Saturday turned out to be a free day and Marjorie and I took full advantage of it. We started out with a walk along Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. The weather was terrific and lots of folks were out and about. During our walk along the harbor, we saw a fascinating parade of bikes. The riders were quite lively and were all dressed in costume. I captured a few of them as they rode by. It made our walk that much more interesting and fun. I believe (they were riding by as they explained) that it was the Kinetic Sculpture Race, a fundraising event for the American Visionary Art Museum. I thought you might enjoy seeing a few of the participants:
Though we ambled a bit, our walk had a destination. We were headed to Zion Lutheran Church (more about that in a minute) for a Mayfest celebration. However, as we followed the GPS on Marjorie’s phone, we walked a bit out of the way. Once we got going in the right direction again, thanks to a Harley riding officer (gratuitous Harley plug, I know), we noticed that right across the street from where we were standing was the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture! Needless to say, we made a detour to check out the museum, and were glad we did. We learned quite a bit from the exhibits, for example that John W. Greene Jr., in 1941 established the first African-American owned airport in Maryland. The museum’s permanent exhibits,which are housed primarily on the 3rd floor, are divided into three areas; Artistic and Intellectual Journeys, Family and Community Stories and Labor that Built a Nation. We spent time going through each of them and very much enjoyed the many displays. Needless to say, my favorite area deal with labor and employment, but I was fascinated with an interactive quiz for “runaway slaves.” Museum visitors are invited to respond to a series of prompts, in the role of an escaped slave. I did not do very well, and we decided based on my performance, I would have been recaptured. It made us both think. We later learned that on the third Thursday of every month there is live music (jazz I think) with food and sometimes line dancing. 
On the way out we stopped at the restaurant on the first floor of the museum, and enjoyed a meal fit for the queens we are. We ordered catfish (Marjorie) and fried chicken (me) both accompanied with corn bread, greens and mac& cheese. The food was absolutely scrumptious and the proprietors could not have been nicer. If you go there be sure to stop in and treat yourself to a yummy meal.
After that we were on our way at last to Mayfest at Zion Lutheran. Well, I have to tell you that it was not a great experience. It was a lovely old church with a lot of history. Services are still conducted in German. As this was the object of our walk we were excited to finally arrive. We walked in, around and through the festival and were never welcomed. In fact we didn’t even get folks to make eye contact. We tried opening our printout of the festival and pointing at the spots highlighted on it, and that didn’t help either. So, we left. Disappointing (and a tad embarrassing as a Lutheran myself). 
We headed back, through a somewhat dicey area of town. At one point three rough, seemingly angry characters walked past. When I looked back, they were doing likewise. I told Marjorie about it; we got ready for a confrontation, but thankfully none occurred.
Our day ended quite pleasantly as we were able to visit, and have dinner a dear friend, Staci Walters Fujii, and her daughter (and my goddaughter) Blake Catherine. We had a great meal at (I know, like we needed to eat again, but we did). We ate at Phillip’s Seafood and our meals were all very good, and we had a terrific server named Cory (who had a great voice for radio–in fact he has been a DJ). It was the perfect way to close out a relaxing day.
Blake Catherine, Stacie, Me & Marjorie
Nancecy 