Baltimore! Part 1

Back in August Madison had asked me about taking a trip for her birthday - she would be turning 21. She didn't want to be at home where her friends would be pressuring her to get shit faced doing shots. Smart girl.

We had tossed around many different ideas of locations but when I found out her car insurance would be doubling because of a few accidents and tickets, I said we had to go CHEAP!   We found Baltimore to be the place to go.  Some fun stuff to do there, cheap flights, and a great little AirBNB for $50 per night.  We also lucked out with some halfway decent weather - around 50 degrees most of the time we were there which was warmer than Michigan!

We arrived early the first day and set off on foot to explore.  I had read that Baltimore has many murals and we found several right away.

How a mom dresses for 50 degrees with wind and sun....

How a 21 year old dresses for 50 degrees in wind and sun!

One of our stops was at the home of Edgar Allan Poe where he had lived with some family members.

It's a very small house in a not so great neighborhood now.

 Another mural.

The Walters Art Museum was on our agenda for 1:00 where we did a "Fashion in Art" tour that was really interesting and then covered the rest of the place on our own.

This is the Washington Monument in Baltimore.

Back in our little AirBNB apartment, we admired the view of downtown Baltimore from the windows.

You have to loo hard but just left of the tall buildings in the center, you can see one of the bridges over the bay.

We got changed and headed out to dinner at "Duck, Duck, Goose" where Madison had duck for dinner - what she claimed to be one of the best dinners she's ever had!  After, we wandered around a bit before we met up with our tour group for a "Wicked History Pub Crawl".

The Pub Crawl ended up being a ton of fun and we rang in Madison's 21st birthday with a crazy group of three 50 year olds and 2 couples in their early 30's.  While we didn't drink TOO much, we drank more than I have in a long time and stopped for some food before heading back.  I had a big pretzel which I didn't finish.  Madison grabbed it to take with us. After losing it and then finding it in the LYFT, I found it again the next morning in her makeup bag!  Maybe she was a little drunk!

And so we ended our first day with 8.27 miles.

The next day we took the train to Washington DC.  Not the best time to be visiting there with the government shut down but our destination was Georgetown.

The Christmas tree was still up in Union Station.

We were lucky to have another decent weather day on the 30th.

After a walk up the hill, we got the Tudor House where we walked the grounds until it was time for the next tour.  We loved all the great old mansions lining the streets there!

The Tudor House was designed by the same guy who designed the White House and was owned by Martha Washington's granddaughter.  The house stayed in the same family until 1983 when it became a museum.

Do you think she minds modeling?

Me, not so much so!

The master bedroom of the house had this huge closet - very unusual for the time.  I had to take a picture because I remembered this brand of hat box being in my own grandparent's house.  As it turned out, our tour guide had grown up in Detroit and had gone to the same high school as my dad.  Small world.

While the back of the house, looking out towards the bay, is really impressive, the front door is rather unassuming in comparison.

After dinner at Clydes, a famous Georgetown restaurant, and a bottle of wine (half off night!), we got back on the train to Baltimore where Madison promptly fell asleep.

After returning to Baltimore we went to a small bar near our apartment called Sugarvale where we relaxed and celebrated Madison's birthday with a cocktail and a piece of Creme Brûlée pie.