Doing the tourist thing

It's always good when company's in town because then Andy and I get to be tourists too and see some of the places we've been wanting to visit.

Last Saturday we hit the Inner Harbor in Baltimore with Andy's parents. We toured the USS Constellation and then walked around the harbor and ate a late lunch/early dinner at the Rusty Scupper, which if any of you come and visit me, I will definitely take you there because it was very good and the view is incredible.

Here's the view from a park behind the restaurant - so you can get an idea of what you see from the restaurant, which you can see to the right on the waterfront.

After dinner we headed to Camden Yards to watch the Orioles play. Unfortunately, shortly before first pitch, the sky opened up and a horrible storm hit. We waited out the 2-hour delay, although we couldn't have left it we wanted to because we were parked so far away and it was an awful storm. It couldn't been worse though -- the poor people in D.C. at the Redskins exhibition game had the power go out on them. Anyway, we left early because it was VERY late and the Orioles were getting crushed.

Sunday we got up and had brunch at Rams Head -- another wonderful perk of having company. Andy and I only do brunch when we have company -- it's just too frivolous otherwise :) See, there's another good reason for all of you out there reading this to come visit me. I'll take you to brunch.

After brunch we headed to D.C. ... actually Virginia, I guess, to Arlington Cemetery. It was my first time there, as far I can remember anyway. Andy's dad has been researching and writing about a Navy admiral from Penn Yan (where they live) who went to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, later trained on the Constellation, and is buried in Arlington. So he got a lot of material for his book over the weekend.

The changing of the guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Here's a view of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and Capitol Building from the cemetery.

After walking around the cemetery all afternoon, we were all pretty exhausted, but we were so close to the Iwo Jima Memorial, so we forged on. It was worth it. What an awesome memorial. Seriously, if you haven't seen it, you should. The pictures don't really do it justice.

Here's a cool close-up Andy took.

That's about it for the weekend. We went to a favorite local chain of ours for dinner where the food is pretty good and the beer is fantastic. On Monday, we had another great dinner (yes, more crab) at Cantler's, an Annapolis restaurant that's most famous for whole crabs -- although we all opted for easier crab options. Maybe next time.

So we sent Mom and Dad MacAlpine home with their fill of crab (and good beer). Next time we'll move on to Oysters ...

See how much fun it is to visit us? No pressure though ... I'm just sayin'.