Don’t worry, fine readers, the adventures of Pat and Ian Go To Various Maryland Historic Sites continues. Today we went to Fort Washington. Fort Washington is located on the Potomac River a little south of DC. It was built in 1809 and designed to protect DC from anybody who might want to invade, or whatever. Like that would ever happen. I had never heard of the place until I was looking for National Parks to go visit with all of my unemployment time.

Ian and I set off on a bright Wednesday morning and arrived a little before lunchtime. We very nearly had the place to ourselves; I only spotted one couple walking around and a dude playing some one-on-zero basketball the whole time we were there. Our first stop was the visitor’s center, where the Park Ranger just seemed excited to have someone to talk to. When I first looked up this park, I was expecting something very similar to Fort McHenry. Both of the forts were built at about the same time and have similar(ish) histories. The big difference, though, is that people care about Fort McHenry due to that whole star-spangled banner thing, and I had never heard of Fort Washington before. Consequently, Fort Washington does not seem as well funded.

The visitor’s center has a small but well-done display of the fort’s history and some artifacts from the site. Like I said, the fort was built in 1809 but in a harbinger of things to come was under-funded, under-gunned, and under-manned. When, in the War of 1812, the British did sail up the Potomac, the commander decided his best course of action was to blow up the fort and skedaddle. After the war, the place was rebuilt, and, not wanting to be embarrassed again, the Army built it way better. As our very knowledgeable Park Ranger explained to us, the Confederates were very familiar with the fort’s capabilities and never made an attack, saving Washington but relegating the fort to a somewhat forgotten history.

First off though, the whole place is pretty nice for what they’ve got. The fort itself is a small part of a very large park complex. We drove through most of it and it looks like an excellent place for picnics and the like. From the visitor’s center, the fort is accessed via a short path down a hill and across a wooden bridge. The bridge is a replacement for a drawbridge that used to be there, which must have been awesome in 1840. Despite a lack of drawbridge, the fort itself is still very impressive. It is built on a bluff overlooking the Potomac with hugely large walls constructed of imposing masonry. Inside the walls, we had pretty much free reign of the place. The two barracks buildings inside the fort’s courtyard were locked but on days when they have more rangers around one of them contains a display.

We started out looking into every single one of the fort’s many storerooms. One of them contains some bunks, for some reason, but none of the rest of them that are accessible contain anything. We checked. Ian was excited that the ranger later confirmed that the decaying wooden doors on them are in fact 1840s-era, so that was cool I guess. Up on top of the walls, however, the views were much nicer. Almost all of the cannons from Fort Washington have been removed, I’m sure to serve as decorative fodder for other places, and so you have a clear path to traverse all the various ramparts. Ian has made it a habit now to walk as much rampart as possible whenever we’re at a fort, so we took in the stunning views from every angle possible. Fort Washington has gorgeous panoramas of the Potomac. Looking up-river, you can make out the Washington Monument (we sure really liked that guy). Looking any which-way, you can watch sailboats and river cruisers lazily go by.

Fort Washington these days is also a nature park, and after we were done with the fort we took a stroll down the creatively named River Trail. Signs warned us to report any suspicious animal activity, so I made sure to keep an eye out for any suicide bomber raccoons. I think the most significant nature we saw were some geese paddling around in the river, which I guess might be slightly suspicious. We hiked down the River Trail for a little while, admiring the trees and quiet, and then eventually turned around. Fort Washington was a very nice place to visit and we managed to cover most of the highlights in about two hours. I walked away from the place thinking it was pretty under-loved. Take a visit and learn some history and give the Park Rangers something to do. They seemed like they could use the company.

The latest and greatest entry in my ongoing series “Pat and Ian Go Places When Ian Has the Day Off and Pat Continues to Be Unemployed” is our recent trip to the historic St. Mary’s City. I should get a job. Before that happens though, a brief intro to Maryland history.

The history of Maryland is long (for the US, anyways) and filled with exciting episodes like that one time we had a war with Pennsylvania, that other time people actually fought over the Severn, and a more awkward than most relationship with slavery. The story opens, however, with the founding of the colony that would become the greatest state in the union at St. Mary’s City on the northern shore of the St. Mary’s river. It’s a pretty standard colonial origin story, with dashes of escaping religious persecution, befriending the natives, and important things happening under trees. After about 70 years the capital was moved up to Annapolis and St. Mary’s was abandoned. Fast forward an additional three hundred or so years, and the city has become a major archaeological site you can visit on sunny days in May.

