The Wire Tour

Martin checking the action at the "low rises"

Back in Baltimore again. The Caribbean cruise came to an end after 1 month at sea, well 21 days if you count the sea days themselves. I was kind of dreading it before we started out, but it is funny how fast the time goes by and it really was a good time. If you are interested in more of the science we did, check out the NOAA Science Blog where Tim Battista wrote a more in depth story on what we did. 

Nancy Foster heading back to shore in full moon light,
with a successful mission behind her

With my feet firmly planted on land again I had a pleasent suprise this week. My friend Martin Edvall came to visit from rather cold Sweden. You might ask yourself why on earth Martin would be interested in coming all the way to Baltimore (surely it can´t only be my great baking skills, and spring has not quite yet come into full forse here to help warm up his cold winter bones). But then you don't know that Martin has not only watched every episode of "The Wire" Season 1-5 once, he has done it twice. Also I lured him here with the promise of some great canoeing. I took half friday off and we set out to follow a google map guide on my phone of must see places from the Wire Series. We had a great day exploring the less fortunate side of this town, but it is quite apparent that part of the real Baltimore is in an even worse state then what the series shows.

the real Baltimore, blocks after blocks with uninhabited houses
just a few hundred meters from Johns Hopkins Medical Campus.
Its somewhat hard to believe that we are still in the US.

Marios Court. Possibly not a place to dwell at night, but today
there was not much going on except for some Swedish tourist action

On Saturday we packed the canoe and headed for Potomac. I forgot to tell Anna there was going to be some rapids. She got wet, and somewhat upset. But then we had a great day in the blasing spring sun. I promised her I would inform her a bit more precisely what it would be like next time I took her in an open canoe through class 2 rapids... No camera out so you will only get the before and after pictures. 

Martin Anna, Austin and Laura getting ready for a ride on the river

Anna taking over the steering on her first, hopefully not last,  journey in the canoe

Campfire, chilled white whine and freshly baked bread.
The Caribbean in all honor but I  almost prefere a warming spring sun.  

No, it is not the caribbean. But it brought me pleasure to see how cold Austin and Martin were...

Yes. Freezing. 

The Great Falls, only 20 km from downtown DC. Pretty awesome place.
No we did not canoe here (last 20 years 53 pp have died trying)

Thanks for a great time Martin! Now back to the DC commute and a big pile of work at my desk. With spring around the corner I think there will be some good canoeing and fishing in the weekends up a head to keep it real. It's nice to be back, believe it or not.