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	Baltimore's Inner Harbor is a fun place. This a cappella group was performing at the Harborplace when we arrived. They were more picturesque than melodious.
	There was a place renting out dragon paddleboats. They look great in swarms. (What's the collective noun for dragons?)
	All docked up, early the next morning. At left, my mother and sister. In the background, the incomparable Baltimore Aquarium, with its top-floor rainforest and seahorse-exhibit advertisement visible.
	I love the Baltimore Aquarium. I even love these bubble pillars at the entrance.
	The special exhibition was of seahorses, pipefish, and seadragons. The highlight was the leafy seadragons.
	These things look and move like kelp. It's incredible what evolution will do.
	Weedy seadragons are a bit less interesting.
	The top floor of the aquarium, as I mentioned, is a rainforest. You've got all sorts of birds and poison-arrow frogs and sloths and whatnot just wandering around. And as you're meandering down the path, looking at the sights here and there, the one thing you keep hearing is this unbelievably loud bird call at regular intervals. It's the screaming piha, this little nondescript bird that sits innocently on its branch for a moment, then opens its mouth wider than it itself is, and, bellowing with a pair of lungs nearly twice its own size, emits a deafening cry whose recoil pushes its head back into its body and makes the whole rainforest ring. This movie doesn't do it justice.
	Another view of the screaming piha in action, from below. The head motion was clearer in real life at this angle; maybe not in these movies. You'll need to turn your head sideways, sorry.
	My favorite fish are lookdowns. They swim too quickly to get a good still image in dim light with this camera.
	So do other fish.
	Later that day we went to the American Dime Museum, a reconstruction of the kind of traveling sideshow/dime museum once so common in this nation's history. It was, as they say, a stitch. The right-hand poster gives an idea of the kind of exhibits they had. As the left-hand poster trumpets, they did indeed have a giant bat, of the advertised size and qualities, well worth seeing. Click here to see it.
	The children's museum in Baltimore is called Port Discovery. But when we first drove by, this is all I saw at first glance.
	My sister found a pirate hat in its gift shop. She has this to comment.
	Our last day was spent at the Ladew Topiary Gardens, fortyish minutes outside the city. I'm fascinated by topiary. Below are a few highlights of the garden; more in the "More photos" link at the bottom.
	Ladew apparently devoted his whole life to fox hunting, polo, and planning his garden. Sometimes these interests came together.
	That arrow does in fact come out the other side.
	This, and the hat, in honor of Winston Churchill.
	A bush taking its bush for a walk.
	Without a hat covering her eyes, Erica looks like this.
	This is the crappiest 'secret room' ever. It was not only in plain view but also carefully marked on the map. No purloined letter, this one.
	Many unfortunate mishaps resulted from the accidental exchange of the ends of the first two lines of this proverb.

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