Baltimore - Oriole Park at Camden Yards

On Sunday, we needed to leave Philadelphia/South Jersey in the early morning for an afternoon game.  Kevin was under the impression that we needed to get to Washington DC for a National's game, but realized along the way that we just saw the Nationals in Philadelphia on Saturday night, so they wouldn't be playing in Washington DC. We stopped and looked at our tickets and then changed our destination to Baltimore, which was along the way we were heading, so no real damage done.

We arrived in downtown Baltimore earlier than we needed to, due to the slight itinerary confusion.  It was raining, quite heavy at times, on the drive to Baltimore and it was really coming down as we drove around the empty Baltimore streets on a Sunday morning.  We were genuinely concerned that this game would be rained out.  We had an hour or so to kill, and were thinking of stopping somewhere in the Inner Harbor area, but after we circled a few times looking for somewhere to park, we just decided to head closer to the stadium and find somewhere to park.  We found a lot very near the stadium for $10 and then stopped at a nearby restaurant for a pre-game meal.  By now the rain had let up slightly and the skies looked promising.

We walked across the street to the stadium and walked around the concourses and enjoyed the scenery at this beautiful stadium.  The grounds crew had the tarp off the infield, which was a very encouraging sign that the game would still start on time.  We made our way down to our seats about 45 minutes before game time and dried off the moisture.  We had fantastic seats in the fifth row, just past third base.  As soon as we sat down and got comfortable, the grounds crew started unrolling the tarp and it started to once again pour.  We hurried back to the shelter of the concourse, preparing for a lengthy delay.  However, the rain quickly stopped, the tarp was removed from the field and the game started on time without any other rain issues.

We ended up having a great time at the game.  The sun actually came out for most of the afternoon and it was hot and muggy.  The Orioles were playing the Detroit Tigers.  The Orioles pulled ahead and were leading 8 to 1 going into the ninth inning.  Detroit quickly scored 4 runs in the ninth and had the bases loaded.  Baltimore held on and won the game 8-5, but it was very exciting at the end.

After the game we wanted to get a local, authentic Maryland seafood dinner.  We found a place, Al's Seafood, that was located in nearby Essex, Maryland.  Kevin tried the all you can eat Maryland crabs and Tina had a seafood platter.  The crabs were small and a lot of work.  Kevin had six crabs that took about an hour to eat, and yielded about 1/8 of a cup of meat.  Nearby tables were going through buckets of crabs in the same amount of time.  Tina's seafood platter was not very good, either.  It included a small lobster tail that could have been the chewiest, most rubbery piece of food either of us have ever encountered.

Maryland Crabs

We left the restaurant very disappointed and headed to our Washington, DC area hotel.  We checked in and then looked for someplace for a desert as a palate cleanser after our horrible meal.  We found a place called Rita's Ice, which sold Italian Ice and Frozen Custard.  Tina had a cup of Coconut Ice and Kevin had Swedish  Fish Ice.  We both enjoyed these cool, tasty dishes.