After the last game of the Scrabble Players Championship, Mark and I had a long walk around Baltimore. I had brought a list of sights made famous by John Waters or recommended by him. Our first destination was the Divine mural at 106 E Preston St., painted in 2018 by Gaia. It towers three storeys high yet unfortunately someone had splattered white paint on the lower right of it.
We then walked to the Parkway Theatre at 5 W North Ave. It’s an independent movie house Waters adores. We spent a good five hours walking, yet did get the bus back to see more of the city. We noticed a helicopter hovering over a certain point for a long time and wondered why. We noticed many police cars and an area shut off by police tape. Mark asked a curious spectator what was going on and apparently there had been an explosion in one of the buildings.
We had to walk quickly back to the hotel, since we had to catch a 5:20 train to Washington. My feet–especially my toes–were aching. I couldn’t wait to flop down into my train seat. While we were in the Marriott Inner Harbor to pick up our bags (so we didn’t have to walk around with them) we ran into Michael Fagen who had been playing Orry Swift in the Division One best-of-five final. I asked him how he did: and he was surprised to find out that we didn’t know, yet ecstatic to tell me that he had won the tournament. Congratulations to Michael!
We caught the train to Union Station then spent a long time deciding which SmarTrip subway pass to get. While we stood at the machines, two Scrabble players passed through the turnstiles, Jay Westreich and John Wilder. We caught the train to Dupont Circle where our hotel, the Churchill Hotel, was located. We had a long wait to check in, and I was hot, sweaty and exhausted so appreciated the cold lemon water in the lobby. Our room was spacious, complete with a wide-open entrance, a fainting couch and a personal office for Mark where he set up his laptop. We had pizza and beer at Andy’s Pizza Adams Morgan then went grocery shopping.