We headed out for our 2.5 hour drive around ten thirty and stopped for lunch on the way at Smokey Joe’s BBQ. We parked at St. Mary’s City visitor’s center to pay our entry fee and look at the artifacts they have on display. St. Mary’s City is apparently an archaeological training ground, so the city is pretty well documented as far as these places go. The visitor’s center gives a pretty efficient run-down of the history of the city. Artifacts on display include an old saker, which is apparently a type of cannon, a variety of pottery shards from the local tavern, and some examples of jewelry and sewing needles and the like. The rest of the city is explored via walking trails. “City” is a bit of a generous term in the modern sense and the whole place is about a mile from end to end.

The first area is a recreated Native American village. The nascent St. Maryites spent their first winter living in part of a Yaocomico village they purchased after some negotiations. Relations with the natives were reportedly very friendly, which is nice for a change of colonial pace. This portion of the city features prototypical huts with various implements on display within them. A very nice man in a polo shirt was explaining some of the finer points of native construction techniques, but Ian was too preoccupied with some of the other huts to let me listen very long. Also on display is a half-finished canoe, but filled with rainwater it looked more to me like someone should be looking for a convenient soap mine.

Next up on the path is a reconstructed Jesuit church. Throughout the city are faithful as possible recreations of the original structures. Some, like the church, were built with as original as possible construction techniques and materials, while others are a little less faithful but the discrepancies are noted. Also dotting the site are “ghost houses,” which are wooden frames of buildings as stand-ins for the originals to give you a sense of the density of the place. The church is fairly impressive, with one of the highlights being a glass section of the floor where you can look down and see the original lead coffins of Philip Calvert (the second Lord Baltimore’s brother), his wife Anne, and an unknown child, presumed to be from Phil’s second wife. They were returned to approximately their original locations (the modern reconstructed church is over the site of the historic one) after about 25 years of study and storage. In my old age I am sort of increasingly weirded out by putting dead people on display. I might be the crazy one. The coffins look nice though I guess?

Another highlight of the city is the oldest barn in Maryland. The sign for the barn is titled “Why is this Barn Here?” which is a little philosophical for my tastes but I’ll let it slide. The inside of the barn features displays about barn construction techniques and the details of tobacco packaging & shipping. As a proud Marylander, I am of course very familiar with tobacco farming, with tobacco farms being a standard for Elementary School field trips. At any rate this particular barn dates from 1785, putting it well within the farmland years of St. Mary’s City, but very historic nonetheless.

Walking north from the church brings you to downtown or our bustling historic metropolis. This are includes the most intricate display they have, with a large building representing Garrett Van Sweringen’s Council Chamber Inn. It was purportedly quite the posh place back in the day. You know it was nice because they have a sign denoting the fact that they found a large number of crab remains on the site, proving that Marylanders have been enjoying crab feasts from the start. Also on the back of the property is a coffee & brew house, and I mean with all these features in one spot why did they ever bother to go to Annapolis? This portion of the city also features the town store where you can look at old shoes and axe heads, as well as tour guides in period garb. These were my favorite kind of tour guides in period garb, where they don’t try to make you think you’ve somehow been transported back to 1650, and instead just tell you about whatever they got going while wearing some sweet duds.

They very pièce de résistance of the whole place (for Ian and I, anyway) is a recreated Dove. Although the colonists and their supplies were transported to the city on another ship, the 400-ton Ark, the colonists also brought over the Dove to give them some metaphorical wheels once the Ark departed. The modern Dove is a best-guess at what the original looked like, as the guides for the ship explain ad nauseum. It clocks in at 40 tons and strikes me as a pretty sturdy little ship, although the original was lost at sea on a trading voyage not too long after the colonists settled in. Although we didn’t get to see it when we were there, the Dove goes sailing about once a month to keep the crew exercised and trained.

