We decided to make a detour stop in Baltimore for crab cakes and Charm City Cakes (no illusions of meeting Duff or Mary Alic, just wanted a picture of Camden in front of the building...it's the silly blogger in me). However, it was the worst 1 1/2 detour ever. Ever! Both turned out to be busts. The place I'd found on-line for "best crab shack" was off the beaten path...and didn't exist anymore. Baltimore - strike one. Then another 20 minute excursion through the streets of the city to an address fo CCC ended in an abandoned rowhome. Baltimore - strike two. A quick call to one of Kevin's coworkers (who is from Baltimore) for a lunch recommendation took us to the Inner Harbor that was completey packed with tourist and bumper to bumper traffic. Baltimore - strike three. Camden was crying (she was starving) and I was so frustrated and sick of driving in this city, I got back to 95 and we found a McDonald's at the next exit. UGH. But with full bellies we were able to proceed on. With no plans of returning to Baltimore or watching "Ace of Cakes" ever again. Ever!
Our plan was to simply see the key monuments and not spend a bunch of time walking around. We stopped in front of the Capital for a photo.
We then spent an hour in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. I couldn't believe all of history we saw in that time - the Wright Brother's plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, Apollo 11 modular, the first missile of some kind, on and on and on. Amazing!
Next we narrowly avoided a parking ticket (see the van behind us) trying to get a picture of the Washington Monument. Because of this, I stayed in the car when we stopped by the White House.
Camden and I enjoyed climbing up in Albert Einstein's lap at the Academy of Science before we headed across the street to the Lincoln Memorial.
We did some walking so we could see the Vietnam Wall, the Korean War Memorial, and the World War II Memorial. This one is relatively new, so even I had never seen it before. Very beautiful.
We almost didn't go down to it since it was at the far end of the reflecting pool, but I'm so glad we did, because it also allowed us to get a good look at the Jefferson Memorial.
Before sun set that evening, we crossed the bridge into Virginia to see the Air Force Memorial, the Pentagon, Arlington Cemetary and the Marine's Memorial (also known as Iwo Jima). If you look closely at the Pentagon, you can see the slight variation in the color of the bricks where they were repaired after the 9/11 disaster.
Leaving the city that night to get a good stretch down the road toward home, we realized that we would be in 7 different states (including the District of Columbia) in just this one day - New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, DC, West Virginia, and Ohio.After a good night sleep, Day Nine would be the last 6 hours drive home. It was a phenomenal adventure...and Camden was pleased that this was her last long stint in her car seat!
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