Tour Dem Parks, Hon!

Well, we did it! Twenty-two miles around the city of Baltimore, starting at Carroll Park then to Federal Hill Park where the picture below was taken, then through the Inner Harbor, Fells Point and Canton to Patterson Park. We had a rest there and then headed out past Johns Hopkins Hospital (Adam waved) up to Clifton Park. The ride up to and into Clifton Park just about killed us. By the end of the day, we decided that Baltimore is all uphill, no matter where you are. Of course, that isn't true, but it felt like it today. After Clifton Park, we headed around Lake Montebello and then past where the old Memorial Stadium used to be. It was really strange to see a YMCA and some apartment buildings where we used to see the Orioles play. Man, am I getting old!

We took another break just before heading into the Wyman Park Dell and then back through the middle of the city to get back to Carroll Park. Since we did the medium (20 mile) as opposed to the long (35 mile) ride, we missed a couple of the parks and had to do some real city riding. I was a little nervous being in traffic even though it's pretty light on a Sunday morning. Luckily, most people seemed to be heading to or from church and not looking to run down bicyclists. The ride was really a fascinating demographic exercise, as well. When you ride through the areas of the city that we did (and some people try never to drive through some of the areas we did), you really see the differences between the haves and the have nots. And the neighborhoods can change from one to the other with just one street in between.

Adam and I were absolutely exhausted when we got home, but Drew was ready to go since he got to ride in style the whole way. He didn't seem to understand that Mommy and Daddy were really tired, so we finally dragged ourselves back out of the house and walked around the mall for an hour this afternoon just to let him blow off some steam.

Next year, we're doing the long ride!