Wow … I can’t believe what time I had to wake up to make today’s trip happen. I got the wake-up call from my Mother at 3:45am alerting me to rise and shine (which if you realize is actually hours before the Sun was required to do the same thing). I got up, jumped in the shower and attempted to wake up a little for the 90minute drive from Cape Cod to Logan Airport in Boston.

As soon as I jumped in the car, hit the music loud and started the drive I realized my sleepy eyes were burning more than Lindsey Lohan’s crotch and there were no Starbucks to alleviate that sad problem. Alas my DMB CD was my only thing I had assistance from to keep me awake. Usually at this time of the morning I could have no problem making it in about 70 minutes and planned for 80, but what do I get?? TRAFFIC! At 4am … TRAFFIC!!!

I ended up making it to the plane with 6 minutes to spare after parking and the annoying airport run from the car to the terminal. But, who cares – I made it.

Now, I land in Baltimore for a day of randomness! I’ve never been to this city before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I can tell you I wasn’t expecting a 10 minute ride from the airport to the rental car terminal in a bus that had no seats, but I digress. Jumped in my rental car (which was a bright yellow VW Bug) and made my way onto the not well signed streets of B-More. Honestly, I was amazingly annoyed with the street/hwy signs as well as my GPS not wanting to tell me where I was or where I was going, like my GPS was having a hippy moment of freedom or something.

Either way, I made it to the place I was attempting to get (mainly because baseball and football stadiums are large and easy to see and subsequently navigate toward) which was Camden Yards to go to Oriole Park! What I didn’t realize was how close the football stadium was to Camden. It’s literally right across the parking lot – which is a little odd but good for me (easier for pictures).

I got a private tour of Camden Yard thanks to Robert with the Orioles which was honestly awesome.

What I didn't know is that the stadium isn't really that old. It looks 'vintage' like Fenway or Wrigley but it was built in the mid 80's. The brick building that you always see in the photos behind the right field is the BNO Railroad Warehouse. In the early 1900's the railroad built that to house all the product that came into Baltimore from Ohio but once they found that it wasn't profitable in the 50's they closed it down. Then in the 80's, after the building had plenty of time to be boarded up and the windows broken out, and the new tenants being the type that didn't pay rent and had pointy tails the city was going to plow it down. They decided to build the new park around that building in all brick in the old-school fashion.

Something funny was that try tried to clean up the old building but it was so dirty from soot after decades of train smoke, etc they couldn't pressure wash it off. So, there the 1030ft long building was HAND SCRUBBED with acid which took over 33 months to clean up! But, it honestly looks brand new. Seriously amazing story that I did not know!

Back to the tour itself... I was allowed in the Press Area as well as the control room which I guess isn’t normally allowed (especially after they just renovated the room at a cost of $9,000,000 … it looks more impressive to write all the zeros than saying 9mil, right?). They even were in the process of powering up the PA system and allowed me to hit the mic and introduce myself to test the stadium system. That was really fun ... even though literally no one heard it. Then I got to hang out in the Orioles dugout as the Tampa Rays started to do some stretches, which was really cool.

On a sidenote, I was surprised to see E. Longoria … not nearly as attractive as I thought – and I really don’t see what Tony Parker sees in that!

Then obviously I had to check out the food side of Baltimore, which means … CRABCAKES! I love Crab Cakes and have heard nothing but amazing things about Maryland Crab Cakes. With the buildup I thought I might be slightly let down like hearing awesome things about a funny movie but then when you see it … eh, it’s ok. But, this one was not a let down at all. I don’t know how else to describe Maryland Crab Cakes other than lightly binded heaven … and I now can easily declare Baltimore the capital of Crustacean Nation.

Here’s the photostream from my trip!

So, in short, I had a great time, though this is the first time I can say this is probably a city I won’t rush to come back to. The odd thing while I sit at the bar at the airport is thinking this was the ‘worst’ day of the trip … if a bad day for me is having wine and crab oceanfront after hanging out on a MLB baseball field … I have NOTHING to complain about.

Update: Starbucks Iced Coffee count is currently at 21!

Heading to Orlando tomorrow for James Boyd Band, Tia, Universal Orlando and day trips to Boca and Ft. Myers.

Talk to you tomorrow!!

Carter