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Baltimore, Maryland
You must have had yourself a change of heart like halfway through the drive
On a seven day road trip, I spent all or part of five of those days in Maryland, including one day in Baltimore. While I have been to Baltimore many times before, most of those trips were kind of the same. I’d end up at the aquarium, hang out in the Inner Harbor, maybe walk to the Science Center, or drive out to Fort McHenry, or go see a baseball game at Camden Yards. This time I wanted to finally expand my horizons a bit and try and see some neighborhoods and areas I usually skip. Places like right here at Federal Hill, a place that I certainly saw a lot but for whatever reason never actually climbed before.
One of the many, many notes on my iPhone is called Things to do, which lists places I’d like to visit, not necessarily things to actually do. I should probably change that title at some point. One of the many, many long standing items on that Things to do list is Baltimore folk art museum, a place I occasionally looked into going to but always hit a snag with the weather or unexpectedly hard to get Amtrak tickets or another similar conflict. When putting this trip together, I went back to that list (which also included Glenstone) and revisiting that list probably best explains this trip and more specifically explains this stopover in Baltimore.
Of course Baltimore folk art museum isn’t actually called that, it’s really called the American Visionary Art Museum (or AVAM), and after visiting the Mexico City folk art museum (which is really called Museo de Arte Popular) and really, really loving it. I had unattainably high hopes going in to AVAM, which almost always leads to some level of disappointment, whether deserving or not.
AVAM was two separate buildings with a sculpture garden in between, and if you were to rank those three elements the sculpture garden would finish first, followed by the auxiliary building and finishing up in a distant third with the main building collection. There is a certain level of chaos that Visionary Art seems to inherently possess, something which was allowed to thrive everywhere at AVAM with the curious exception of that main collection building, a place which seemed to be more about legitimizing the art than letting it take over.
I leave AVAM with positive feelings (I did enjoy a lot of it) but wondering if I would join as a member if I lived closer, or even if I would visit it again the next time I’m in Baltimore. One of my (probably too) many travel philosophies is that it’s always better to leave a place with a feeling that you want to return, and I left Annapolis and Glenstone (and possibly even Rockville) with thoughts that I’ll be back. Something I’m unsure I can really say about AVAM.
After all those times visiting the Inner Harbor, this was my first time actually being on it. The Baltimore Water Taxi was running and after AVAM I decided to buy a day pass (a terrific value all things considered) and enjoy the view. I also included a layover at Fells Point, yet another place in Baltimore that I would always seem to skip, despite it being a great place to get an iced latte from a local coffeehouse, wander around and hang out while you wait for the next water taxi to arrive.
I got off at the next water taxi stop at Harbor East where I ran into this guy. This is Mr. Trash Wheel, one of four members of the Trash Wheel family that also includes Professor Trash Wheel, Captain Trash Wheel and Gywnnda the Good Wheel of the West. Mr. Trash Wheel basically just hangs around and eats trash all day but, just as #8 on the interpretive sign says, googly eyes make everyone love Mr. Trash Wheel.
We’ll finish up our time in Baltimore atop the World Trade Center, which is tall but nothing like the far more famous one in New York. This World Trade Center may be less than half as tall, but what it lacks for in height it makes up for in location. The rooftop observation deck is right on the Inner Harbor and from here I could see everything and everywhere I was: Federal Hill, AVAM, Fells Point, East Harbor, as well as all those other places I usually see and even more that I have yet to visit.
Another day on the road and we’re finally out of Maryland at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, another place that I somehow have never been to, despite literally circling around it in the past. Large parts of this small town fall under the auspices of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, and for good reason. This is where John Brown attempted to start the US Civil War two years early, something which was thought of as treason at the time but something that looks a lot smarter and heroic in hindsight.
The small town is situated on a steep hill on the edge of a scenic peninsula where the Shenandoah River meets the Potomac. There are museums and shops to see, passing freight trains to watch, museums, shops, steep streets to walk and even a pedestrian bridge that crosses into Maryland where you can see the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal one last time. It feels lost in time despite the constant car traffic and occasional car honking.
The highlight of my Harper’s Ferry visit was looking at a rock. This is Jefferson Rock, named after Thomas Jefferson who wrote that this scene was worth a voyage across the Atlantic, which seems a bit hyperbolic even for him. But in Jefferson’s defense, Jefferson’s Rock used to be a hell of a lot more impressive. The rock used to tilt back and forth like a giant teeter totter, but back around the time of John Brown’s visit, they put stone table legs underneath it so that it wouldn’t crush tourists. Probably a good thing when you come to think of it.
Harper’s Ferry is small (Wikipedia has it at 285 people) and the amount of visitors far exceeds the town’s ability, especially when it comes to parking. The National Park Service addressed this by building a visitors center with a huge parking lot a few miles from town and then bussing visitors in and out. I took the bus in but decided it might be more fun to walk back. Parallel to the road but closer to the shoreline were some partially marked trails with great river views that passed by the ruins of long gone factories and industrial buildings. This was a thoroughly pleasant walk until the very last section where, seemingly out of nowhere, the lovely trail was replaced with a surprisingly steep series of unending steps back up the hill to the visitors center, something I would have known was coming if I walked both ways instead of just deciding at the last minute to skip the bus back.
