Little facts from Baltimore...

Useful/less things I’m learning here in Baltimore...

The Civil War was also fought in the Mediterranean Sea by ships like this one that we explored in our Inner Harbor. Huh?! Also, I think it would be really cool and really challenging to cook good meals for 100+ people in the kitchen we saw on the submarine on that same trip downtown.

There is a difference between a plantation and a factory, a la 1800. Five minutes away is a factory where the plants and livestock were raised to feed the slaves at the ironworks in the late 1700s, early 1800s. A factory grows what it needs for the workers, a plantation grows more to sell. This house is bigger than Mt. Vernon and Monticello, and also a whole lot closer to us and free.

Maryland was neutral during the Civil War, as I learned from a Civil Warm re-enactor here. But the southern part of the state favored the south, and the northern, the north. Neutrality was good for the government in DC, and also for a skinny state stuck in the middle.

B&O Railroad stands for Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. One of the first railroads in the country, started in the 1830s. And the first rail cars looked more like stagecoaches on wheels. The people on top would often get hit by flying embers.

Big school districts are kind of obnoxious about their red tape. And heat, rain, or one quarter inch of snow will close schools for at least a few hours in Baltimore.

Maryland’s flag is the only state flag with a coat of arms in it. Kinda funky looking, but kind of cool.

Cardinals are much more common than orioles here. Am I in Illinois still?!

Watching the sun rise over the ocean is fairly blinding compared to watching it set over the ocean.

The Appalachian mountains are actually more beautiful and vast than I expected, even to me (CA mountain snob) and John (CO mountain snob).

You can go up inside the Washington monument in D.C. (I haven’t yet though). There’s also an older monument to Washington here in Baltimore.

Cool stuff, eh?