As you'll see, I took a lot of pictures this trip so it was hard to choose just one for the header. I decided, like my Mini Americana Tour post, to use the souvenir magnet.
Like the Americana tour, this was a pretty short trip, but it was, like that one, very tightly packed with lots of things to do, and places to walk. And walk I did. My dogs are tired.
Thursday, June 25, 2026
The drive up to Orlando International Airport was quite uneventful and traffic free, as you'd expect, being that it was at 4:00 in the morning. But, it being that ungodly time, you can imagine how little sleep I was running on. No worries; two large mugs of coffee and I was good to go. Didn't even need a 5-hour Energy. Today that is.
Of course Frontier didn't improve any on its timeliness in a now Spirit-vacated environment. Why would it? In fact, less competition in the super low budget airline category means now they can start being the new Spirit. But luckily they were only a half an hour late, but, unnervingly, it was due to our original plane having significant maintenance issues to be called offline last minute and us needing a spare plane to be immediately swapped in its place. Isn't that comforting? Thanks, last minute safety inspection team, I guess!
My seat partner was a little old lady from Frederick, Maryland who lamented that she still had another hour's drive from the airport after some four hours layover in the middle of the night in Orlando, after flying several hours from Denver. She said, and I quote, this circuitous route, was due to her having to make arrangements for some relation to move out of his apartment and into assisted living facility because of his progressing dementia. Yeah she was quite Gabby. I thought she was going to reveal his whole HIPAA sitch. For my part, before we landed, I'd shared a few anecdotes of my past with her in response to her queries including the story of my managing to capsize a Sunfish as a teenager when she asked if I had been a sailor. Now thinking of it though, I guess she meant whether I was a Navy veteran who appreciated ships rather than a one time pleasure boater. When we landed, she was so light-headed from being incredibly tired, I hadn't noticed until it was too late, she left her purse under her seat. Just walked off the plane. I'm sure she was delighted at having to walk all the way back once she realized she didn't have it.
This whole trip was pretty much me being chatty with a bunch of strangers I bumped into along the way. Never mind that lady I just mentioned being Gabby, it's my Gabby's making me Gabby. Speech to text is inappropriately capitalizing here and there and I'm just going to leave it, I don't care.
The next Chit Chat I had with total strangers was on the light rail coming from BWI Airport to Camden Yards station in downtown Baltimore. An older local couple told me that the next night, the Orioles were having a home game there. I thought about it a second or two and at first, since it didn't fit my original itinerary, I relegated it to the, quote, not this time category, unquote, fullstop. All right now it's having trouble with punctuation. Just deal with it. But then I thought about it and it had been on a checklist for a while to maybe take the train to Miami and see the Marlins or alternatively take the train to Tampa to see, pardon me, is it the Blue Jays?, I'm forgetting What team plays there, I'm not a big sports fan so, again, get over it. It's just I figured it'd be something to do. So I thought, yeah why not, and I looked into it later and I found out going to the Orioles game would be a little bit more interesting, and up my alley, so to speak, than I think even the old couple would have figured, since I'm pretty sure they didn't know the theming that the home game was scheduled for. More on that in a bit. Anyway, they were off to Fort McHenry but I was saving that for the next day of my trip since I wanted to go to the Inner Harbor right away so we split ways.
And here's a bunch of photos from the Inner Harbor featuring some of those ships and sites around that area that I took my first visit there on Thursday.
The above picture is the place I had lunch. It had a nice outdoor seating area right on the wharf and specialized in seafood. You know I had to get me some of that famous Maryland crab, but not being totally all out Seafood Brave, I opted to get what they called the Baltimore Burger. This was a provolone cheeseburger with bacon topped with a healthy sized crab cake. I've had crab cake before, but I think it was that imitation crab stuff, and I told my waitress this. She rolled her eyes and said that this is the real thing and I would be pleasantly surprised at the difference. And damned if I wasn't. It was phenomenal. And at $30, it better have been! I wanted a beer or two with my surf and turf burger but it was more economical to just get a four-can bucket so I got that of Stella Artois. Total of my lunch including tip $65.14.
Oh, this helpful staff security person at this Foundry building that Phillips was located in directed me to the place where I had seen a sign indicating the similarly named Foundry Live (which the signage said had a beer garden and entertainment), but I got a little lost, yet it brought me right in front of this:
I had read about this when researching a bit about Baltimore but hadn't intended on visiting it. And really I didn't visit it, this is about the closest I got to it. It's the Baltimore Phoenix Shot Tower, an old timey famous landmark. When it was completed in 1828, it was the tallest structure in the United States. But as you can probably make out here in this photograph, I may be a couple hundred yards away from it, and I wouldn't say it's more than 300 ft tall. Let me check. Close. Wikipedia says 234 ft tall. What's a Shot Tower you ask? Well it's in the olden days you know. They needed musket balls for their muskets. Those lead musket balls needed to be perfectly round. They get that way when molten lead is dripped from the top of the tower and as it's falling down, it cools into a sphere and by the time it hits the sand at the bottom, it's a perfectly round ball. How ingenious.
