We made a trip to the National Aquarium over the weekend.

This is a pretty lavish exhibit right along the inner harbor in downtown Baltimore. After getting gouged at the ticket office, you’ve got your hopes up pretty high, but I’m pleased to report that this place really didn’t disappoint. Between the sharks, amphibians, reptiles, divers, countless fish, birds, rain forest and outback exhibits, and (hurray!) the dolphin show, it's hard to think of a better way to blow $100 in a few hours. We even managed to do the impossible – wear out the boy.

After the aquarium, we took a little time to walk along Baltimore downtown and the harbor. This served to reinforce my prejudice against the city and Maryland in general (no personal offense intended). As is the case with most of the state, the surroundings are pretty darn nice looking and there are lots of cool things parked around. But there's always some little thing in the Old Line State that I let get to me. This time it was the smell. No, not the harbor smells (though chemical-green water is always so very delightful) - I'm talking about the city. Now, I've been in my share of big cities but this was something ... extra special. Bottom line: if you want to take a nice stroll and see plenty of the beautiful things Baltimore has to offer, just go ahead and leave your Claritin at home.

Downtown certainly had some highlights though, chief among them being the morbidly obese man in his mid-30s dressed as Pikachu who joined us on an elevator. We assume that he was going to the Otakon festival at the Convention Center, but you never can be totally sure with the hip urbanites.

This 1.5-month round of site-seeing is almost over as Dasha leaves for home on Saturday. It’s been really sort of nice for us because:
1) We’ve had an excuse to go out and re-experience most of what we have seen here in the last two years (and even see plenty of new things) before we ship out to PA in the fall. It’s sort of like a long goodbye because we really don’t know where life will take us after school – it may be back here, may be not.
2) Jon is at an age where he really enjoys our trips. As parents, we’ve found that even more rewarding than seeing the sites we visit is seeing this look (this particular one from the dolphin show).

But the fun isn't over quite yet. We've got another trip to West Virginia lined up for blogdom, so check back in a few days when I feel like doing this all over again.