Knock Knock

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Who's there? Orange. Orange who? Orange you glad you took the train back north today? Yes, yes I am. Orange was the color of the day today. Unlike our trip up here 2 Fridays ago, today the leaves had turned orange. Not much red or yellow but loads of different shades of orange. Not photos for sure as the windows were dirty.

We had a good start for the trip. It was dry until we got off the train in Baltimore. It was warm. Today was first Friday. We shared a half dozen chocolate glazed Krispy Kremes this morning. Amtrak's Silver Star was on time leaving Raleigh but an hour late arriving in Baltimore. Silver Star is a much nicer train than last time's Carolinian. Clay thinks the train cars are bigger. Maybe. The seats are. They also have leg rests and foot rests unlike the Carolinian. According to Amtrak, Silver Star is the only overnight train without a dining car. It was probably more pleasant than flying. It was definitely cheaper. We paid $116 for both us in reserved coach seats. We checked one large bag each with no problems. We dropped them off in Raleigh with no wait and waited less than a few minutes to get them back again in Baltimore. Good news.

We had missteps with Uber both in Raleigh and Baltimore. Raleigh's driver tried repeatedly to follow his GPS directions to the now demolished old Amtrak station. Baltimore's drove for a half hour in end of work day Friday gridlocked traffic after we pointed out he'd just drive by the Fairfield Inn Inner Harbor at 101 S. President St. Bonus was we saw where we need to find the Independence tomorrow morning on the waterfront by the National Aquarium. The Fairfield Inn should be about 4-6 blocks away from the pier. Hard to say as we were circling in heavy traffic and rain. Tomorrow we'll see if we walk there or not depending on weather. We can board between 10:30am and 12:30pm for 1:30pm sailing. Our prepaid rate here is $146.69. We are in the back tower building so it is quiet. We are on the 5th and top floor. The room is adequate with a queen bed, a coffee maker and an ice bucket. No fridge. It is not a big room or bathroom. Single sink, shower over tub. It is clean and new looking. The location is the best feature probably. We are right on the edge of Baltimore's Little Italy. So, Italian food tonight. We looked through several menus of places in walking distance that we found on Google Maps. There were many more here on the ground. We chose Germano's. It was good. Clay's porchetta was not as described on the menu, no sausage. We stopped at Vaccaro's for dessert. Clay got Baci gelato and liked it. We bought 2 cookies at $1.80 each that were a huge disappointment. Bonus was finding ourselves outside the Star Spangled Banner House on our way! Who knew?

That's it for today. If Clay has any photos to share, he'll post a link here.

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