Baltimore

Nine years ago, Nicole and I were married in downtown Baltimore Pier 5 Hotel. We've made a number of day trips to visit the city since then and decided to spend a couple nights last week for a more extended celebration of our anniversary.

I lived in Baltimore for a year, working at Bell Atlantic as my first job out of school. The Inner Harbor area, already a touristy hot spot, has only sprawled since that time, mixing the natural beauty of the bay with a swarm of chain restaurants and boutiques. Still, the harbor is flanked by the Baltimore Aquarium (eh, I say, although I realize I'm in the minority), and the Science Center (woohoo, I say), which we visited for the first time this year.

Bill likes science, especially when the Science Center is not overrun with summer vacationing kids. I was able to play in the wet lab, see the super-cool K'Nex display, watch a demonstration of liquid nitrogen (a staple of any good Science Center), and sit at the kiosks to create my own dinosaur pictures which I was able to email to myself.

My dinosaur, coming to a nightmare near you

We made a trip to the American Visionary Museum, our first visit there in a number of years. Being fortunate to see the first full day of the new exhibit, The Marriage of Art, Science & Philosophy, we were treated to a collection of pretty creative and artistic displays. Also, the museum has expanded into a second full building since our last visit that allows for some massive displays including (Nicole's favorite) a super-sized Divine from Pink Flamingos.

Perhaps the only downside to the museum now is the disappearance of its great view over the harbor, replaced by the obstruction of million-dollar condos that took the water's edge. Only the museum's illuminated eye can see over the construction.

Being sure to not miss out on anything that would dub us as tourists, we took the Water Taxi to Fells Point. The trendy area has dwindled in its collection of neat shops over the years, but still has Bop Pizza, Sound Garden, and The Daily Grind which is all we ever cared about anyhow.

We were also sure to take a ride on the taxi after dark so I could get a picture of the Domino Sugar sign illuminated. I bet nobody ever did that before.

Dalesio's, our wedding dinner restaurant, served as our anniversary dinner spot and was, as always, a treat. Not to mention, we were able to eavesdrop on a table of old folks who couldn't say on a conversational topic for more than 15 seconds. "Did you watch the John Adams miniseries? He sorta looked like Charles Addams. But where was Morticia? And Lurch?"

It made us laugh because it is pretty much the attention span to detail that Nicole and I have now, and we aren't anywhere near as old as those folks were. I'm not sure what that means for our future.

Me, trying to screw up the light sensors on my camera.

And even though I poo-pooed the Aquarium above, the rain forest makes for a fun picture at night.