland America and they said they didn't care. I told them to think about it, and I asked them again a few months later. They said they still didn't care, so then I said I'd pick where we would go! I said I'd always wanted to go to New York to watch plays, but they didn't like that idea. I said I'd like to go to Florida and go to Disneyworld, but they didn't like that idea either. Finally, they decided they would go to Washington DC like Ammon did during his freshman year. That was just fine with me, because my older sister Lisa lives in Virginia (an hour from DC) and that meant we could stay there and I could spend time with her again!
When I took Ammon to DC in 2015, we went in February, after basketball season and before golf season, but it was still pretty cold and snowy there. So for the twins' trip, I knew I wanted to go a little later. We debated between going at the end of March over spring break or in June after school got out. The problem with going in summer was that they both have summer jobs, and they would've had to take time off of work, so I started pricing airfare costs last fall for flights over spring break, but the airfare was pricier than summer. Finally, on Christmas Day, there was a price drop and I booked our flights for the last week of March! Our tickets were $246 round trip each and the flights there and back each had just one layover.
This was the first time that Jonah and Micah had flown on an airplane, and they were looking forward to going on a trip, since several of their friends were also going on vacations during spring break. Our flight out of SLC was on Monday, March 25 at 1:20. We had a layover in Chicago, and then arrived in Baltimore at about 9:30 that night. We left Salmon about 5am, stopped for gas and breakfast food in Idaho Falls, and then arrived in Salt Lake around 10:30am. We drove to Tabbi's house in Murray area. She fed us lunch and took us on a tour of her house, and then we left the car parked there and she drove us to the airport and dropped us off (Thanks, Tabbi!!).
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| Tabbi's house is the yellow section in the townhouses behind the boys. |
Micah and I made it through security okay, but Jonah had to go back out to dump the water in his water bottle before getting back in line and coming through again. The first flight was the only flight we took that our seats were together. They were excited/nervous for their first plain ride, but they did great and they really liked it!
Our layover in Chicago was over an hour, so we went to the food court in the airport and got some deep-dish style pizzas before getting on our next plane to Baltimore!
I reserved a hotel room within a reasonable distance to the Baltimore airport. I looked and looked, but didn't know where to stay, and just got a hotel with a free shuttle from the airport, but if I had to do it all over again, I would've gotten a hotel room in downtown Baltimore and would've taken the train directly from the airport to the city (it would've saved us time that night, and SO much time the next day). There was some transportation issues we had with this hotel... First of all, I called the hotel the night before to reserve a shuttle for us, the but the man at the front desk said to just call when we arrived at the airport. He told me the gate number the shuttle comes to. When we landed, I started calling the hotel, but nobody picked up. I called them TWELVE times before someone finally picked up and said the shuttle would be there in 15 minutes. Meanwhile, we're in the downstairs area of the airport, in an area that's out of the way, and it's late at night and dark, and there was homeless people laying on some of the benches inside the airport doors. It was very sketchy, and I didn't feel safe. After 15 minutes, I took the boys with me and we waited outside instead, where there was a few people already waiting for other shuttles and I felt a little better. After 20 minutes of the call, a shuttle van finally arrived. The driver drove us to our hotel, which was in a residential neighborhood that included a restaurant and a gas station, and that was it. I had downloaded the uber app the day before, thinking that I would just get an uber driver to pick us up at the hotel and drive us to downtown Baltimore. However, the app wouldn't work, it would give me a price and where the nearest driver was, but it would never let me confirm. I kept trying it all through eating the continental breakfast and while we packed up the room. We left our suitcases in a boiler room at the hotel, and I told the boys we could just start walking, because the uber would just pick us up wherever we were, but even after deleting the app and downloading it again, it still didn't work. I was kind of panicking at this point, because we were nowhere close to downtown, and I knew we couldn't walk the many miles to get there! We kept walking, and I looked up maps on my phone, trying to figure out the nearest public transportation options. Thankfully, there was a lightrail just a few blocks down the road, so we went to that station, bought tickets (with the help of a nice gentleman who was a daily rider) and waited for the next train to take us into downtown Baltimore.