The endpoint of the walking tour is another recreated building, Maryland’s first state house. The original state house was torn down after the city was abandoned, but the bricks were used to construct the Trinity Church which still stands next door, giving a tangible tie to the past, or whatever sounds poetic here. You can explore the statehouse, which is one of those large cool buildings, designed for hot summers before they invented air conditioning. Along with the church there is of course a graveyard, featuring some more old dead people, though not quite as old (but still as dead) as the lead coffins from earlier. In the graveyard is a marker declaring the position of the old mulberry tree where the colonists gathered to establish their city. Upon reaching this marker and reading the inscription, Ian declared that we were “done” with the city, and with that we turned around for the walk back to the car.

St. Mary’s City was a very nice place to visit. The weather was beautiful and those colonists really knew how to pick scenic riverside real estate. The displays and signs were very well done, and it is evident that the location is well cherished and cared for by the similarly named university next door. I think most people that visit Maryland will wind up in Baltimore or Annapolis, but down southern Maryland is really the state’s agricultural homeland and it is worth the trip.

This past weekend (as I’m writing this, anyway) we went to the Southern Maryland Celtic Festival. “We” was my dad, my brother, and me. My family are avowed Renaissance Festival and Celtic Festival enthusiasts. We knitted an entire chainmail hauberk once. Dad regularly wears a great kilt at every opportunity. My brother just earned a degree in Irish Studies from the University of Dublin. All that to say is that whenever a Celtic festival is to be had, we tend to be at it.

We arrived in time for the opening ceremonies. These were a sight to see. They started with a march-on of all the clans and historic reenactors. This translated into a long line of slightly bedraggled-looking people in period or modern garments walking around a field. They approached their task with enthusiasm, and my favorite were three men dressed for the Anglo-Zulu War (as far as I could tell). Since it was a Celtic festival, they were dressed as one of the Highland regiments, which translated into one fat dude in a skirt, one old dude in plaid pants, and a third dude with a mustache and spats.

After the march-on of the clans came the bagpipes. I am a fan of bagpipe music; I own several bagpipe albums. So it is with much sincerity when I say that I love the part of every tattoo or Celtic festival where they bring all the pipe bands out at once and they all play together. It has some terribly romantic name that escapes me right now, but the notion is basically “alright, instead of stringing this out, let’s just put all the bagpipes together and get this over with.” The Naval Academy’s Pipes & Drums were playing there that day, so that was nice to see.

With all that done, it was time for lunch. I, of course, had the haggis and fries. Haggis is delicious, it turns out, with Old Bay on it, though that really should have been obvious in the first place. The other wonderful part of Celtic festivals, besides being able to get haggis, is that you can drink IRN-BRU. IRN-BRU is phenomenal, as the ads will tell you. This drink is magical. It is not, as the bottle will tell you, a significant source of iron. Since it is a soda, it is also not a significant source of bru, so I have no idea why they call it IRN-BRU. But when you open it up and take a whiff, it smells like pink bubble gum. When you drink it the flavor is orange cinnamon. I don’t know how they do it. I first drank IRN-BRU in Scotland and loved it, but it is nearly impossible to get in the States, so it is a treat at Celtic festivals. You got to get it.

The real excitement at the festival, however, is the Highland games. I love the concept of these games, which very clearly is “we’re big burly dudes, let’s get together and throw things.” Caber tossing is of course the flashiest of the events. This is the one with the log. For years I had enjoyed watching caber tossing, and then one day one of my friends asked me how it was scored. I had no idea; I was just there to watch people throw logs end-over-end. Lately I’ve become more a fan of the sheaf tossing and weight over the bar (a name which demonstrates the extent of creativity in these events). Sheaf tossing (where they take a hay-filled sack and use a pitchfork to toss it over a bar) just seems downright silly to me, even among the Highland games. Weight over the bar has the same appeal as pole jumping at a track meet: exciting to watch and easy to judge.

