Kelly and I booked this trip in July of 2022 and the wait has been sooooo long. We are packed and Uber'ed to DFW a wee bit early. I think Mister got just a little nervous as we had not used this method of transportation before. All went well and even though we are early, we are killing time riding the train (after lunch, of course). We meet up with Shonie and finally get to board the plane. Look out, Baltimore, here we come. A time change and we arrive in early evening. I have landed in Baltimore before, but never spent any time here. I'm looking forward to this.
I pre-ordered an Uber to get us from the airport to the hotel and that was a mistake. We should have just ordered one when we arrived and were ready to go. Now we wait - 45 minutes as landing was early and baggage went crazy smooth. We're just hanging out at the airport - at least it's nice outside and NOT 110 degrees. It gives us time to get acquainted.
We are meeting up with the girls to go and have dinner - Kelly has found a spot within walking distance and while we wait, I peek around the hotel a bit. Mister settles in to relax.
Pickles Pub is the place!
It's a great neighborhood pub and perfect for what we are after.
It's been a long day --- time for some sleep so back to the room we go. The walk is pleasant and well-lit. SOOOOO many people warned and tried to tell us not to go anywhere in Baltimore. This was a piece of cake and we had such a great time.
Day 2 - We have quite a bit of free time as we don't check in to the ship until 2:30. That means we have time to do some exploring around Baltimore. Breakfast at the hotel and then we are off. I have a walking map to follow and away we go. First up is Camden Yards - home of the Baltimore Orioles. I love this type of travel as I learn sooo much. Yes, I had heard of Babe Ruth - but, no, I didn't know he was from Baltimore.
Our hotel is in an area called, Inner Harbor. As we near the harbor, this sculpture stands out.
There is a memorial nearby that says: "Near this spot, the Baltimore steamer President Warfield began her epic voyage into history. Built in 1928 as the flagship of the Old Bay Line, she ran nightly cruises between Baltimore and Norfolk. In 1943 she was given to Britain under the wartime lend-lease program, but joined the U.S. Navy in 1944 as a harbor control vessel off Omaha Beach after the D-day landings. Purchased as war surplus in 1946, she was outfitted in Baltimore as part of a secret fleet to transport Holocaust survivors through the British blockade against Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel. On July 18, 1947, manned mainly by Americans and carrying over 4, 500 refugees, she was attacked by British warships and board in international waters. Three men were killed, including the American mate William Bernstein; dozens were wounded. During the struggle the ship's new name, Exodus 1947, was proclaimed to the world. The British returned the captured refugees by force to detention camps in occupied Germany. The sage of Exodus 1947 inspired the world to condemn British policy, led to the UN resolution to partition Palestine, and symbolized the birth of Israel. The ship itself, battered and abandoned, burned and sank in Haifa harbor in 1952. Between 1946 and 1948 volunteers from the United States and Canada acquired, equipped and manned 10 ships which carried 30,000 refugees through the British blockade.
Next is the 9/11 Memorial. Three, 22-foot-long twisted and torn amalgamated steel columns from the Twin Towers were the inspiration. The memorial provides a place of contemplation and a site to remember and reflect upon the events while paying tribute to the 69 Marylanders who lost their lives that day. Each year, on September 11, Baltimore's World Trade Center will act as sundial to mark the chronological inscriptions of the events that tragic dat. Look close on the side of the memorial to see the timelines.
Mister says to notice the ice breaker on the front of the ship.
How about a submarine now? Commissioned for the United States Navy on December 16, 1844, the USS Torsk was the only submarine out of its Tench Class fleet of ten to see service during World War II. Over eighty sailors lived aboard Torsk at particular times. In these very crowded conditions, the only way to pass someone was to turn sideways. After numerous war patrols and duties as a training boat after the war, the Torsk arrived in Baltimore to serve as a museum and memorial in 1972.
Commissioned in 1936, US Coast Guard Cutter WHEC-37 is the last remaining warship that saw action during the 7 December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Build at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1935-36, the ship served 50 years of continuous, wide-ranging missions. She earned four Battle Stars in World War II protecting Allied convoys in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Mediterranean, as well as for service as an amphibious command ship during the Battle of Okinawa. In peacetime from the 1930s to the 1980s, the ship and her crew carried out virtually every type of US Coast Guard missions including search and rescue, ocean weather patrol and law enforcement from the Bearing Sea to the Caribbean and beyond. Her remarkable career also included a tour in Vietnam during 1969-70 where she took part in Operation Market Time. Decommissioned in 1986, the ship is a National Historic Landmark and a tribute to the men and women of the United States Coast Guard who, since 1790, have safeguarded American lives and property throughout the globe.
