First, I know it’s unseemly to complain about such beautiful weather, but I am so over this heat. It was almost 90 today! And lest you think that’s a normal temperature and I just forgot last year, it’s almost 20 degrees above the average for this time of year, so shut it. I want it to cool down so I can wear leggings and snuggle under blankets with hot tea and complain about how it’s cold when I start my ride but hot about two minutes later and don’t tell me to layer i just want to complain. Enough. Continue reading
bike tours
Looking West from the Patterson Park Pagoda
I woke up early, drank a quick coffee and ate a quick piece of toast, and then hopped on my bike for a quick ride from Butcher’s Hill to Fort McHenry to meet up with the rest of the (relatively) early risers for this year’s Defender’s Day historical bicycle tour with Baltimore Heritage. I got to do part of the narrating this year, and we had A. along to change flat tires, something he is really good at. I talked about what started the war, when we started memorializing it, why we memorialize some parts and not others, and E. talked about how privateers are just pirates with government contracts, why you might not want to build row houses out of wood, and the other forts in the city that aren’t Fort McHenry. Continue reading
Wooden House at Wolfe & Aliceanna
As you might know if you read this blog, I love riding my bike, and I also love local history, so you can imagine my glee when E. asked if I’d like to help lead a bicycle tour of historic War of 1812 sites in Baltimore in September. Um, yes! My not-so-secret desire is to someday be a park ranger, so it seems like bicycle tour guide can only be good experience for a late-in-life career change. Continue reading
Roger Taney Memorial in Mt. Vernon Square at Monument & Charles
I woke up early, finished my book–so good–and then it was time to lug Brompty down the stairs to ride to the Jackson & Lee monument over by the BMA for a historical tour of Baltimore monuments. They’re there on horseback, and etched at the base is this: “They Were Great Generals amd Christian Soldiers and Waged War Like Gentlemen.” Then we weaved in ways I never would to get down to the Battle Monument on Calvert and Lexington, the first public memorial to a war, but not the last. Continue reading
What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today 