My husband K was up at 7 and worked to be quiet. I pulled his pillow over onto my head to keep out the light leaking around the curtain. I got up at 8:30. We ate more of the bagels and fruit that I'd brought from home.
We spent some time on our iPads registering to enter Iceland. At home, it had been too far out from the flight to do this. We were also able to register for our Covid tests for this coming Saturday, so that we could reenter the US next Tuesday. Since our daughter J had to do that, too, we got her on the phone. That way, we could all register for the same time slot. We took photos of our bar codes for both of these, knowing someone was going to want to see them. The site to register to enter asked a question that we had to say "yes" to, even though the answer was "no", because it wouldn't let us progress with "no". We figured we'd sort it out at the airport, if we had to.
At 10:15, K called down to ask that the car be brought up from the garage. We left at 10:30 with the odometer at 64,981. We picked up J outside of her apartment building a mile away at 10:37. For the first time in years, she was going to get to spend Father's Day with her father. Not only that, but she was treating him (and me) to an Orioles game at Camden Yards.
When we got to Baltimore, we drove around a bit looking for somewhere to park. J had tried to prepay for parking on a lot affiliated with the park when she bought the tickets, but had no luck. K finally decided to park in the Sheraton hotel garage between the park and the Inner Harbor, because we planned to go to the latter after the game. He left his backpack in the trunk, when we parked at 11:43 (65,024), because they aren't allowed in the park. In fact, J and I had to take smaller purses because of size limitations.
It was only a couple of blocks up to the stadium. We passed the Baltimore Civic Center, from which I graduated from Towson University in June, 1979. I attended a teacher's convention there the year I got married and got back to my grandmother's house in Canton to find a bridal shower awaiting me.
When we got to the corner of Conway and S. Howard, there was a couple selling cold bottles of water for a buck. They said that in the park they were $5, but you could take these in, as long as they were still closed. We figured that was a great deal, and we got three.
We made our way to the Eutaw St. entrance, where we saw large numbers, which were the jersey numbers of former Oriole greats. I took K's photo with the number 8 for Cal Ripken, whom he admires. By the lines, there was a statue of the famous Baltimorean Babe Ruth. His father had had a saloon near here.
There was a fair number of people pouring into the park. We had to wear our masks to get in, but not everyone kept them on after that. As K entered, he obviously looked like a Dad, because he was given a canvas tote, that turned out to be perfect for carrying the waters. Much better than the beer koozie that I had heard was the Father's Day promotion. We're not sure what we will do with it at home, but it was handy here.
We decided to leave the team store for the end of the game. We did check out the snack store, where we saw just how terribly expensive beer would be here. Baltimore Blonde from Guinness was $11, much more than a 6-pack costs at Winn Dixie. A beer named for the Baltimore bowling game, which my dad had played, was called Duckpin and it was about $11, too.
Back outside, we went over to the railing to look out at batting practice. We were near Boog's, a barbecue stand named for first baseman Boog Powell, who was big, when I was a kid.
We wanted to eat before the game, but we needed to see what was available. So, we began a walk around the entire concourse. The last time I was here, our daughters were both teenagers. K took A on one of the trips to college, but I don't think J had been here in years. As it was, I wasn't recognizing a thing down here. J and I were surprised to see a play area for kids with a birds theme. There were even cracked eggs for them to sit in.
The food places began to repeat after a while, but I was very excited to see Boardwalk French Fries, which was definitely a reference to Thrasher's in Ocean City.
Even the team store repeated. But, they also had up salutes to past players and high points in Orioles team history.
We each wanted something different to eat. So, we split up and planned to meet at the fries place. I got a passable crab cake for $19. When I came upon the drinks line, I looked in the cases and knew I couldn't make myself drink Pepsi. (And how in the world could they have Pepsi and not Coke??) So, I got a Baltimore Blonde for $11. J had gotten herself a bratwurst and a Pepsi, while K got a hot dog. They were passing the few picnic tables that were there and grabbed seats. She left K there and caught up with me as I waited for the fries, which were $8. She held my stuff, while doused the fries liberally with malt vinegar, as God intended them to be. When we reached K, he had just barely managed to hold three seats. While we were finishing up, they played the national anthems, first Canada for the Blue Jays, and then the Star Spangled Banner. And, as it has been forever, when they reached, "O, say does that ..." near the end, the whole crowd called out "O", but for the O's, as the Orioles are often called (or the Birds).
After eating, we made our way up to our seats in time for the 1:00 start to the game. We noticed the board flash up the rainbow colors for Pride Month. It was very exciting, when the O's had a home run hit in the very first inning.