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I took this photo of the poster map at the LightRail stop,
because it was the only map I had to go by for a bit!
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We passed by the Ravens stadium and the baseball stadium on our way to the city, which was cool. We got off in downtown and walked to the Inner Harbor. We went to their Visitor's Center to get maps and more information about their public transit systems, but during the winter months they're closed on Monday and Tuesday, and it was a Tuesday, so that was of no use. I downloaded the Lyft app successfully and much more easily, and got a driver to come pick us up and take us to Fort McHenry: my main destination in Baltimore.
Fort McHenry is where Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner during a battle with the British there in the War of 1812. When I used to teach music, I would tell all my students the story of what happened as a precursor to teaching them the words to the first verse of the Star Spangled Banner each year. Because I taught this story for four years, it was really dear to me, and I'd hoped since then that I would someday be able to go there. When I realized the flight to DC would be cheaper to fly into Baltimore (we flew out of DC though), I immediately got excited thinking that this might be my chance to see it! Jonah and Micah didn't have any preferences as to what we see in Baltimore, so going to Ft. McHenry was at the top of the list!
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We could see the 4.3 mile long Chesapeake Bay bridge in the distance! I'd seen it
more up close when I came to Maryland for an afternoon on the trip with Ammon.
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These are some of the cannons in front of the fort, used as the "Water Battery".
They were instrumental at keeping the British ships at bay!
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Here's something I didn't know: the Fort is in the shape of a star!!! I've never seen a fort like that before--I was really expecting it to be rectangular with tall walls, and was quite surprised when I first walked up to it!. The exterior walls were built up with underground bunkers and gunpowder/ammunition storage, and the look-out points made the surrounding areas more visible. An extra triangular shape was added in front of the main access door because the front door was so exposed; it had additional bunkers in and made the front door more protected. It was so unique!
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| Standing in front of the fort. |
The buildings inside the fort had been historically renovated, and we were able to walk through most of them. There were soldier's quarters, commanding officer's quarters, a kitchen, a bunkroom, a prison, a gunpowder magazine, an office, and a building used now as a museum displaying memorabilia and artifacts. By the way, the second story of the buildings wasn't constructed until around twenty years after the War of 1812!
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The flag flies there every day, 24 hours a day.
At night, a modern flag flies. Every morning they either
raise the giant garrison flag, or if the wind is bad,
a smaller storm flag is raised instead.
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| Standing on the exterior wall at one of the points. |
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There was some cool interactive displays inside the buildings. In this room,
Captain George Armistead was heard over the speakers as the map changed
on the digital screen in his desk as he spoke.
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These are the Rodman Cannons, the largest cannons of the Civil War era.
They weren't installed at the fort until after the War of 1812.
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This was the only bunker hill that visitors had access to, and when the
twins came out of it, it reminded me so much of the opening credits of
"Teletubbies" when the creatures come out of their hill house in the morning!
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We walked around the Inner Harbor, looking at the historical ships and different art displays. I thought maybe we could go on the paid tours inside the ships, but the boys opted not to.
We decided to go up to the "Top of the World Observation Deck" at the World Trade Center that's located in the Inner Harbor of Baltimore, but when we went inside to get tickets, guess what they said?! "It's closed on Mondays and Tuesdays in the off-season". Strike THREE!! Instead, we walked past the National Aquarium (they also said they weren't interested in going in that, but it looked super cool!) and over to the old power plant which now houses Barnes & Noble and Hard Rock Café. We wandered around Barnes & Noble, and right when we were heading over to see the Hard Rock Café and get a refreshing drink, Lisa and Quinn arrived. They'd driven from their home in Manassas Virginia that morning to meet us and pick us up.
