Chris and Evey's Adventure to Baltimore and Beyond

So I realize it must seem like forever since we went to Baltimore and yet you have all waited so patiently for me to get my butt in gear and tell you all about it. Who knows, perhaps my lack of blogging has steered you all away for good. For those of you who are still around please bear with me as I work through our trip in this post. I warn you that it will be long and there will be a lot of pictures so get comfy.

We had a great week away from Boston and neither of us wanted to come back. But after a week away and travelling through 8 states--Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC it was time to come back to the city we love (sarcasm) and get back to the daily grind. One thing I have always done ever since I was a kid was keep track of all the different license plates we saw along the way. We actually had a pretty good bunch.... Minnesota, Arizona, Missouri, North Dakota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Ohio, Delaware, Wisconsin, Michigan, Washington, New Jersey, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, Texas, Maine, Connecticut, Maryland, Indiana, Tennessee, California, Illinois, Georgia, Washington DC, Quebec and Ontario. PHEW! That was a mouthful. Now onto the good stuff...

The day of our trip started like any vacation should.....running late and pulling out of the driveway at least two hours later than we had hoped. But alas, we were off and very very happy to get outta town. As you can see from the pictures we were wide awake and ready to go.

We found ourselves travelling through Connecticut and into New York. We decided instead of taking the long way around into New Jersey we would just head through New York and over the George Washington Bridge. Boy was that a DUMB idea!! Yep, you guessed it. Bumper to bumper traffic for well over an hour leading up to the bridge. They were doing construction on the lower deck. Fun times. Once we finally made it through all the traffic and onto the bridge though it was definitely worth it. I love the George Washington Bridge. It was overcast and smoggy that morning so we didn't have much of a view. Once we got over the bridge and into New Jersey it was smooth sailing on the New Jersey Turnpike. We decided to take a detour through Delaware so we could go to Sonic Drive-In for supper. We see commercials for Sonic ALL the time and it drives us nuts because there are none anywhere near us. When we decided to go to Baltimore we were sure to look up any Sonics along the way. It was worth the detour. Every greasy bite was worth it. Hey, don't judge me. I was on vacation, diets don't count on vacation.

The whole point of this trip in the first place was to go to baseball games. Our team the Seattle Mariners were down there in Baltimore for a 3 game series and since they only came to Boston once this year and we only got to one game we decided we would go down to Baltimore and get tickets to all 3 games. We decided to get tickets in different sections for each game. The first game we sat in the 300 (upper) level directly behind home plate. The Mariners won 10-3, so that was a good thing. We took a ton of pictures on all 3 nights and I will only post a few of them here. After you are done reading this you can head over to our picture blog and see ALL our pictures over there. The second game we sat out in left field and we won again, this time the final score was 8-4. It was insanely hot the week we were down there. The temperature at game time on the Wednesday night (7pm) was 101 degrees. It was GROSS! The next night the temp wasn't as bad as it was a little stormy and we did have two rain delays. Once again the Mariners won and the score was 13-8. Always fun to travel to see your ball team and have them win all 3 games.
The above picture is of the plaque that is on the wall of the warehouse where Ken Griffey Jr hit a home run off during the home run derby of the 1993 All Star game. The player ever to hit the building. Seattle fans will know and appreciate this picture.

In Seattle one our TV announcers gives away rally fries at all home and away games. A few months back at a game in Seattle some guy went to catch a foul ball on the warning track and he spilled his fries all over the place. So Mike Blowers (former Mariner and current TV guy) replaced his fries for him. It was the 6th inning and the Mariners ended up scoring a bunch of runs. And so there was born the idea of "rally fries." So now every game fans bring signs and Blowers will give away fries to the fans with the most creative signs. Chris and I made 3 different signs, one for each game. The first one was Chris's moms idea and here is the picture of it...I realize that might not mean anything to some of you. But the old stadium in Seattle where the Mariners use to play was called the Kingdome.

The second game our sign was a little poem that Chris and I came up with and it said...

Drove from Boston to see the guys

Who are still playing well to many's surprise

With each win their critics they defy

So help them out and bring on the rally fries

We did not get rally fries on either of the first two nights and I was a little disappointed. However Chris felt the sign he had for the 3rd games was the best one and had the best chance of getting their attention. It was a sign that was a direct jab at Mike Blowers who had 4 errors in one game. So even though this was "Chris's sign" there I was during both rain delays standing in the rain holding the sign high above my head. Finally we received a phone call from Andrea back in Seattle that they showed us and our sign on TV and they were talking about it. And sure enough to long after that phone call someone brought us rally fries and told us what camera to look at and wave and hold our sign up for. YAY! We got rally fries. I was so excited. A bunch of people in Seattle called us because they saw us on TV, fun times. We also went down behind the Mariner's dugout before a few of the games. We were happy to end up with Raul Ibanez autograph as well as Adam Jones who is our up and coming young star outfielder of the future.

We also spent a day down in Washington DC. That was AWESOME!! We kinda did a whirlwind tour. I definitely would love to go back to DC for a couple of days and spend a lot of time really seeing things and the museums etc. We parked downtown DC and walked walked and walked some more. The first thing we did was of course head toward the White House. You can walk right down the road in front where you can stand and take pictures with the White House in the background. As we got close however noticed that the whole portion of the road in front of the White House was blocked off. We asked a police officer and he told us it would be reopened in about an hour but wouldn't give us any information. So, we decided to walk on over to see and take some pictures of the Washington Monument which is basically across from the White House. We took pictures of the Monument and the were sitting on a bench trying to decide our next destination when I heard a loud roar. I looked up and to the right of the Washington Monument appeared a HUGE helicopter that headed straight toward us. I turned and said to Chris "uh, honey, I think that is the president!" He looked up and said "I think you are right!" Both of us looked in shock as this giant helicopter roared directly above our heads, so close it was almost as if we could reach up and touch it. We turned behind us and watched as it roared toward the White House and right in front our eyes landed on the front lawn. Arguably one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my life. It was awesome. And I tell ya, what a way to get dropped off at home. Sheesh! The Lincoln Memorial was pretty awesome as well. All of it really was pretty amazing. The architecture of everything was unbelievable. We took a quick trip across the river into Virginia to go to Arlington National Cemetery. We saw JFK's grave site and also the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers. It was neat to watch the "changing of the guard." They switch every 20 minutes during the summer and guard the Tomb 24 hours a day. Not sure how well you can read it in this picture. But the below grave is JFK.
There is not really a lot to do in Baltimore itself except for the Inner Harbor Area downtown. It is actually very pretty down there and we spent a few hours walking around taking pictures and buying souvenirs.All in all we had a great trip. It was nice to get away for a little while and go somewhere new. I realize this post was very long and I apologize for that but I wanted to be sure I touched on all the highlights of our trip. To see all of our pictures please click HERE.