What do you do when you’re on the road for baseball…and there is no baseball? You become a tourist.
Baltimore, Md – Saturday rolled in wet, and cold, to College Park, Maryland. A little bit of everything…sleet, snow, rain, wind, and temperatures that probably never touched the 40s.
Here to cover the Ohio State-Maryland baseball series, the local weather officials had given fore-warning, advising the Friday double-header that turned out as bleak for the Buckeyes, as Saturday’s weather. They’ll conclude the series on Sunday afternoon.
Visiting with my sister, who drove me down from the Philadelphia airport Friday to cover the weekend series, she asked Saturday morning, over breakfast, “So, what do you do when there is no baseball game?”
Well, you sleep. Or you read. Or you catch up on writing. Or…you just stare out the window and burn up your cell phone with calls back home.
“Can I suggest a road trip?” she asked.
“We’re on a road trip already,” I fumed. “And it’s raining.”
She works in the event planning field, and after 20 years there’s very few places in American in which she hasn’t seen, or planned something.
“Let me take you on a trip out to St. Michael’s, the original settlement in Maryland back in colonial days,” she suggested. “Weather’s bad, but bring your Nikon. I’m sure there’ll be something you’ll like.”
St. Michaels is about an hour east of Baltimore, just east of Easton, where they stage the world’s largest waterfowl hunting festival each fall. Always wanted to go to that….but never did.
No trip to Baltimore is complete without a visit to the inner harbor and the USS Constellation (background).
It literally blew sideways as we made our way through the labyrinth of freeways and local roads, but if you get there on a better weather day…it really is a Nikon holiday.
The harbor lighthouse, small local business, wonderful colonial architecture, the region’s original church…and the Inn a Perry Cabin.
The Inn is the restored retirement home of Admiral Oliver Hazard Perry, the man who defended Lake Erie against British attack during the War of 1812. From the photos it appears that the Admiral lived well after the war, or at least comfortably for that day. It’s now a hotel and event center.
We ducked into Christ Church, in the middle of St. Michaels, during rehearsal by the church’s organist, preparing for Sunday’s service. NEAT!
By the way, it’s not all colonial. Just outside of town on the way back home there’s an outlet mall, not unlike the one in Jeffersonville. Shirts at Brooks Brothers were 50% off. I couldn’t resist the madras.
You gotta’ eat, too, so on the way back to the Marriott housing the Ohio State traveling party we ducked into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor to visit Ft. McHenry, the USS Constellation…and Phillip’s Seafood House. Nothing better than a dozen Chesapeake Bay oysters washed down by a “see-through”.
And the weather? Well, the sun finally peaked through at the harbor, but the temperature never hit 40. However, the car had a heater; and there was that “see-through” at Phillips. We got home just fine.
It’s what you do (if you’re lucky)…when the Buckeyes get rained out!
They say this is where Admiral Oliver Hazard Perry lived after he kicked the British out of Lake Erie. Wonder why he didn’t settle in Cleveland?
The interior of Christ Church, in St. Michaels, the original church in town, and one of the three oldest in Maryland.