some pics from my trip!

Ok, as promised.... some pics from my trip to Baltimore/D.C.

I was in Baltimore to assist my dad (DOC), on a passivation project. In Mickey Mouse terms this is basically taking a rouge covered (rust) tank or pipe and restoring it back to it's original state through a chemical process. Of course it is more complicated than that - but now you know! In the top pic you see some of the equipment and pallets of chemicals that we were going to be using. There are also some pics of the tanks we were going to be working on and even a pic of what the lid of one of those tanks looked like before we started. Do you like my purple LSU gloves? Doc brought those for me!! (Oh - we call him DOC because he is the chemist and has a PhD - and it's fun!). The blue skid is one of the systems we were working on and in this pic it has all of our hoses hooked up and ready to begin!

The facility that we were at backs up to the Ravens' stadium... this made AA happy as she is a huge Ravens fan!! Do you see the pic with the dirty water? The process we use is done in 3 different stages. That pic was taken after stage 2 was done "cooking", and we were draining the tank of the rouge... pretty yummy huh? My sisters and I had fun mixing chemicals and when DOC would let us we'd take a lunch break, or snack break, or any break that he'd let us have!! Ash and I found the California Tortilla one day and it was SUPER TASTY!!! Wish they had one in Utah!

On another day, Doc gave us a few hours to get out of the window-less building and go see some things. We'd been working 14-16 hour days and we were tired, we hadn't seen anything other than the dark sky at 6am, the hotel, the facility, and the dark sky at 11pm when we would get back to the hotel! So the few daylight hours of leisurely time was a real treat! We grabbed the GPS (which we affectionately called JACK) and went to see the Cathedral (Oldest in America) complete with catacombs and a crypt, Edgar Allen Poe's home, and grave, the baseball fields and more!! Oh and do you see the flowers? Those were sent to my hotel room by my sweet family - yeah, I know - they are good to me!

some more things we saw on our get-a-way.... DICK's restaurant, they had a funny man outside! The old Power Company - built in 1903 and now hoses the Hard Rock Cafe, Barnes And Nobel and many places to eat! The USS TORSK... from WWII, responsible for sinking some Japanese vessels, and more!!

We were able to finish up the job a day early so we took Thursday to go to D.C. - a mere 40 minutes away. We left the hotel at 6am and our first stop was the Washington D.C. temple. They had it adorned in Christmas lights and with the sun just coming up when we got there it was simply beautiful! DOC paused for a quick pic before we all went inside to do a session - it was a great start to the day.

So there you have it (well, part of it)! I will post more pics from D.C. soon... but I must get going for now and work on this wedding cake that I have due tomorrow!!