The exciting competition at the Southern Maryland Celtic Festival this year was the hammer toss. Standing out from the pack in the lightweight division (under 200 pounds, “lightweight” being relative here) were two athletes, one German and one American. They were head to head throughout the day and at the end of it all it the hammer throw and the whole competition was down to the final two tosses. Our German friend stepped up and in two swings around the head managed to lob the 22 pound hammer 76′ and set the day’s record so far. Our stateside friend, dressed in a Captain America shirt (and kilt), stepped up to the bar and picked up the hammer. He swung it once around his head, twice, and then on the third time the hammer head swung off and nearly annihilated a small dog in the crowd (no animals were harmed in the making of this blog post, except for the haggis). This lead to some panic on the court but eventually it was decided that the hammer would be replaced and only the American would throw again. Usually, the announcer told us, if a hammer breaks the entire round is scrubbed. But the American picked up the hammer, put all his might into it, and only managed to lob it 73′. So the Highland games went to a German. Aw well.

Unfortunately for Scottish-American pride but fortunately for our tired feet, that wrapped up the day and we headed off. Without a scrap of self-consciousness dad took us all into Applebee’s for dinner wearing his kilt. They didn’t serve haggis. But if you’re ever in southern Maryland in April, take a swing by the Southern Maryland Celtic Festival. Come for the IRN-BRU, stay for the hammer throw.

Today my brother and I both had the day off (he had the day off, I’m unemployed) so we decided to go to Fort McHenry. Fort McHenry is famous as the target of all those rockets and bombs and red glare in the Star Spangled Banner. Despite living all of 10 miles away, before today neither of us had visited before.

The day was running a bit haze gray when the brother and I pulled up to the visitor’s center. The park part of the park is free, but inside the visitor’s center you pay $10 per adult to visit the actual fort. We arrived just in time to catch movie relaying the story of Francis Scott Key writing the Star Spangled Banner. The story, of course, begins with that whole War of 1812 thing. Ole’ Francis comes in when he sails down the Chesapeake to free his buddy, who was being held as a POW. Picking up your friend from jail after a wild night out was a lot harder back in the day. The British fed Francis dinner but kept him overnight, where he had a somewhat safer view of the bombardment than the denizens of the fort itself. Without much else to do, he penned a few lines and also managed to get his friend out of hock.

The video ends with the screen rising up to the ceiling, revealing a view of the fort. The rest of the museum is pretty nice, with a wide variety of cannonballs dredged up from the river and other artifacts that weren’t dredged up from a river. It provides a pretty good context for the War of 1812 and the significance of Fort McHenry in fending off the British attack on Baltimore. Afterwards it struck me that if Battle: LA had been set in Baltimore it would have been a way different movie. But while the visitor’s center is nice, the real attraction is, of course, the fort itself.

The fort is, as forts are wont to do, at the end of a peninsula with a commanding view of Baltimore harbor. From the displays I learned that the fort and surrounding land had a century and a half-long history; it was built in 1800 and used until after WWII. These days, however, the grounds are largely just park. The only structures remaining are the visitor’s center, a Civil War powder magazine, and the fort itself. I always forget that historic forts tended to keep on being forts after whatever historic event happened there, so reading about the long history of the fort in the various displays was fairly informative. The star-shaped structure as it stands was preserved during the New Deal, when the brick pathways were added and structures restored.

The fort is not too big and can be thoroughly explored in an hour or two. We started off by tromping over (o’er) every available rampart and checking out the Civil War-era cannon installed around the perimeter. I was particularly proud of myself for identifying the cannon that dot the fort as Civil War-era before I read any of the plaques; quite the cannon aficionado over here. But around the fort you can duck a little ways into some storage facilities built into the walls and it’s easy to see the place was very well built and would have been very defensible. By this time the sun had started to come out and burn off the fog, so we got a great view of the harbor extending out into the Chesapeake. Inside the fort there are three different barracks buildings that contain the bulk of displays concerning the post-1812 history of Fort McHenry. These were interesting and well-done. They also have wood from the original flag pole that supported the eponymous Star-Spangled Banner, which is cool I guess.

The fort (very) thoroughly explored, my brother and I explored the rest of the grounds by walking the path that hugs the seawall. Dogs, joggers, and jogging dogs were out en masse enjoying the now lovely day and beautiful views. The other things to admire on the grounds were the powder magazine I mentioned and a rather large statue of Orpheus (hero of music & poetry). Our circumnavigation complete we stopped back by the gift shop to pick up a lapel pin and headed out. All in all it was a lovely day and if find yourself with an afternoon to kill in Baltimore I recommend a visit.