Maryland, day one

In some states, it is very easy to visit all of the National Park sites located in that state because there are only one or two. For example, Iowa only has two (done), and Vermont and New Hampshire each only have one (done). We've been to eleven of the sites located in Pennsylvania. In addition to eventually visiting all of the sites in our home state, I'm hoping that we can eventually visit all of the National Park sites in Maryland, Ohio (we're almost done), Virginia, and all but one in New York. Prior to today, the National Park Service sites we had visited in Maryland included Antietam, Catoctin, C&O Canal, and Fort McHenry. I have wanted to see the wild ponies at Assateague/Chincoteague Island since I was a child. Several months ago I made plans for us to spend a three-day weekend in Maryland to visit some of the National Park sites in this state. 

Our first stop today was the Hampton National Historic Site, which features a very large 18th-century mansion. It is located north of Baltimore. Today was a very rainy day with highs in the 50s in contrast to seven days ago when it was in the 80s and sunny. Originally, I planned for our second stop to be the zoo in Baltimore and our third stop to be the museum at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Because of the weather, I changed our plans. Our second stop ended up being the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park. We had dinner in Salisbury instead of Annapolis and arrived at our hotel in Ocean City a couple of hours earlier than originally planned. The kids had done a Junior Ranger badge for the Harriet Tubman park through the mail in 2019, but it turned out they had two different booklets. The completion of one earns someone the badge they already received so they each completed the other booklet which earned them each a patch. They each also earned a badge at our first stop. As of today, we've been to 109 different National Park sites so far, and the kids have each earned between 166-173 badges/patches. The weather is supposed to be better at Assateague tomorrow, for which I'm very grateful as we're planning to be on a kayaking tour.