Baltimore for a Day

ZB and I took the Amtrak from DC to Baltimore Sunday morning.  The ride was short enough to avoid toddler boredom, but long enough for her to get excited about a train ride.  The friend we were supposed to meet was sick, so ZB and I had the day to ourselves.

We headed straight to the National Aquarium at the Inner Harbor.  ZB's main objectives were sharks and octopus, which thankfully they had both of! They even had a fun little kids play area, which was nice for her to take a break from looking at seemingly endless tanks of fish.

We both LOVED the jellyfish exhibit.  They are SO beautiful!

After a while, ZB did get bored of looking at fish, fish and more fish.  I was trying to snap a couple photos of her with fish, and she was becoming increasingly resistant to the idea.  This is when I handed her the camera.  That plan worked amazingly well!  She must have taken about 20 photos of fish - she was racing all over to see different tanks, pushing grown-ups out of the way (they were all very nice about it!) on her mission.  Here is a very small sampling of her first photo shoot:

At right about the 2 hour mark - she was done with the aquarium.  We went outside to walk around the Inner Harbor.  On our way to a lighthouse, we found a beautiful sculpture playground.  We probably spent at least an hour there - outdoor space always is my kids favorite thing when we visit big cities... go figure!

When the overcast sky started to sprinkle, we headed on to the lighthouse.  It was really neat, and ZB was excited to be able to go inside.  The last lighthouse we went to was at the beach camping trip in South Carolina and we found out at the last minute that ZB was too short to go inside, which was very disappointing to her.  She loved this one, and we were the only visitors at the moment.  It had lots of neat history and photos printed inside, as well as a replica bedroom of the caretakers.

When we were done with the lighthouse, we had about an hour left before needing to head back to the train station, and it was raining at that point.  We trekked to the Barnes & Nobles that was right around the corner and stayed dry with children's books for a little bit.

That was a fun day!  I'm glad we got to go, but wish my lovely friend, Jackie had been feeling better so we could have visited.  We may just have to come back another time :)