No 4th of July celebration would be complete without a parade, and no parade would be complete without marching bands, fire trucks, and classic cars. The Towson parade today had all these things and more. For two hours, 16 marching bands—from our local Towson University to Bertha, Minnesota to Ontario, Canada—marched through the streets with veterans, politicians, and representatives from area civic organizations. Curiously, several of the bands featured bagpipes. And of course no 4th of July would be complete without the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. Happy 4th of July!
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Adventures in Coffee
There’s nothing I love more than a good cup of coffee (well, very few things anyway). I recently took a self-guided tour of the coffee shops in Towson for the local Patch.com news site and discovered what I like best about each. You can read my article here.
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Truly a Feast
Feast @ 4 East is a hidden gem in the Baltimore neighborhood of Mt. Vernon. Home to the Walters Art Museum, The Peabody Institute, Baltimore CENTERSTAGE, and the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center, the Mount Vernon Cultural District is a destination neighborhood for visitors and native Baltimoreans alike. Feast @ 4 East is the dining room of 4 East Madison Inn, a Mount Vernon townhouse that boasts a rich history. Now a boutique hotel, the building formerly housed The 4 East Madison Orthopedic Association, and its physicians are said to have treated celebrities such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Katherine Hepburn, Joe DiMaggio, John F. Kennedy, and Mickey Mantle.…
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Jellies!
The National Aquarium, Baltimore has a pretty cool jellyfish exhibit. “Jellies Invasion: Oceans Out of Balance” combines eerily lighted displays of jellies floating in futuristic tubes with educational material about the threat the creatures pose to the world’s oceans. They multiply like crazy and are invading new seas, changing the dynamics of these ecosystems. It’s curious that a brainless, spineless jellyfish can wreak such havoc (but, as is often the case, we humans are really to blame…). If you go, I recommend buying tickets online in advance. You can bypass the crowds, pick up your tickets at at the will-call kiosks, and walk right in.
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Oh Say, Can You See? A Day at Fort McHenry
I spent an afternoon with a friend at Fort McHenry last weekend, and it was way more fun than I thought it would be. For those not familiar with this particular national monument, Fort McHenry was the site of a battle during the War of 1812. The story goes that as the smoke cleared after a booming battle with the British navy, Francis Scott Key, a Baltimore lawyer who had been watching the action from vessel on the Patapsco River, saw the stars and stripes flying and was inspired to write the words to “The Star Spangled Banner.” Fort McHenry opened a new $15 million Visitor and Education Center in…
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The Baltimore Years
We moved to Baltimore just in time for the Blizzard of 2010, but despite the less-than-warm welcome, Charm City is turning out to be a much more interesting place to live than I expected. This chapter in my life – I’ll call it “the Baltimore years” – is a fun time of discovery so far. Leaving St. Louis after eight years, I realized there was so much I still hadn’t done. I never went to the Forest Park Balloon Race. I only went to a concert at The Pageant once, and it was a great venue. Why didn’t I go back? We had season tickets to The Muny one year…