This is beginning to get confusing - I had to look at a hotel receipt to remember where we stayed last night. I guess after Philadelphia hopping off the 95 north of Baltimore was not too memorable. The hotel was nice. We have stayed mainly at La Quintas since they love doggies and have a decent breakfast. Someday I may actually have enough points to get a room for the night free.
So we headed out for the day and I had picked Annapolis as the place to go. When we headed out since we were north of the city we did get a look at it. Actually Baltimore is one of the currently best renovation places in the nation. I am ignoring all the current news stories about it. Travelling on the 95 we got to go through the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel. I did not know that Baltimore was a real "harbor" city so - surprise.
Baltimore is located along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay.
The tunnel was built in 1952 and is 1.45 miles long. I never knew how a tunnel is built under the water. Actually I always tried not to think about it when going thru the Lincoln Tunnel into New York. But curious I looked it up. The Baltimore Harbor tunnel was built with pre-fab sections of the tube 310 feet long. The middle one was dropped in place in the water then added to from each side.
I guess it is safe - there were not any leaks I could see and there was such a neat feeling driving through it.Baltimore is evidently a large ship building location. It has a deep water port and there are huge cranes along the bank of the river for ship building. The town might have been more interesting than I thought.
I picked Annapolis for our trip since Marshell was in the navy and I was sure there would be water vessels around. What a surprise Annapolis turned out to be. What a history is has. Here's a brief little bit of it's history and hopefully enough for others to put it on their trip plan.
Annapolis is the capitol of Maryland and was founded in 1649. It sits at the mouth of the Seven River on the Chesapeake Bay thirty miles east of Washington, DC. (We have driven around DC twice saving it up for another trip.) It served as the sight of the first Continental Congress in 1783-84 before they moved it to Philadelphia for the writing of the constitution. It also served as one of the first Capitols of the United States after signing the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
The United States Navel Academy was founded in 1845 and the St. John's College established in 1789. There are many eighteenth century buildings and houses lining little narrow streets. The streets still carry the names form the eighteenth century like King George's, Prince Georgia's, Hanover, Duke of Glouchester etc. Once again Marshell got to navigate the streets while looking at all the beautiful row houses and buildings.
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During World War II the shipyards in Annapolis built a number of PT Boats and military vessels. For the Korean war and Vietnam mine sweeps and patrol boats were constructed there. The shipbuilding ended up moving to Baltimore with it's deep water port. Today it is known as America's Sailing Capitol. I had to laugh since there was a store close to the water front dedicated to the sale of Sperry Rand Topsiders - Boat Shoes!
Marshell picking out which one to buy
In 2007 Annapolis celebrated the 300th anniversary of it's Royal Charter granted to them from England. This established Annapolis as a democratic self-governing colony. This was just one more day of finding parts of this beautiful country that we knew existed but had no ides of how beautiful and historical it could be. We won't soon forget Annapolis and hope to return again and spend more time. Lucky seems to like the water for a change or maybe he is just looking for the seagulls. He would also like to return as they actually let him visit in the Irish Woolen store while Marshell bought me a wonderful present. He also enjoyed the hand dipped corn dog he had for lunch, oh, no, he's not spoiled!
This was a McDonald's we stopped at by a Supercharger
How cool is this!
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