Baltimore and Chap's Pit Beef

Welcome to Baltimore!!! Owen and I went and toured about last week.  Since Owen went there on his mission way back in the day he wanted to go back and visit his old stomping grounds.  First things first, we went to a place called Chap's Pit Beef.  It's a smallish, hole in the wall type joint that was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.  Now, it needs to be said that while it looks ugly on the outside it feels soo soo good on the inside.

To paraphrase Owen, this restaurant is everything Arby's wants and hopes to be, but never will become.  Both of us enjoyed a beef sandwich. Now, when I say a beef sandwich, you need to imagine a perfectly cooked-to-order sliced beef sandwich.  We both got medium-rare which had the most beautiful juicy flavor.  I topped mine off with hickory barbecue sauce and Owen had "Tiger blood" which is a mixture of some sort with a hint of horseradish.  I got regular fries, Owen got gravy fries and to top everything all off we both had 32 ounce cokes in styrofoam containers. (We're sticking it to you Michael Bloomberg!).

I ate till I was full and continued eating until about 20 minutes later.  It was so so so so so good.  Totally worth the hour drive up there.  I will go again.



While we were driving around I took some pictures of the sights and sounds of Baltimore.  We drove past Johns Hopkins Hospital about 15 times.  We didn't go inside, but the outside is beautiful.  Very classy looking. I would say, just based on the outside look, it appears much classier than even the Houston downtown hospital scene (which includes MD Anderson and some of the other best hospitals in the world).

This is totally random, but we saw this license plate driving around. Someone is driving a kia with a license plate that says "Poopies" hahahahahaha So childish, but so funny.  Do you think they meant it to be "puppies"? Cause to me they were way off. 








This is a picture of a graveyard, but it's kind of hard to see it beyond the barb-wire... Yeah, uh the graveyards there were beautiful.  Lots of gorgeous headstones, statues, etc. but every single one had barb-wire all around it.  It was a mix of really sad and just made me wonder what exactly they were keeping out...or in? (No ghosts were seen during the taking of this picture)

Also while driving around we saw 11 Emergency vehicles, lights on, sirens sounding.  Yes, 11 emergency vehicles doing their thing.  Interestingly enough, mostly ambulances, but also some firetrucks and police cars.  We also saw a plethora of emergency vehicles just chilling out.  Here is a picture of a fireman driving the back of the firetruck. Who knew they had to do that... it kind of brings new meaning to "Backseat driver."

Owen and I were driving toward the harbor to go hang out until time to meet up with Andrew and lo and behold, look what we got to see!!! Charm City Cakes.  Yup... Ever seen the show Ace of Cakes?  This is where the magic happens.  It's kind of a weird location in the middle of the ghetto and they don't have tours or anything.  You can only go in with an appointment.  Bummer, but it was still super cool to see the store front.  Now you all know that Ace of Cakes is really in the ghetto... It was cool that we stumbled on it though, we just turned down a road and there it was.
                 
Next we went down to the Baltimore harbor- the touristy area.  While walking around, waiting for Andrew to get there, we saw four crabs (one of which is visible on the pillar in the picture above), one fish, and the coolest looking Barnes and Nobles. 

This Barnes and Noble was 2 stories in the old Baltimore Power Plant.  It had huge metallic columns and stuff throughout it and was very industrial in design.   Once Andrew got into town we went to Cheesecake factory to have some dessert and then headed over to the airport to greet two guys from Andrew's squadron who just got home from Qatar.

Overall, it was a great day.  Good times with great family.