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Grand Tour Part 2 - Baltimore

The second part of our big spring trip was to go to Baltimore to visit Mickey and Allie. We planned it for the weekend when the Brewers were in town to play the Orioles. Now that MLB has changed so that every team plays at least one series against every other team, the Brewers go to Baltimore every other year. Two years ago I had used it as a good reason to go and visit and had seen two Brewer/Oriole games with Mickey.

We flew to Baltimore on a Wednesday. We had the whole day to travel so we didn't need to catch a super early flight like when we fly home from Illinois. We arrived in the late afternoon and Mickey was able to get away from work early to pick us up at the airport. We had dinner near the airport since Allie had to work that evening and couldn't join us. When you have your own small business it's hard to get time off. Sandy wanted to try Maryland Crab Cakes so we went to Pappas Restaurant and Sports Bar, a place famous for its crab cakes. I'm not a seafood fan but since it was a sports bar, they had regular pub fare and I was happy. Sandy said the crab cakes were delicious. Maryland is justifialbly famous for them.

After dinner, Mickey dropped us off at our hotel. On previous trips I had always stayed at the Best Western Plus in Canton. It's the closest hotel to Mickey's house and while not fancy, was good enough for me. It's relatively cheap too. On our last trip for Mickey and Allie's wedding, Sandy didn't care too much for it. This time we picked the Hampton Inn Inner Harbor. We often stay in Hampton Inns. They aren't fancy but are always nice and are relatively inexpensive. This one had a great location too. It was only two blocks from the water so we could do walks around the Inner Harbor area on our own right from the hotel. It was also only about ten blocks from Camden Yards, which is where the Orioles play. We could easily walk from the hotel to the ballpark and back for all of the baseball games this weekend. We were even close to Little Italy. I have to go there to eat Italian food at least once on any trip that I make to Baltimore.

We had one full day before the Brewers got to town. Mickey took the day off of work to be our driver. I wanted to go to visit the South Mountain and Antietam battlefields. I had been to Antietam on my last trip and thought it was an amazing place, worth another visit. Sandy hadn't been there yet so she was interested. I also thought we could check out the South Mountain battlefield, which is closeby.

Well, I didn't do my homework very well. The fighting on South Mountain was actually at three different passes and I didn't study well enough exactly how to get to the places where the battles were fought. We ended up taking a few wrong turns before we eventually found one of the battlefield centers - which was closed. But we really didn't lose much time and it was an interesting drive. It was on windy roads through steep, wooded terrain. It was quite pretty and certainly gave us a feel for how difficult it was to manuever an army and fight a battle there.

Next we went to Antietam National Battlefield. I like it much better than Gettysburg because it is relatively pristine, without monuments everywhere or tourist-type developments. Much of it still looks the same as it did in 1862 when the battle was fought. It's easy to look out over the battlefield and imagine the events that occured there. It is also much less crowded. Everywhere we went during our visit we were the only people there, or maybe there was one other group of two or three people.

There is also a new, very nice visitor center that was under construction when I was there two years ago. It's finished now and they showed an interesting documentary that gave a good summary of the Maryland campaign and the Battle of Antietam. We also did some damage in the gift shop, where I got a cap and tshirt and Sandy got a mug.

We toured all of the famous places on the battlefield. The Union encampment before the battle. Dunker Church. The Sunken Lane. Burnside Bridge. The Cornfield. Many Civil War battlefields had cornfields on them, but when you say The Cornfield, it's the one at Antietam. I have a whole book on just the fighting that took place there. Touring the battlefield, and thinking of what happened there, is quite a solemn experience.

By the time we finished it was afternoon and we were pretty hungry. No, we were starving. We went into Sharpsburg, a quiet little town that looks like it hasn't changed much from the time the battle was fought nearby. Our only option for lunch was Captain Bender's Tavern.

Since it was the only place in town, Mickey and I had eaten there on our visit two years ago and remembered that the food was good. It was a tavern not a restaurant, but they served food and there was only one person there anyway. The lady at the bar was friendly and we were pretty sure she was the same lady who had been there the last time we came. Again, the food was good. Although we were filled up, I insisted that we hit the ice cream place across the street. It had been closed on our last visit so I didn't want to miss it again. The ice cream was good too.

The last stop that we wanted to make in Sharpsburg was at Antietam Creek Vinyards. The tasting room was in a building that was converted from an impressive old barn built in 1903. The back windows looked out onto the southern part of the battlefield, where A.P. Hill's division had arrived late in the afternoon just in time to prevent a major Confederate defeat.

The whole time we were there we had the place to ourselves. It was a perfect winery for us too. They made primarily dry white wines, a half dozen different varieties. All of them that we tried were good. We asked if we could get their wines in Baltimore and they said they sold virtually all their production at the winery. There was only one restaurant that carried their wines and they didn't ship their wines either. Although it would be hard to get them home, we bought two bottles. We figured that Sandy and I could each carry one bottle home safely in our luggage.

That evening Allie joined us for dinner at Osteria Da Amadeo in Little Italy. It's only open three nights a week: Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Allie knew one of the people who worked there, one of the family since all the restaurants in Little Italy are small, family-owned restaurants. We got special attention all night so we had excellent service to go with excellent food.

