Eclectic Baltimore

This weekend is pretty much dedicated to moving the rest of my stuff from Baltimore (where my lease is ending) to either here in Bethesda or the place in Columbia Heights (where Madeleine is kind enough to let me park bulky items I can't store here). This will be a huge pain (rental van, etc), but is very boring for you to read about, I realize.

Anyway, again it makes me think about what I will miss from Baltimore. I think it's safe to say that paying less than $400 in rent is one thing. But more to the point, there is a genuineness to Baltimore that has been gentrified out of most of DC. And while DC has its own unique feel because of its status as the world's biggest company town, it's not quirky like Baltimore.

This sort of comes through in some pictures I just put up in my Baltimore album, taken on a long bike ride my last day in the city. This, for instance, strikes me as very Baltimore:

See how that person neatly pivoted an act of illegal dumping into a benevolent offering to fellow citizens? Genius. Not that I'm saying this sort of character is what B-more needs, but it is at least pretty amusing. (Taking this as inspiration, I no longer bring unpleasant doggie doo bags when I walk Hershey, just little signs mounted on toothpicks that say "Free Fertilizer.")

And then there's the Patterson Park Pagoda...

...and its view of downtown.

And not too far out of town, there are places like North Point State Park, the abandoned site of an early 20th century amusement park:

And you might ride down the jetty and get a fish hook in your tire 15 miles from home and need Kat to bail you out, but it's still pretty...