Our little island is about seven hours of drive time away from Baltimore, Maryland. Brian had some Coast Guard business to take care of there, so we made it into a fun little adventure. B, Charlie, and I piled into the Camry and arrived in the city of Baltimore after a harrowing highway ride. We have become quite used to living on small islands and we hardly drive at all. We usually ride a bike. So, the highway traffic was pretty stressful. We do love road trips though. I especially love them. I really do not like to fly if I can help it. Just don't like being packed in a commercial plane like a sardine. Cities quickly overwhelm us, but we get comfortable pretty easily and love playing tourist. I'd been to Baltimore before as a child, but B had never been there. We made no prior arrangements, hoping to get a better rate at a hotel as a "walk-in." That worked out even better than we expected.
We found a cute hotel catty-corner to the waterfront in the "Fell's Point" area called "The Admiral Fell Inn." Ha, ha, ha... Clever. Anyway, we ended up securing a $189/night room for $130 and got out of the pet fee completely, pretty nice.
I was honest about the dog! It's pretty hard to hide a 72 lb furry black dog anyway, especially when we had to walk right past the front desk every time we went anywhere. But they were cool with it.
It was really a great place. Brian hit the goody store around the corner and returned to the room with rum, wine, and mixer. Charlie was a little wigged out, first ride in an elevator and all. We went that night to an Irish pub and just enjoyed being somewhere new. The next morning we had a kick-ass breakfast at the Blue Moon.
On the way back to Ocracoke, we decided to forego the highway hell and take a beautiful scenic bypass, which we enjoyed all the way. Hey, we might not be sailing in tropical latitudes right now, but it's all about appreciating the moment right? And we definitely do.
The Horse You Came In On Saloon, where Edgar Allen Poe reportedly bought his last drink :-(
Charlie really wanted to go have a pint.
Beau is my brother's name. I thought this was kinda funny.
Sunday is our day off together. It was so beautiful, we decided a bike ride to the beach was in order. We took this really cool dirt road through the saltmarsh to get there.
You can't really see it, but the light house is in the distance on the right.
Charlie, cooling off when we got there. Why isn't Brian barefoot? Because, we had agreed to work out a little bit and do some running on the beach before we began lazing about.
Good luck getting him to do any beach jog after that bike ride!
Well, we made ourselves do somewhere around 200 crunches and push ups until we couldn't do anymore... that's called "set to exhaustion." Then we did my "Couch to 5k" program, which was a walk/run combination for 20 minutes. It sure doesn't sound like much here, but it felt like a lot to me. I'm quite sore today, and of course I have a weird splotchy sunburn. I should have worn more sunscreen. I underestimated my white-ness.
It felt really good actually. I am desperate to get back into good shape by June.
Look at this darling duck mama and her babies. We passed them riding home.
After all that exercise, we relaxed on the harbour front at the Jolly Roger where we had delicious Jamaican Jerk Grouper sandwiches and a couple of beers. That's not very fit eating, I know. It sure tasted great though! The weather was so perfect, warm sunshine and cool breezes. We're always happiest on the water, but next to it is pretty damn good, too.
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