Today’s bike ride took me over to Hampden for my favorite brunch and some work in my workbook and then down to the Inner Harbor to check out the art show. I did a quick zip around the booths and then decided to hit up the Public Works Museum, because I love me some public works–sewer systems, water treatment, streetlights and stoplights, all of it. But then I read the sign on the front door–the place closed in February, 2010. Sigh. I wandered around the place, all bereft at not getting to learn the history behind what’s underneath the skin of the streets, and peeked through the bars at Streetscape, a “sculpture” that shows the public works underneath a typical street with a miniature street above, complete with tiny stoplights, street signs, a fire hydrant, and an itsy bitsy traffic barrel. If the museum were open, I could walk the thing, learn about how things work to do the things that we all just take for granted, but no. I soothed my sorrows with a stop at the National Aquarium for the dolphin show, which I can do, because I’m a member–no riff raff entry for this cat! I liked the show more than I felt I ought to, because shouldn’t I be trying to Free Willy, but I still would have rather learned about the history of water treatment in Baltimore, a city on the water with water running all through it hidden by asphalt and bridges. I rode back home up the hill, another weekend in the books.