Baltimore Inner Harbor in September 1984

I found some pictures of my very first trip to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. It was in 1984 – a little over a year since we’d moved to the east coast. We were still living in Virginia so it was a day trip for us to see Baltimore. It’s hard to internalize that it was over 30 years ago!

It must have been a great day for being out on the water based on the number of boats. The rental paddle boats were simpler then that the ones that are there now.

The National Aquarium had been open for a few years (according to Wikipedia it opened in August 1981) and was expanded in the early 2000s – so this show what it was like before the expansion.

We were making a lot of day trips and exploring the Mid-Atlantic area back in the mid-80s. My husband was working on a post doc and we weren’t sure how low we would live in the Washington DC area --- but we ended up staying. Now we favor the natural areas over the urban attractions of museums and tours.

1973 Day Trip to Platt National Park

Ever heard of Platt National Park? It was around from 1906-1976 and is now part of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area. My husband and I took a day trip to the place in November of 1973 not realizing that the area was destined to lose it designation in just a few years. It was only a little over 2 hours each way from Dallas following I35 into Oklahoma and a popular park at the time we went. The closer we got, the more interesting the road cuts along the highway became.

In the park itself, the road dipped down into streams – that overflowed the road when it rained,

Water flowed over ledges,

Rocky hillsides had trees growing in every crevice,

Water thick with filamentous algae fed into the larger waterways,

Rocky cliffs supported trees at the top,

And most of the trees had already lost their leaves by November.

We hiked, had a picnic lunch and hiked some more. My husband experimented trying to capture water ripples and sprays in photographs. It was learning in slow motion compared to photography today since the film had to be developed before the results were known. Now we just play back the images on the camera….and learn immediately.