Happy Birthday Peirce!

Today is Peirce's birthday. The Ravens play their opening game of the season tonight at 7 p.m. and we plan to get some takeout and watch that. Let's hope they can pull out a win for Peirce.

This past Friday, Peirce and I went on a sightseeing cruise out in the harbor. I bought tickets for cheap ($7!) and surprised Peirce for a birthday gift. He was laughing about it though because we thought we would be hearing the stuff about the harbor that we already know. We both try to learn and keep up with all the exciting things happening around the area. So, it was very funny when we pulled away from the dock and they said over the loudspeaker, "Behind you, you have the Science Center." We both laughed and settled in for some hometown tourism. Little did we know, we would still learn some interesting factoids about our lovely town.

The boat took us all the way out to the Key Bridge which is part of the Baltimore beltway. It was about a 45 minute ride out. Out near the bridge was a buoy painted red, white and blue. This is the spot where they believe Francis Scott Key was held prisoner on a ship on the day he wrote the Star Spangled Banner. This is the only buoy which the Coast Guard allows to be painted in these colors. Peirce and I were surprised to see how far away the ship could have been when it saw "our flag was still there" at Fort McHenry. If you click on the photograph of Peirce, you can see the city skyline in the left center of the photo. That is where Fort McHenry is. I guess in those days there were no high rise buildings, so I assume it would have been much easier to see the flag by dawn's early light.

Right after we passed under the bridge, we came to Fort Carroll. This was built further out of the harbor (we were now technically in the bay) by Robert E. Lee. He felt there needed to be a defense of Baltimore that was further away from the land before you get to Fort McHenry. It is now abandoned and used as a bird sanctuary. It looked pretty creepy to me and definitely smaller than Fort McHenry. Not sure it could defend this great city, but I'm no Robert E. Lee.