Today started out looking like another inside day. Another day of sitting around the Hecht's house, eating truffles and sipping scotch, casually forgetting just what it is that we're doing here. Not here in Owings Mills, necessarily, though that is an interesting question, but here adrift, floated out away from our home shore. What I'm trying to say is it was raining this morning. All of our best laid plans, most of which hadn't been laid yet, were to be for naught. This thought kept us in bed until about 11, at which time we noticed it had become sunny. Now our best laid plans for laying were for naught and we felt pressured to act. Act we did.

At 3, we dressed, hopped in Anthony's father's mouse infested 1988 Mustang (which is still fast as a whip and a kick to drive, despite the mice and the general falling-apart-ness.) and headed for Fort McHenry, Baltimore's biggest star-shaped fort.

The first in a series of many planned visits to our National Park System Thingies, this one proved interesting, but windy, and a bit sad. Sad in the way that tourist attractions always are when you're the only ones there. When you sit down to watch the Information Center Movie all by yourselves and the ranger starts it over for you special. Sad because the paint was peeling and there were no holograms or robot presidents or snack bar.

Because of the wind, they had a handkerchief-sized flag on the pole, instead of the basketball court-sized one we had been expecting to inspire us as it had Francis Scott Key. Oh well. The most dramatic and bizarrely patriotic moment was at the end of the informational film, when the curtains on the side of the theater open automatically to reveal a view of the grounds with the flag waving in the wind and a sign that says "Please Stand". We stood, mostly to leave, but I think we both felt some respect too, especially as the flag was at half mast for the crew of the Columbia. It didn't quite make up for the lack of robots, but at least it was automatic.

Liz on them ramparts	A gate	Throwin' down some Jew's harp
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