We are in Baltimore, Maryland visiting our son who is in the US Air Force, and could not come home for Christmas. We only had 36 hours and wanted to make the most of it. We flew on Spirit Airlines into Baltimore Airport, BWI, from Detroit – it was a 1 hr 40 minute flight. Baltimore is about 1 hr 30 minutes from Dover, Delaware Air Force Base – and while we had a lot of choices of where to meet up with him, Baltimore seemed like a nice choice.

Even though we Randomly chose Baltimore for the best airfare and close proximity to our son, what I did not realize was Baltimore is really a wonderful place to visit. TripAdvisor does not give it enough credit and this town is really a foodie paradise with so much more than Crab Cakes (although we came for the crab cakes). In 36 hours we:

• Visited the Baltimore Aquarium – that is a family friendly multi story aquarium and dolphin show – more on this in another post.
• Took a quick nap at our Hotel – Hampton Inn Suites Baltimore Inner Harbor – a really classy and close to everything site.
• Walked around the hotel and found an ally way with a local sports bar – where we watched the Alabama Game until they had a New Years Party upstairs and closed up.
• Walked over the Red Lion hotel bar and had another drink and called it a nite.
• Up early to Eat the Hotel standard free breakfast and off to the Inner harbor for a quick walk around the other side where we saw the Tourist bureau and decided our next options would be Little Italy for Lunch.
• An Uber ride to Federal Hill, a hip foodie area – next to the Ravens Stadium – we stopped into Diablo Donuts to enjoy the unusual names and types of donuts – but were too full to eat any. We looked around for the Russian museum and unique bookstore I read about in the Baltimore Tourist bureau map.
• The book escape book store was unique, many old and all used books separated by an outdoor pass thru to the second side of the bookstore and mini Russian museum – Tradestone Gallery, Treasures of Russia. The gallery was Very tiny, but fun to look around at the treasures the bookstore owner told me were from his travels with his wife to Russia.
  
• Then back to our hotel to pack up – and collect our car to drive to an oddity store – again noted from the information collected at the Baltimore tourist site.
• The oddity store is Bazaar Baltimore, a true unique visit on a street with an extreme hipster vibe – wish I could have stayed longer. Look up the store online to really get a sense of what to expect, but the area was filled with fun eateries and antique stores with young families walking everywhere. – an entire post on this later
• Last stop before the airport was G & M restaurant – a reference from our Sirtex Y-90 sales representative – Justin at my work site hospital. Great reference – I agree these were the best of the Crab cakes we ate – huge 8oz cakes with two sides – just get the double garlic mashed potatoes – they are the best.
• Brett our son dropped us off at the Airport with about 1 hour to fly out.

I miss our son, but I am so proud to see him succeeding and happy. I honestly was heart filled when he texted me as I sat in the airport – “best day ever” – a phrase he said everyday as a child have not heard him say often since. Love that boy – glad to see him happy.