Here's a brief tour of some of the things we saw.
Downtown Baltimore as seen across the inner-harbor from the top of Federal Hill. What a beautiful city!
If I could spend the rest of my life travelling around the country taking pictures like this I could die a happy man.
This one was taken through a wide-angle lens sometimes called a fish-eye.
We spent one afternoon in Annapolis which was our nation's capitol from 1783 to 1784. This is the historic Maryland State House which served as the capitol building during those years. It was in this building that George Washington appeared before congress to resign his post as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.
Construction of the building was completed in 1779 which makes it our nation's oldest state capital still in continuous legislative use.
These next few shots are some of the streets surrounding State Circle. As you might expect, State Circle is a round street that circles the State House. Other streets radiate outward from it like the spokes of a wheel.
Most of the buildings immediately surrounding State Circle have plaques on their fronts giving the names of famous historical figures who once lived in them.
The area was originally settled in 1649 by Puritans and was named Providence. After several name changes, Annapolis was incorporated as a city in 1708.
Many of the streets still retain their names from colonial times, such as "King George", "Prince George", and "Duke of Gloucester".
Annapolis is located 28 miles east of Washington D.C. and 26 miles south of Baltimore. I could have spent several days exploring this area.
We also spent an afternoon at Fort McHenry. It was here that Francis Scott Key penned the poem that became our national anthem. I was surprised to learn that his original poem had several verses, but only the first verse was put into song.
Seen from the air, Fort McHenry has the shape of a star with heavily defensible positions at each point of the star.
One of my favorite pictures. It was a beautiful October day in Baltimore.
Key wrote his poem during a particularly heavy battle between the Fort and ships of the Royal Navy during the War of 1812.
Maybe this is one of the cannons that sent the "bombs bursting in air"!
Those ships never had a chance.
Fort McHenry was designed in 1798 and named after James McHenry, an Irish immigrant who was a veteran of the revolutionary war. Later he became George Washington's Secretary of War.
The fort's cannons are 18, 24, and 38 pounders and have a range of 1.5 miles.
In fact, the battle that Francis Scott Key witnessed was the one and only time the fort was ever attacked. It was built to defend the important Port of Baltimore in the Chesapeake Bay and did it's job very well.
This is one of the passages leading into the heart of the fort where the barracks and other buildings are located.
Inside the fort, the excavations were shored up with brick to keep them from caving in.
This is the inside of one of the barrack buildings.
Just outside the fort is the Inner Harbor which is the narrower part of Chesapeake Bay leading into to the Port of Baltimore.
There was a lot of activity on the water the day we were there.
We got to watch a large cargo ship come into the harbor.
The harbor is too small for large ships to maneuver so tugs have to push them around so they can angle into port.
I don't remember exactly but I think it took about half an hour for the ship to get into the port. It was pretty interesting to watch.