Another great moment from history took place right here. On October 21, 1856, two young women wove through the crowded pier heading for a steamboat. Harriet Tubman was on a mission to help an enslaved person named Tilly escape. Their dangerous journey began right here and became known as one of Tubman's most bold and clever rescues. Harriet Tubman came searching for Tilly after receiving her fiancé's plea for help. He made it to freedom in Canada sever years earlier, but Tilly was stuck in Baltimore. Tubman decided to take the steamboat Kent down the bay to Delaware. She hoped nobody would suspect that Black women travelling south were trying to escape. Cunningly, she convinced the boat's captain Tilly was free, and he gave them the papers they needed to travel safely. The women got off the boat in Seaford, Delaware and spent a sleepless night in a hotel. In the morning, a slave trader lurking nearby tried to arrest them. Two things kept them safe: the certificate Tubman acquired from the Kent's captain and the hotel owner's help. The pair completed their escape by train with some help from Underground Railroad agent Thomas Garrett. A letter he wrote contains all that's known about Tilly's journey. Her true name and fate after reaching the free city of Philadelphia remains a mystery.
A bubbling stream to hide their tracks. A boat upriver toward hoe. Chesapeake waterways were vital to the Underground Railroad, a secret network of routes used to escape slavery. The same waters that carried captured Africans into ports for sale became their descendants' pathways to freedom.
As we look down into the water - we notice fish and the a jellyfish that they are all steering clear of. Do you see it? Not the best pic, I know.
Seven-Foot Knoll Lighthouse was the second screwpile lighthouse built by the U.S. Lighthouse Service. It was originally located 15 miles southeast of this location. The 47-foot-high, round, screwpile lighthouse was completed by the Baltimore "ironfounders" firm of Murray and Hazelburst in 1856 at a cost of more than $30,000. It was constructed of rolled-iron plates, drilled and riveted together and supported on nine cast-iron screwpiles. The screwpiles eliminated the need for an underwater masonry foundation.
Just enjoying this walk along the water - so nice.
In 1861, as the Civil War began, Baltimore secessionists hoped to stop rail transportation to Washington and isolate the national capital. On April 19, the 6th Massachusetts Regiment arrived here at the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad's President Street Station at 10 a.m., en route with other troops to answer President Abraham Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers to counter the "rebellion." Regimental commander Col. Edward Jones led the first of seven cars to Pratt Street and safely across the waterfront. The eighth car turned back after Southern sympathizers blocked the rails. From Camden Station, Jones sent order to Capt. Albert S. Follansbee, commanding the remaining four companies here: "You will march to this place as quick as possible and follow the rail-road track." The Lowell City Regimental Band, baggage, and supply cars remained here after Follansbee left, awaiting their own instructions. When a pro-Confederate mob threw bricks at the musicians, they tore the stripe from their uniform trousers to be less recognizable as soldier and fled on foot into the city. Col. William F. Small's 1,200-man 26th Pennsylvania Volunteers had also arrived with the 6th. As Small persuaded railroad officials to pull the train and troops out of the city to safety, the mob attacked, fatally injuring Pennsylvania Volunteer George Leisenring. The riot here lasted for more than two hours before order was restored. These were the very first deaths in the Civil War.
The National Katyn Memorial is a monument which memorializes the victims of the 1940 Katyn massacre of Polish nationals carried out by Soviet forces. Baltimore's Polish-American community was instrumental in having the monument built.
The Phoenix Shot Tower, also known as the Old Baltimore Shot Tower, is a red brick shot tower, 234.25 feet tall and completed in 1828. It was the tallest structure in the United States at that time. The Shot Tower was used to make buckshot for shotguns used in hunting. Molten lead was dropped from the top of the tower through a sieve-like device. As the lead fell, it formed perfect round balls. Water in a vat at the bottom of the tower caught and cooled the shot.
At this site on August 14, 1874, the American District Telegraph Company of Baltimore City was founded to provide a messenger service to homes and businesses. Customers used a call box to summon a messenger boy who delivered and responded to telegraphs. With increased technology, customers could also alert rescuers through the call box during an emergency. When telephones replaced telegraphs around 1900, the company pivoted to protecting commercial buildings with ADT watchmen on patrol. Through the decades, ADT grew and continued innovating, eventually providing residential security in the 1980's. Today, ADT provides safe, smart and sustainable solutions to more than six million customers nationwide. How crazy is this? I actually answered their phones at one time through a call service.
Love this little one that was kept.
Just taking in the sights.
We are back to the Bromo Seltzer Tower and I'm done in. Mister, however, wishes to go and check it out. Have fun, my dear and take pictures please.
The Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower, originally The Emerson Tower, has been a Baltimore landmark since its construction in 1911 and was the tallest building in Baltimore at the time. This historic structure, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was modeled after the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. The tower was designed by Joseph Evans Sperry and built by Captain Isaac Emerson. It was an office building for Bromo Seltzer and attached to the Bromo Seltzer factory. The tower used to be the tallest building in Baltimore.