I did find Foundry Live, but it was just slowly getting open with almost nobody there and looked more like a night-time / urban young crowd venue, frankly, so I didn't hang around.
Here's a clip of one of the supersonic fighter jets flying pretty low overhead putting on a free show for us during lunch. These jets would do their thing each day from noon to 4:00.
After lunch I went to the nearby world trade tower (as seen in the above clip) which, at 27 stories, I think may be a wee bit smaller then the one in New York, and went to the observation floor that they have up there for $8.
You can see in the last two pictures shown above, a bird's-eye view from the top of the World Trade Center building, the restaurant Phillips that I ate at with its outdoor patio right on the canal or whatever you would call that.
Like so many of my vacations to the Northeast, it seems I always tend to pack my Florida weather in my luggage and this one was no exception. It was extremely hot and humid and with all the travel and walking, at around 3:00 I made my way over to my hotel which was another four or five blocks away. Remember my post when I booked this place, I compared it to the hotel in The Shining? Well take a gander at these pictures:
Images of Billie Holliday as she may have stayed here back in the day.
The long, eerie hallway to my room all the way at the end... no twin girls, thankfully.
Bank of elevators, sans gushing gallons of blood.
So, you can barely see it, but if you maximize this pic, you might make out that I've pre-placed a small paper cup on the top of the lower sash in the window of my room so that I'd be able to tell which one it was from the street below. Hint: It's the corner window directly to the right of the "L" in LORD in the large vertical banner that says LORD BALTIMORE HOTEL.
The above inside pics show the conditions and the views of the room. Not bad, IMHO, for $91.50 a night right in the smack downtown of a city. Kinda reminds me of that deal for that motel-style room in downtown LA, but that one wasn't nearly as nice as this.
Friday, June 26, 2026
Slept poorly, not due to bed comfort, that was awesome, but my shoulder of course. Nevertheless, I mustered on and in the morning I ventured over to a nearby 7-11 for a chocolate chip muffin, banana and some Doritos I figured I'd get for munchies for later on in my room (new flavor: Garlic Parm... but they must have added cumin because I hated them so I tossed them in the trash). Oh, yes, now I need a 5-Hour Energy so I got one of them.
On the way back to the hotel, nearly tripped over a cat-sized rat that was scurrying across the road. Yes, Baltimore reminded me a lot of downtown Philly... a pervasive reeking odor of tobacco (like Black & Mild cigars), funky rotting garbage smells here and there, throngs of sketchy people walking to and fro and at least, as I've just seen, one big-ass rat. 'Nuff said 'bout that.
Around 11:00 am, they started the opening ceremony down at the Inner Harbor promenade for the Sail250 celebration with flag presentations, local officials making an appearance (including a dramatic entry by the Governor of Maryland with motorcade rolling up and everything) and rousing patriotic music by featured singers and a Navy band. Cool. Had a pretty good view too.
But now it was time to go see the ships. Yes the ships were all ready and available for people to go ahead and stand in line, walk up the gangway and get a glimpse into the little passageways and cabins below decks on board each of 'em. And I'm sure if you had the patience and determination to deal with the crowds, that would have been quite interesting. But as a theme park burnout, I'm done with the long queue lines. I looked at them briefly and thought, I'm good. I got an idea of what it looks like on board. I got a pretty good imagination. Besides, I think the Majesty of these ships is really most appreciated from looking at them as a whole from the outside. And that's what I did. For $22.50, I bought an all-day pass for the harbor trolley. This set of small ferries was available from certain locations throughout Baltimore's harbors and you could ride it to any of its destinations throughout the afternoon. I took a few pictures on my way to my first embarkment Pier and and the rest are photos of some of the ships seen while cruising on the water, and the awesome flyovers of the jets doing their practice runs in the sky.
In this shot above, the jet has created a cupid's arrow through a heart with red smoke. Whaaaat?
Here's a little shot of Fells Point, one of the stops on the water trolley. Zydeco performers at a small gazebo, an Uncle Sam stilt-walker and not too many patrons even though it's lunchtime. Well, it's still just Friday I guess and this is off the beaten path from downtown.
My main destination for the afternoon was of course, Fort McHenry. As you may recall from your school days, this was the famed locale which saw action in the War of 1812 that inspired Francis Scott Key to pen the Star-Spangled Banner. Here I had a great conversation with one of the Park Rangers about the history of the fort and another Chit Chat with a lady while we sat resting on a bench as the planes flew overhead discussing the history of the United States and its impact on the world. What I liked about our conversation, in both instances, is that we inherently stayed away from Modern politics. I think it makes for a much more pleasant experience. As I've said in previous posts, the pride in America and patriotism in general is not the purview of any one political party, it's something all Americans have the ability to enjoy.
