Around Maryland #1

Maryland was a great stop, fantastic. Great hosts and great variety. John and Charles will be friends for a lifetime. Waiting until the last minute to try and write about it all is a mistake. But I did knock out a pretty good blog entry on D.C. Because I’m not writing as often these entries are just getting longer, and longer, and longer. Oops.

Baltimore
For a short evening I made a couple new friends on a drive to Baltimore. This was last Tuesday already. I was picked up by Frank and Willie. This time around, the connection is that their niece is one of my best friends. I was happy to meet up with them and head to a different part of Maryland. We took the drive up to Baltimore and visited Little Italy. As my “Best of the H.I.T.” list grows I was able to add another, the best garlic bread at Sabatino’s Italian Restaurant. I love garlic! But after some great garlic you need to eat something sweet. So head to Vaccaro’s Italian Pastry Shop. They’ve got a big menu of nothing but dessert. My kind of place. Thanks for visiting and meeting up with me Frank and Willie!

The Other Mall
There are two malls in the D.C. area. There is The Mall, you know, the capitol and Washington Monument. Then there is Tyson’s, one of the biggest malls in the country. There are lots of things I want there, but on no income it’s pretty difficult. Charles and I had some great conversations of the excess of America and how it’s sprawling. And you don’t have to be at the shopping mall to see funny dressed teenagers. Big money brings big malls and big houses. Some of the houses on River Road in Potomac are bigger than the mall back home in Houghton.

Bike Ride
Friends and family have been giving me a lot of grief after reading the blog entry where I mentioned I’ve gained about two pounds per month on this trip. Oops. Needless to say, I haven’t had much exercise. A lot of driving and a lot of hosts making sure that my stomach never goes below ¾ tank. As we were getting the bikes out Charles asked me what the biggest physical challenge I’ve had on the trip was. It goes back to San Luis Obispo where I had an hour long spinning class. This time around, a 30-mile bike ride, with an hour on our feet walking around Georgetown. It was one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen, and very unique as we biked round trip along 15 miles of the historic Patowmack Canal. And of course it was about 85 degrees, which for a Yooper, snowboarder, and hockey player is far hotter than it should be. Of course the uphill portion of the ride was on the way back. But after going 9 months with hardly a couple hours of real exercise, I think I did pretty good. I needed that. Thanks Charles!