It had been a great day. I really enjoyed everywhere that we went. I especially liked that all the places we visited were uncrowded. I thought it was a very enjoyable day.

On Friday we had the afternoon free before the baseball game in the evening. Mickey was gracious enough to shuttle us around again. I wanted to go to Multiman Publishing. It's a small wargame publishing company (all wargame companies are small) located in Millersville, near BWI airport. Millersville, by the way, is Josh Hader's home town. I bought Ardennes II, a new edition of their SCS (Standard Combat Series) Battle of the Bulge game which had just come out.

Continuing the wargaming theme, we went to Games and Stuff. It's huge. A really impressive game store. I just wanted to look around. It's always fun in a good game store. I didn't have anything in mind that I wanted to get. I already had my Bulge game from MMP and the game I bought at Noble Knight in Wisconsin that I had to carry home in my luggage. Plus there was a bottle of wine from yesterday.

Turns out I did end up finding something that I bought, an Osprey book on the second day at Gettysburg. I really like Osprey books but I am also fussy about not buying books that have covers that are dinged up - creases or bent corners. The Osprey books are very easily damaged so I never order them online. I only buy them when I find a pristine copy in a bookstore or game store like I did here.

The real excitement though was that I found a copy of Second Fallujah, the game that I designed, for sale in the store. That was very cool.

We still had quite a bit of time before the ball game in the evening. We decided to visit Ft. McHenry, since Sandy hadn't been there before. Mickey said it was a standard stop for all visitors to Baltimore. By this time we were all hungry so on the way we stopped for lunch at Barflys, the same place I had eaten two years before on my first visit to Ft. McHenry. I tried their pizza and it was pretty good.

Fortified, we continued to Ft. McHenry National Historic Monument. We watched the video on the bombardment of the fort, walked around the grounds, and found some good stuff in the gift shop. Afterwards we were dropped off at our hotel while Mickey and Allie went home to feed their dogs.

We changed into our Brewer gear and started to walk to the ballpark. Mickey and Allie took the bus from their house instead of driving and we met them on the way at the bus stop. We were at the park just as it opened.

For this game I had splurged and bought good seats. They were right next to the visiting dugout, in the fifth row. It was fun watching warmups and batting practice as all the players were only fifty feet away. Since Sandy and I watch a lot of games, we recognized all of them and it was cool to see them close up. They were real people, not tiny figures far away or images on a tv screen.

Although it was early in the season, there was a big crowd. It was the major league debut of Jackson Holliday, MLB's #1 prospect. They even gave away tshirts for the occasion. (We still have ours.) Unfortunately, it didn't go well. He was 0-3 with three strikeouts. To make it worse for the home fans, the game was a rout. The Brewers won 11-1. We were happy and it was fun watching the game close up. The weather threatend once or twice when we felt a couple of drops, but it held off.

Next day the game had a late afternoon start so we had some time beforehand. The weather was pretty good so we walked around the Inner Harbor area, a nice place to just wander around. We had a late lunch at Phillips Seafood, so Sandy could take advantage of being on the coast and get her quota of fresh seafood. Then it was time to walk to the ballpark and meet up with Mikcey and Allie. We had good seats on the third base side. Not quite the primo ones we had the day before but still good seats. And it was another good game, with the Brewers winning 11-5.

Sunday was checkout day so we went to breakfast early at an IHOP near our hotel. There was a fun run that morning that went around the Inner Harbor and we got to watch all the runners and walkers go by. It was a charity run for the Ronald McDonald House, so most of the runners had red and white striped Ronald McDonald socks or leggings on. It looked like fun, although sadly I think my fun run days are over.

Just as we were finishing Sandy and I were disagreeing about something on the bill. We weren't arguing, just trying to figure something out. The waitress comes up and puts her hand on my arm and says "Shush! Momma knows!". Sandy immediatly says "Yeah, shush. Momma knows." Great. I have a feeling that for a long time I am going to hear that whenever there is any disputed point.

Sunday's game was the grand finale. The Orioles hadn't been swept in a series for quite a while, so they were anxious to get at least one win. It was an interesting pitching matchup too. Corbin Burnes, traded from the Brewers, was starting for the O's. And D.L. Hall, one of the players the Brewers got in return for Burnes, was starting for Milwaukee. This game was close, with Baltimore finally pulling ahead in the seventh to win 6-4. Close but no sweep. It was still a great weekend of baseball though. Sandy even went from "I'm not sure I want to go to all three games" beforehand to "where can we go see the Brewers next?".

After the game we stopped at Mickey and Allie's house so they had a chance to let the dogs out. We didn't go in - they said they hadn't really had a chance to get the house ready for visitors, but Sandy did get to meet all the Granddogs: Daisy, Pizza, Doug and Blink. Then it was time for one more visit to Little Italy. We had an excellent dinner at Chiapperelli's. Afterwards we dropped Allie at home and Mickey took us out to the airport. Since we had an early flight the next day, we stayed at a Hilton right next to the airport so we just had a quick shuttle ride in the morning. Sandy was tired and turned it right away. Mickey and I had a drink in the bar while we discussed the games we had watched in great detail.

Travel home the next day was uneventful. It had been a great trip.