The Adventures of the Roaming Southerner: Happy Birthday USA

JULY 4, 2011

Today, Mary and I went to Annapolis. It was a nice drive up, pretty short. Our first stop was the visitor center. We started talking to the lady who gives out information to tourist. She told us about the trolley tour and where FREE parking was! So we signed up for the trolley tour and went to parked the car. You cannot beat free parking on the Fourth of July! We saw a Starbucks in the basement of this old hotel and went in to get a coffee. I hate the price of Starbucks coffee, but nothing beats their fraps! We went and met up with the trolley tour.

The tour of the city was awesome! The guide was super knowledgeable and funny as hell. We saw the old church, state house, oldest house, and many neat houses. I really like old houses, and Annapolis has plenty. Our tour guide told us this while looking around, “The historic preservation society controls everything down to your door knobs. All except what you paint your house. Some people get creative others get even.” There were pink, purple, yellow, gold, blue, and other bright colored homes around Annapolis. The trolley took us to the WWII memorial to look down on the harbor. It was a nice view. We drove back and saw more of the city and learned a lot more history of the city. It was fun, I know total history nerd. After tour went across the street to eat at the Rams Head Tavern, which was on all the top things to do list that I looked up. It was so yummy! I got the beer sampler (6 shots of beer), mini burgers, and lobster hush puppies. It was very good. After getting full on good food, we decided to look around the city.

First, we walked to the United States Navel Academy. We went to the visitor center and saw the exhibit. Getting in was fun. When you want to go onto the grounds you have to go though security. Well we knew that there was a museum or exhibit at the USNA, because the trolley guide told us. So I asked the guard, where the museum was. The guard looked at me as if I was completely weird for asking where the museum was. It was so funny. I think he must have thought I was trying to find my future husband and was trying to do so by asking about the museum. Well we walked around and went inside the visitor center. It was nice.

Them, we went to the inner harbor and got ice cream. It was so hot and there is nothing better than ice cream on a hot day. However, I got soft serve chocolate ice cream, bad life choice. It MELTED SO FAST! I was covered in melted ice cream. We did get free water from a local church as we sat and ate our ice cream, which was nice because it was super hot! We still had some time to kill before the parade so we decided to go back to my car. My phone needed to be charged, because my phone battery sucks. I got a new one before I left Nashville at Battery Plus and it crashed two weeks into Baltimore. I was so mad. Anyways we went back to my car that was in a covered garage so it was kinda cool and relaxed for a few minutes.

We headed back to Main Street for the parade. I love parades. They are the best places to people watch. Since it is the Fourth of July, everyone was decked out in red, white, and blue. Some people brought patriotism to a new level with their clothes. There were these kids down from us who had a Ziploc bag of poppers and were throwing them in the street. I wanted some so bad! I love poppers! I went to find a drink and found poppers instead! It was fun to thrown them in the street! Yup, I am 5 years old. Before the parade started these two little girls asked if they could sit next to me to watch their brother in the parade. I said sure. The littlest one became my new friend. Her name was Nadia and she was probably about 3 years old.

She talked and talked to me the whole parade. She was so cute! She kept asking me questions about the things in the parade. I cough her candy and a Frisbee for her. She was so entertaining. She asked me why the fire truck had a really long ladder. I told it was to help people get out of tall buildings. She said, “oh I bet they use them to get people out of castles.” I said have you ever been to a real castle? “No.” Well I have been to one in Germany. “How did you get down? Did a ladder get you out?” Well I used the stairs. “How did you do that? How did you know where to go?” Um well, a prince showed me the way. “Oh that is nice.” She was too funny. In the parade were some awesome things. There was the Colonial Society who rode segways made up to look like horses. One WWII vet went down the parade route. It was so touching to see everyone stand and cheer him on. He looked so happy. There were Mayan dancers. In addition, the Republic Party had an old fire truck with a man dressed as Santa passing out candy. I did not know that Santa was a Republican, sad day. Also next to Mary and me were there these little girls yelling “Happy 4^th! Happy July!”

These are some bronze statues that are in a neighborhood park. They had to bolt them to the ground because the local teens kept talking them and putting them in people's yards, which I thought was too funny!