Lisa had heard about this awesome Italian Restaurant in Little Italy, so we drove a few blocks, parked the car and walked around Little Italy looking for the place she'd heard about. We walked into 3 different places, but it wasn't the one, and finally we just settled on a restaurant without finding it.
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I liked these hanging "lanterns" lining one of the streets in Little Italy,
with painted milk cartons hanging from a wire with lightbulbs in them.
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One of the places we'd accidentally gone inside thinking it was the restaurant was a cute bakery/gelato shop, so after our late lunch, we went back to that place and got some gelato and baked goods to go.
After our late lunch stop, we left Baltimore, stopped back at our hotel to pick up our luggage, and Lisa drove us to Washington DC. She works at the GAO building downtown, so when we arrived in DC, she drove her car into that parking garage (free parking, yay!) and we walked around DC for a couple of hours until the hockey game started. I'd gotten tickets a few months in advance for all of us to see the Capitals play at the Capital One Arena in DC that night. I saw parts of downtown DC that I hadn't seen before! The streets were busy with pedestrians, in anticipation of the approaching game time, but it was great walking around and seeing a few of the sights with my own free tour guide (Lisa has lived there for several decades, so she knows her stuff!).
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| Chinatown |
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| I loved how the crosswalks in Chinatown included a dragon and the 12 zodiacs! |
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| St. Patrick's Cathedral |
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The orange brick house is where President Lincoln
died after he was shot at Ford's Theater.
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That house is right across the street from the Ford's
Theater. I would've loved to see a play there,
but it didn't work out.
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| A patriotic guitar display inside Hard Rock Café |
My favorite place that I ate at in DC when I went four years ago was the Clyde's Restaurant. The food was SUPERB!! That restaurant was located in Georgetown, but Lisa said there was another Clyde's in the mall across from the arena, so we stopped there for dinner. There was quite a bit of wait time, and we knew we'd be cutting it close to the start of the game, but my phone was dead from using it all day, and I needed to plug it in long enough to get the tickets downloaded and the images saved. So, while we waited for our seats, I plugged my phone into an outlet and had it charging. However, after we got seated and ordered our food, I realized there was a problem with my tickets. It wouldn't let me see the image of them, no matter how many times I tried to download the attachment to my email. After I forwarded the email to everyone else in our group, it wouldn't work for them either. nother new account for the vendor who sold me the tickets through StubHub. Dinner wasn't nearly as good as last time I ate there, mostly because I was stressed about the ticket deal. We walked to the arena and got in line for assistance. The attendant said I had to create a new account for the vendor who sold me the tickets through StubHub, which I did with the help of the twins. Then we got in line, but I didn't pass security due to the baked goods that were in my bag that I'd purchased in Little Italy earlier that day. No outside food is allowed. My choices were: throw away $30 in specialized cookies and sweets, or have Lisa take them to her car. I couldn't believe it. After the stress of the last hour with the whole ticket deal, I burst into tears. The game had just started, so we told the boys to go ahead and go to the seats, and I waited as Lisa took my bag back the several blocks to the car and returned. Lisa and I got to our seats right after the Capitals scored their first point.
It was a super fun game, and the Capitals won 4-1 against the Hurricanes. We had such a great time and the twins were so happy to experience it with their cousin Quinn. Quinn said it was his favorite activity we did that week. Micah really wanted a jersey afterwards until he saw the price of it! He was kind of in sticker-shock when he realized it would be a couple hundred dollars! We walked back to the building where the car was parked, and Lisa picked us up as we waited outside. I was in awe of all the beautiful Magnolia Trees that were blooming everywhere as we walked! I've never seen anything like it!! Also, just as a side note: Micah's watch recorded how many miles we walked each day, and on this day we walked 7.5 miles!!
Lisa drove us back to their home in Manassas that night. I slept on the couch in the living room during our stay, and the twins slept on the pull-out bed on the couch downstairs in the basement. Malcolm was away at college, and Mack was in Florida with his brother Thom at the hospital, so we only got to spend time with Lisa and Quinn while we were there, but we really enjoyed their company!
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