In the first shot below, right off the dock, you could see the collapsed Key Bridge and part of the support structure that's still jutting out on the horizon. The rest are of the fort, the grounds and several shots of the aerial fighter jets doing their thing overhead.
Here's a clip of one of the flyovers:
I made my way back to the hotel around 4:00, passing a Jimmy John's along the way so I picked up an Ultimate Italian sandwich and ate about 1/3 of this for my dinner. Nothing fancy, but it was awesome. I don't think they have a Jimmy John's near me. Let me check. I'm correct. Nearest one is Bartow. That's too far for a sub sandwich, never mind how good it is. I mean we got Firehouse Subs and Jersey Mike's, but this Jimmy John's sandwich is the bomb. Anyway, after a little tiny nap, I was off to my next event, my first attendance at a major league baseball game in 48 years. Yep you heard it right, the last time was in 1978 when I found a pair of Red Sox tickets on the floor while I was vacuuming the dining room of the little restaurant I worked at as a 15 year old, and my dad and me went up to Boston and watched them play in Fenway Park.
So here's the thing about this night at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Believe it or not, it just happened to be the one night of the year that they have Pride Night. Yes, as in LGBTQ Pride Night! I never knew baseball teams did this. And the fans came out en masse for it and not just LGBTQ folk, all people, whole families... it was awesome to see so many people who understood that Pride didn't exclude anyone... it's meant to actually include all! And the first 15,000 guests got free Pride themed jerseys... guess who got one? Yas! As you can see in this selfie, I happened to bring my Pride B-52's t-shirt so I was able to wear that... what a fabulous coincidence!
Here are some pics from my very precarious perch in the $37.60 (cheapest seats available) nosebleeds. Yes my acrophobia was on full alert but I was a trooper and dealt with it.
As you could probably tell from the orange fireworks, the Orioles won, yeah! It was a great time.
Saturday, June 27, 2026
Sleep was a bit better, I think I got a whole 4 hours or so... Woohoo. Ate the last of my sandwich (having eaten the second third the night before after getting back from the baseball game) for breakfast washed down with the hotel provided coffee in one of those little room coffee makers that they have. The coffee wasn't that bad. I had a few hours before I had to start to be concerned about getting back to the airport so I went back to the Inner Harbor Promenade where they had the stage setup and found a nice comfortable Adirondack chair to relax in. Oh I almost forgot, I actually had two breakfasts because I had the remains of the sandwich and the endurable coffee shortly after waking around 7:00 a.m. But I set out of my room, checked out, and then went to the hotel ground floor coffee shop for an Americano and a chocolate croissant at around 10:30.
Here's one of the cute events they had featured this morning:
After this little parade, I waited around sitting in my Adirondack chair figuring I had a great view for anything on the stage that they were going to perform, but these guys seemed to plan their activities with a lot of gaps of nothing in between them and the next one wasn't due to start until 12:30. I saw them warming up around 12:00 and it looked like yet another Navy Band and though it would be interesting I'm sure, I thought, been there done that. The weather today was not as cooperative, and it looked a little bit like it was going to turn moist. There were already a few little sprinkles here and there. I figured I'd done did good this trip, got up, and started walking back towards Camden Yards and the light rail station there to head on to the airport.
It was 1:00 p.m. and the Light Rail was running late.
TSA at this airport is much less staffed than Orlando so it took quite a few minutes to get through.
For the first time in my experience, my Frontier flight was actually on time... boarding. Once packed in, we taxied to the edge of the runway and parked there. The captain explained that the tower updated the flight plan due to an incoming storm system and they needed to load it into the plane's computer. After a half hour sitting, we were finally off, but once in the air, our captain came back on the PA system to announce to us that we basically were restricted to our seats with our belts on for the entirety of the flight due to turbulence. Thunderstorms were blanketing basically the entire South. Due to these storms, and our rerouting, we landed about an hour late in Orlando.
As our plane pulled up to the gate, our captain announced to us that there was no one there to greet us. So we had to wait for ground crew to get their ass out to our plane and to get that jetway ready. Another 15 minutes wait.
As I drove home, I had to endure non-stop heavy torrential rain and lightning. I-4 was crawling along and unbelievably the exit to 27 was jam-packed as well for some reason. It took me about two and a half hours to drive home from Orlando.
I finally got home to lovely Shamrock Inches at precisely 10:00 p.m.
But enough on the negatives, it was all well worth it. I love my cheap little vacations, they make life interesting. Let's take a look at the tally shall we?
The $150 Lord Baltimore charge should drop off as it's likely a deposit hold, the real hotel rates were taken care of by the VIO.COM entry on the top. The Panda Express and the $8 Wawa charge, I'll remove them from the total since they were bought as my dinner on my way home, the gas charges at Wawa though, remain. Also, I paid cash for the $8 observation floor fee, the $5 souvenir magnet and a $2 tip for the water ferry staff. So my total comes to: $716.98. Ouch. Did I say cheap? Well, thems the times we live in.