Snow! Baltimore!

It snowed last week. Unlike Texas, when it snows In DC you don't get the day off, people do not begin hoarding food and water and there is not wide spread panic. But it does mean that traffic is much worse than usual, there is salt all over the road and you have to walk through wet snow wherever you go. I think I finally realize why snow can be such a hassle. When you have to go to school or work in regular clothes (as opposed to ski apparel) your shoes get messed up and your pants get wet. We went out to play in the snow anyway, and its a good thing we did because by the next morning it had transformed from nice new snow to sloppy, wet day old snow mixed with mud.

We went to the nearby Iwo Jima Memorial to play in the snow. Although it is dark out it was only about 5:30 pm. It gets dark very early here. Mary looks extra cute in the snow.

Our Snowman is disfigured. We did not build it from scratch. Someone else built it, then someone knocked it over, then we tried to fix it. The end result looks like the "Thing" from the Fantastic Four.

The Iwo Jima Memorial looked really cool with snow on it.

Last weekend we went to Baltimore again. We had three things on the agenda. First we wanted to see the Edgar Allen Poe House. Second, we wanted to go to the National Aquarium and finally, we were going to have dinner (Maryland Crabs) with our friend from FSI, Diane Holcombe, who lives in Baltimore and commutes to DC every day. Of course we started the trip by getting lost trying to get on the George Washington Parkway and spent the first half hour of our trip going in a big circle. Once we got to Baltimore, as we were driving to the Edgar Allen Poe House, I commented to Mary that I thought Baltimore's reputation as a "rough" town was undeserved, in fact I thought it was rather nice...then we went four more blocks and found ourselves in the worst area I have ever been to in my life. The website for the Edgar Allen Poe House said it was not walking distance from downtown (about 10 blocks) or the B&O Railroad Museum (3 blocks). I now understood why they discourage walking. The buildings were boarded up, covered in graffiti and a rag tag assortment of people shuffled up and down the street, some pushing shopping carts, some just huddled on street corners occasionally casting glances over their shoulders. A man was having a loud, obscenity laced cell phone conversation within about three feet of some little children playing "vampire". I thought we might be lost, then I realized we were right in front of the Edgar Allen Poe House. It is fitting that Edgar Allen Poe's house is in a very scary neighborhood. The house itself is about the size of a three story walk-in closet. They keep the front door locked, you have to knock to get in and there are warnings not to give money to panhandlers. The tour took about ten minutes and we were out of there. I was worried the whole time that the car tires would be missing when we returned.

We then made our way over to the Aquarium and discovered that it was $1.00 day and everyone in Baltimore and the surrounding area was there (regular price is almost $30). The aquarium was sold out. The Inner Harbor was jammed with people, because not only was the Aquarium a dollar, every attraction in Baltimore was a dollar. Surprisingly, there was not a big crowd at the Edgar Allen Poe House. I guess they were all at the Inner Harbor.

We had some time to kill before meeting Diane for Dinner so we climbed to the top of a big hill and took a picture.

Dinner was good. We ate crabs. In the final irony of the day, we dined on Gulf Crabs from Texas because Maryland crabs are not in season.

I finished Con-Gen on Thursday (I graduated with "honors" since I only got one question wrong out of all four tests). Now we have to get ready for the move. In no special order we need to arrange for our HHE to get to Caracas, line up the movers to pack our apartment, ship the car, square away insurance, get the car serviced, visit Hagerstown (where our stuff is stored), get my passport (the diplomatic one) get our visas for Venezuela, stock up on all the supplies we are going to take to Venezuela (chronic food shortages), square away our travel plans, get the dogs squared away for travel to Venezuela (go to the vet, get required certificates and inspections) and do all the other things I have forgotten about, but have to be done. But, there is always a rainbow at the end of the storm.