"Now it Feels Like We're on Vacation"

said Daniel, as we walked down the charming streets of historic Frederick.

When Dana and I had the inspired idea to turn the retrieval of Maddie from her pre-college art program at MICA in Baltimore into our second short vacation of the summer, the kids just let us plan, giggled at my quest to take them to every state and didn't ask too many questions.   Of course, as the day got closer, Daniel started to panic that school was closing in and Maddie was eager to return to home (and her beloved cats) after being away for a month. 

So, when we left Baltimore early yesterday afternoon (after celebrating Maddie's "graduation" from MICA and visiting that wonderful Inner Harbor Barnes and Noble - and bemoaning that so many of our bookstores in Florida have closed :(  - we packed up the trunk (which was quite a feat!) and headed off on our adventure, the kids' excitement about our upcoming week of travel was tempered just a bit by an uncertainty regarding what, exactly, it was we'd be doing. 

One of Maddie's animation pieces - an alien plant form

Not that I needed MORE books to stuff into the trunk :)

Stopping by the creek for a photo after lunch and shopping

For our lunch/driving break, on our way from Baltimore to first stop Pittsburgh, we opted to stop in Frederick, Maryland.  It was as we were strolling through the streets of Frederick, stopping to read the many history placards that pepper the area and discovering two amazing stores -  Dancing Bear, a unique toy store and Brainstorm Comics and Gaming, a nerd's paradise, that Daniel looked up with a grin of respect and delight, realizing that his parents were pretty good at this vacationing thing, and admitted that now... he GETS it ;)   Meanwhile,  Dana was in history heaven, raving about how the citizens of Frederick spoke German for the first 100 years of its existence.  "100 years," he kept muttering ;)  Both Union and Confederate troops marched down Market street during the Civil War, and it was easy to picture the troops making their way through the forests surrounding these little towns and cities that popped up on our drive from Baltimore to Pittsburgh.

Dana reads up on the history of Frederick as we have lunch.

Every charming store is housed in historic buildings, some as old as 1745!

Note the juxtaposition - comic book store next to museum of Civil War medicine :)

"Reality Stops Here" promises the sign inside the door...

We arrived in Pittsburgh, at the beautiful and historic (you know how we love historic?!) Omni William Penn hotel at around 5:00, settled into our wonderful room (where they served us milk and cookies for our return from dinner!) to plan our one and only full day in this unexpected city.  In one article, I read that if Pittsburgh were located in Europe, it would be considered one of the ten most beautiful cities in the world.  While Daniel was skeptical about that remark as we walked through the downtown streets last night, we are all eager to check it out today.  On the agenda - a cartoon museum we passed on our walk to dinner last night -
and promised to revisit today when it was open, a visit to Mt.Washington, which boasts spectacular views of the city, shopping on/at (?) "the strip," and perusing the exhibits in the Warhol museum.

That's all for now - time to explore Pittsburgh!