Valentine's Day in Baltimore

This year we decided that it would be fun to take the kids into Baltimore for the day on Valentine's Day. It had been a long time since we had been to the aquarium, and Nate had never been, so we decided to go there. We ended up getting early morning tickets, so we got up and drove down to the city. This turned out to be one of the mistakes that we made, more to come on that later.

We got down there and parked with no problems, which is great since neither of us is that familiar with driving into Baltimore. Nate and Graham loved seeing all of the fish. Nate also loved all of the moving walkways that we got to go on. It was a little bit crowded, but not too bad, we didn't have too much trouble seeing the exhibits.

After a few hours in the Aquarium, we decided to go to lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. Yum.

On the drive into the city, Nate saw a light rail train at one point, and from that point on, the entire time he just asked to ride on the train. We had debated before we left on if we should take light rail in, or drive in. We ended up driving in, because I was worried that it would rain, and I didn't want to be walking to the light rail in the rain. So driving in was a mistake because Nate really wanted to take the train. So we figured that tickets to light rail were not expensive, and we didn't have anything that we needed to do, or anywhere we needed to be, so why not ride the train for a bit. So we rode the train from the Inner Harbor to Penn Station, and back. Right through some scary parts of town. But that satisfied Nate.

When we got back to the Inner Harbor, Graham had fallen asleep, so Jesse took Nate on the USS Constellation, and the USS Torsk. (A big Civil War ship, and a submarine.)

After that, Nate said he wanted to see the fishies again, so we went back into the Aquarium. There were a few exhibits that we had missed, so we went to check those out, including the Dolphin tank. Nate wanted to sit and watch the Dolphins all day. But at that point it was almost 5, we had been gone all day, and we were all tired. As it turns out, we had passed the safe exit point. When we decided to leave, Nate was so worn out that he threw a tantrum. So we had to walk out of the Aquarium, and to our car with a screaming kicking child who kept on telling us he did not want to go home. I think that he was asleep before we left the city.

So there was our very full, but fun day yesterday. It was nice to just be able to do what we wanted when we wanted, and not have to sit around with a large group of people deciding what to do next. Plus, I love the Inner Harbor, so bonus, and, it is where Jesse and I had our first date of sorts, so there is always that. (And right now, Nate is asking to go back to the Aquarium, and to ride the train.)