Maryland!

 

On August 13, 2023, I ran my 18th state, Maryland!  It should have been an easy run, and I was using it as a training run for my marathon training, but it was tough for me!  I have been recovering from a torn muscle and was not quite ready to run a half marathon, but I did it anyway.  And even though it was my slowest half so far, it was finished!  Camden ran it with me, and his time was 2:03:05 without trying.  Oh, to be young!  It was a small race, and I did not finish last!  So that was a plus for me.  The scenery was decent, although the canal we ran beside was stagnant and stinky at times.  The Potomac on the other side of the trail was pretty though!  The hardest part for me was the very slight hills, if you could really call them hills, that bothered my recovering muscle; and the rocks on the trail that hurt my tired feet.

We ran on a National Historic Park Trail

The canal

On this in and out course, I passed Camden on his way back.

The Potomac River

But the best part of the race weekend was spending it with my boys!  When Nathan was growing up, we would learn about different states, eat food from those states and sometimes visit them.  My running all the states is kind of like that and it was nice to take a road trip together again! 

Highlights of the MD part of the trip was visiting Fort McHenry....

A row team in the Baltimore Harbor

Amy and Camden got to help with raising the Star-Spangled Banner.  And they found out that the slight tilt of the stars on the flag they had back then is called spangled...thus the name!  

The inedible cherries on Japanese cherry blossom trees

....visiting Inner Harbor.  Well Inner Harbor does not have much except a really good restaurant for blue crabs and an aquarium that we skipped because it cost $50.  We used our budget on lunch!

Phillips Seafood Crab Deck!  Inside the restaurant looked cool, but they did not have crabs inside.  We opted for the deck and were glad we did.  We have cream of crab soup and blue crab, shrimp and mussel boil.  It was excellent!

  ...And of course, visiting Glen Echo Park to ride the carousel and tour the Clara Barton house was another fun stop.... well the boys tolerated it for me!

We found a little waterfall in the park

The historic carousel

Camden said the park reminded him of the Twilight Zone!  Most of the buildings were deserted.

We also had some really good pizza in Bethesda, stayed at a nice hotel, and got ice cream in a really fun shopping area!

The pizza place was run by true Italians, but it was takeout only.  So, we found an outdoor table to eat our dinner.

Good ice cream!

Since Bethesda is right outside DC, we also spent time there.  We went to a Nationals Game where they beat the A's....

View from the Nationals stadium

Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.  I missed getting a picture of Washington and Jefferson but did see them race!

...and we toured three museums.  American History, Natural History and Air and Space.  PSA, you have to have a timed ticket to the Air and Space Museum.  My favorite is seeing the pop culture section of the American History Museum, even if Fonzi's jacket was not there!  But Dorothy's ruby slippers were there!!  And the Hope Diamond is also a favorite to see!  And of course, we had to see the original Star-Spangled Banner!

Riding old timey bikes at the American History Museum

A dinosaur humerus at the Natural History Museum

Outside the Air and Space Museum

The first plane

A lot of rooms at the museums were being renovated during our visit, so it really didn't take us long to tour them.  
 

...and we saw some memorials, or at least tried!

Jefferson Memorial

George Mason Memorial

We had 1:00 tickets to tour the Washington Monument, but they shut the monument down at 12:45 due to high temperatures in the monument!  So, we walked to the Lincoln Memorial instead.

World War II Memorial

Lincoln Memorial...under renovation.  It seemed as though many things in Washington need to be renovated!!

The last fun thing we did on our trip was to have a great dinner at Peking Gourmet Inn in Falls Church, VA.  We have been there two other times and try to always go there when we visit DC!

We got duck, soup, and two other entrees to share.  Too much food, but so yummy!

The duck is cut up by the table and you eat it in a rolled-up tortilla like shell.  We only got half a duck, but next time a whole duck instead of other entrees!

It was nice to get away with my boys as this is hard to do with them getting older!  And it was good to knock out one more state!  Now to keep training for my marathon in October which will be back in DC!