There was a family distributed in our row and the one below us. I lost track of how many times we had to get up to let one or more of them out or in.
After a while, J and I decided to take advantage of the free Covid-19 testing, which would also give us a free bag. We figured it would give us an idea of what the test would be like, when we arrived in Iceland Wednesday. Other than incorrectly typing my birth date, I found the procedure to be not too bad. I was given a swab to spin in both nostrils and then put it into a vial. J didn't really like it. The orange bag will be good for groceries, but the knit cap that was in it will not be as useful for me. Before we went back upstairs, we stood in line for a long time to get Dip N Dots, a product neither of us had had before. It was good.
The O's blew their lead and the score at the end of the game was Jays 7- Orioles 4. Very disappointing, but it has been that kind of year. I got a shot of the top of the scoreboard before we left the seating area, because it has some old-fashioned elements to it.
The game was over at 4:10, but we had to stop in the team store. We had to make our way around the concourse first, and that had quite a crowd. We're not used to being in crowds and we were grateful it wasn't full, even though they were open for full capacity. 14,917 people attended, which was the largest number so far this year.
There was a lot to look over in the store and I bought some of it before we left. It was a hot walk back to the parking garage to get the backpack. We then continued down the street to the Inner Harbor. I noticed right away that there were several changes. One was a large visitors center. Another was that the USS Constellation had been moved next to the Light Street Pavilion.
It was not until I was writing this blog and looking up details for it, that I found out that the Inner Harbor is not part of the Chesapeake Bay, but rather the Patapsco River. It is located at the mouth of Jones Falls (which I thought was just the name of an expressway), creating the wide and short northwest branch of the river. The tidal portion of the river forms the harbor for the city. The Inner Harbor is historically not deep enough for large ships. Those go to places like Canton, which is the part of the city, where my paternal grandparents lived.
We could see the National Aquarium and the World Trade Center Institute across the water.
We'd planned to eat at Phillips, but quickly saw that it was no longer in the Light Street Pavilion. Rather, Bubba Gump was in that spot. We saw that Phillips was now in the Power Station, along with Hard Rock Café. We went inside the pavilion, but found it to be rather empty. We went over to the Pratt Street Pavilion, which seemed to have just an Irish place that you had to go upstairs to reach, a candy shop, Pizzeria Uno, and the Cheesecake Factory.
We continued to the Power Station, which is literally an old power station. We passed folks out paddling in the dragon and pirate boats. There was even a line to do it. There were street performers and a fair number of folks milling around.
Phillips turned out to have not just an interior restaurant and outdoor seating area, but a whole eating area right on the dock. It was way to hot for the latter two. However, inside, we found that it was an hour long wait. Even though I'd wanted my last crab cake of the trip to be in my hometown and better than the one at the park, it was not to be.
As we walked back, I spotted this great, huge poster on a wall and this sign that was definitely a photo opp. However, it was hard enough to get a photo of it, without fighting off the others trying to photograph loved ones with it.
We were able to get a real look at this installation, which turned out to have the names of all the Marylanders lost in the attacks on 9/11. There were far more names than I would have guessed. The twisted steel on top was no doubt from the World Trade Center in New York.
We stopped at Pizzeria Uno, because they advertised a crab pizza, but they, too, had a crazy long wait. So, it was with great disappointment, that we headed back to the car, which we reached at 5:42. It cost us $32 to get it out of the garage. We started driving toward DC, with J using an app to find us someplace to stop for food.
Finally, at 6:07 (65,040), we stopped at Pot Belly in Columbia. J had introduced us to one ages ago in DC. The concept is similar to Subway, but the quality is a bit higher. We all got sandwiches, chips and a drink. J got a regular chicken salad sandwich. K got a regular avocado turkey sandwich. I got a small chicken club.We split two oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that were $1.69 each. J saved $3.38 on the total bill with her perks. While J and I finished up, K went outside and called his mom, as this was the first Father's Day without his dad.
We were back on the road at 7:16 and soon hit heavy traffic. J suggested, that they were all coming back from the beach in time for work tomorrow. Since our hotel had had no newspapers, we stopped at 7:52 (65,069) at a gas station convenience store for K to spend $3.75 to buy one. He really wanted to read the Washington Post. We were back on the road in just two minutes.
At 8:03 (65,071), we dropped J at her apartment building. Due to work and the fact that she has food to eat up, we won't see her tomorrow.
We reached our hotel at 8:10 (65,0721). The car will get to rest tomorrow.
My phone registered 10,491 steps for a distance of 3.7 miles. It feels so good to be in air conditioning!
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