Category Archives: Activities

Things we have done during our travels.

Our Two Weeks in San Diego

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Thursday, September 11 — On Thursday, August 27, we left Kosmos at 0400, drove to the car rental center, returned the car and caught the shuttle to the airport. We made it to the airport in plenty of time to clear security and make it to the gate in time to board our 0700 flight. We flew Southwest and had been assigned an early B number for boarding, so we were excited about getting good seats. However, we found out we were flying with the Annapolis water polo team, who took up probably half the seats. When it came time to board, they called active military for early boarding. The team lined up. When we boarded, we managed to snag the very last block of three seats together, in the very last row. Here was a shot of Baltimore from the plane.

Our time in San Diego was busy. Eric and Christi primarily focused on getting life chores done. Christi also spent a lot of time working on her land life project. While we didn’t get to see nearly as many people as we would have preferred, at least we were able to see some loved ones. We also visited a couple of museums and went out to eat several times.

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The Museum of Industry in Baltimore, Maryland — Part 3

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continuing on in the transportation section… in 1935, Chevrolet opened a manufacturing plant south of Baltimore that produced more than 12-million vehicles during its 70+ years of operation. It closed in 2005.

There was a small display on a tire manufacturer. In 1921, Frank Schenuit patented a non-skid, pneumatic rubber tire that he began to manufacture through contractors. In 1925, he opened his own factory in Baltimore, employing 300 people and producing up to 1,000 tires per day. He expanded to airplane tires and niche specialty tires, such as for wheelbarrows. Schenuit sold the company in 1972, and in 1975, the new owner shut the plant down.

Some of th equipment needed to run power plants and transmit energy back in the early days of gas and electricity.
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The Museum of Industry in Baltimore, Maryland — Part 2

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continued…

Next we went into another large room that was set up to look like a clothing manufacturing facility. Baltimore was also a hub for clothing manufacturing. Our tour guide showed us the revolutionary technology of the era that made mass-produced clothing possible — a device that simultaneously cut many pieces of cloth stacked together instead of cutting one piece at a time. Coupled with an assembly line sewing process, where each woman on the line sewed a particular piece of the garment and then passed it on to another who would sew her particular piece, ready-to-wear clothes could be quickly produced. The machines were loud and deafness was a problem for the workers.

Next we went to a section that was designed to look like a belt-driven machine shop from 1910. Baltimore had also once been a hub for fabricating parts and tools for various industries. Most of the machines were connected via belt to a rod that ran along the ceiling. The rod rotated, moving the belt and powering the machine. The rod was rotated by a steam engine in the corner.

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The Museum of Industry in Baltimore, Maryland — Part 1

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Wednesday, August 26 — We spent the morning getting ready for our trip to San Diego. By the early afternoon, we were feeling like everything was as ready as could be. We decided to go to the Museum of Industry, which focused specifically on the manufacturing industries of Baltimore that “modernized the nation.”

We drove through downtown to the south side of the peninsula that made up the inner harbor. The museum was on the waterfront in a building that was clearly a refurbished old industrial building. Parking was free in the attached lot.

Tickets were $15 for adults and $8 for children 6 – 17. The receptionist told us a free guided tour was about to begin highlighting the black people who were significant in Baltimore’s history. We generally enjoy guided tours, so we signed up.

We waited in a small movie theater near the entrance that was showing a film about Linotype machines, which was the most revolutionary change to printing since Gutenberg invented the printing press circa 1440. The machine was invented in Baltimore by a German immigrant between 1882 and 1884. Instead of setting each individual letter by hand, one could type a single line of text and the machine 3-D printed the line from molten lead. The lines were then hand set into the printing press. The discarded lines of tin were reinserted into the machine for melting. The Linotype was rendered obsolete by laser printers.

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The Washington Memorial in Baltimore, MD

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Tuesday, August 25 — We were heading back to San Diego soon, so we spent the morning and early afternoon doing chores and getting things ready to go. Keith also continued tightening screws around the boat. Eric ran the engines.

In the mid-afternoon, we wanted to go out, but nothing sounded good. There were still a few museums on the “to do” list, but none of us felt like going to a museum. We finally agreed on the Washington Memorial solely because we wanted to walk around, and we liked the idea of seeing the historic “wealthy” part of town. When we arrived, we were kind of surprised to see the Washington Memorial was in a roundabout in the middle of an intersection.

We found street parking easily just south of the monument. Here the meter was only $2.50 per hour, also with a four-hour limit. Each of the four streets feeding into the intersection had a park in their median. The monument plus the four parks together was called Mt. Vernon Place. Here were some shots of the park that we walked through on our approach to the monument.

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