If you have read any other part of my blog, you would know that I am trying to visit a National Park Service property in every state. I take road trips, and plan my itinerary based on which NPS properties are on the way. I had been on a solo road trip of the eastern states, and was going to go through Maryland, so I just picked an NPS property that I found on the nps.gov website. The one I picked was the Fort McHenry National Monument.

I felt a bit dumb when I got to this National Monument. This was the last day of my trip, and I wanted to get to a NPS property in Maryland before leaving from the Baltimore airport, and since this one is close, I chose it without thinking too much. I knew nothing about its history, and this late in the trip, I hadn’t done any research the night before.

This is where Francis Scott Key saw the flag flying over the fort on the morning after a battle in the War of 1812!! This was THE place where the Star-Spangled Banner was written about. It was very cool!

As usual, I went to the Visitor Center first, and watched the movie. The visitor center had a pretty typical movie about the grounds, but it wasn't in its own theater - it was part of the museum, then, when the movie was just about over, as the Star-Spangled Banner was being played in the movie, the screen rolled up to expose big windows that overlooked the fort, with the flag flying overhead - very nice touch!

The Visitor Center also housed a nice museum talking about the War of 1812, the battle that took place at this spot, and other information about the flag. I went out and visited the fort, which was just a short stroll from the visitor center. It was cool to walk around through all the different rooms and imagine how it looked during the battle.

I’m so glad I stopped here and learned a bit more about the history of our nation!

#Maryland