Captain Isaac Emerson, the inventor of the headache remedy Bromo Seltzer and builder of the Bromo Seltzer Tower, had a genuine interest in the City of Baltimore as one of his contemporaries noted, "...he interests himself thoroughly in everything tending to advance our city, and is a patron of all worthy enterprises seeking to push Baltimore to the front."
After an extensive renovation, the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts officially opened the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower with studio spaces for visual and literary artists in 2008. Here is some of the beautiful art that Mister saw while visiting. Notice that even quilts are included in his pictures. I wish I had gone along, but I just didn't have another step in me and it was dang hot out by the time he went.
This pic cracks me up as Mister doesn't like dolls, but these strange faces are okay.
Odd that these two are the last two pics from the art floors. Hahahaha.
The most interesting feature is the still-functioning tower clock, the face of which displays the word BROMO-SELTZER instead of numbers. Designed by Seth Thomas in 1911, it was the largest four-dial gravity-driven non-chiming clock in the world. A full restoration of the clock was completed in 2017. The original tower was topped by a 51-foot revolving replica of the blue Bromo-Seltzer bottle, which was illuminated with 596 lights and could be seen 20 miles away. Due to structural concerns, the bottle was removed in 1936. An elevator takes him part way and then stairs are required.
Still more to go - but the goal is in sight.
The inner workings - crazy right?
The brain.
I might have taken more pictures of the clockface, but that's me. My love is much more interested in how it works. However, the face was not totally neglected.
Back down to the museum.
Also inside the Tower is the Emerson/Maryland Glass Museum which houses the largest collection of Bromo Seltzer and Maryland Glass bottles in existence. The Museum is on the 15th floor and is on loan from and curated by Ernest Dimler.
So much history of Bromo Seltzer in here and I have to admit that I was in the dark about this product until now. I've read and tried to learn as much as Mister did while being here. It was a product way ahead of its time in many ways. The difference (after 1975 when bromide was removed) between it and the original Alka-Seltzer, for example, is that Alka-Seltzer combines sodium bicarbonate with aspirin and Bromo Seltzer combines it with acetaminophen, the ingredient found in analgesics like Tylenol that is usually gentler on the gastrointestinal tract. I'm glad he went and enjoyed himself and some time alone before the mayhem of the rest of the day ensues.
Here is a walking map of "kinda" where we went - there was more to it as we went up and down the piers, but this is decent. About 3 1/2 miles all total and not a single issue. I have thoroughly enjoyed visiting Baltimore and would be happy to come back and explore some more - with a car so that we can expand our area.
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With that, Mister arrives back at the hotel and we retrieve our luggage and then the Uber arrives. We are outta here - all four of us and our bags packed into a rather tight car. It works and soon we are at the port. Our first views of the Legend.
We come upon an island and since I still have internet, I look it up. It is Fort Carroll, a 3.4-acre (1.4 ha) artificial island and abandoned fort in the middle of the Patapsco River, just south of Baltimore, Maryland. It is named for Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-1832), a signer of the Declaration of Independence. In 1847, the State of Maryland gave permission to the United States War Department to construct a fort in the shallow water of Soller’s Point Flats to protect the city of Baltimore. Fort Carroll was important for the defense of Baltimore — before the fort was created, Fort McHenry, just outside the city, was the only military defensive structure between Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay. The fort was part of the "Permanent System" or Third System construction program, which aimed to defend America’s most important ports. In March 1921 the Army officially abandoned Fort Carroll and moved whatever military equipment was left to nearby Fort Howard. The War Department declared the island excess property in 1923, but took no immediate steps to sell the land. A variety of proposals for the use of the island were advanced, including a prison, as well as a 1923 plan advanced by Baltimore mayor William Broening to place an electric "Welcome to Baltimore" sign on the island, accompanied by a statue of Lord Baltimore. In World War II the Army used the fort as a firing range. It also served as a checkpoint for vessels. In May 1958, Baltimore attorney Benjamin Eisenberg purchased the island for $10,000, intending to put a casino on the island, but development plans never materialized. The fort is now deserted and the habitat for various animals. It is also a site for occasional urban explorations.
We went up on deck for pics of an upcoming bridge. Mister's pics.
Yep, I'm there too.
Back to my pics - a towel parade. So fun.
Coming up on the second bridge.
Mister has gone up to the bridge for photos. I'll share those after this. However, from my balcony, I can see him up there talking to someone. Spying? Nah.
The person he was talking to had taken his picture and sent him these:
And with that our first nigh ton board comes to an end. We walked A LOT today and are beat. Around 11, the ship had to stop in the harbor for a medical emergency. So sad for someone. I think we will clear the harbor sometime around 3 a.m. I guess we'll miss that one. See ya tomorrow.
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