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A few years ago I made my first-ever visit to Historic London Town and Gardens mainly because I went during Maryland Day Weekend and they were offering $1 admission. I enjoyed myself a lot while I was there.
This year I decided to go once again during Maryland Day Weekend because London Town was offering free admission this time. I also thought that it would make an interesting episode in my ongoing web series The Baltimore-Washington, DC That Tourists Rarely See. It was just as nice as my last trip with only one bad thing: The weather was cold and cloudy that day. I managed to get this nice picture of a cherry blossom tree in full bloom.
Another downside is that I ended up spending only an hour and a half at the place. I arrived late mainly because there was construction on the closest road to the place so I had to drive further and take a further route to get there, which was a total pain. I managed to film what I wanted to film, which was okay. I uploaded my latest episode on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
You can also watch a playlist of previous episodes in my ongoing series below.
I’ve visited George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate a few times as a child. It was mostly when we had relatives visit from Ohio and my parents would take them there. I visited Mount Vernon once or twice as an adult but that was when I went with my then-husband.
I saw an ad on Facebook saying that there are only two days a year when Mount Vernon has free admission. One is on the Presidents’ Day holiday and the other is just a few days later on February 22, which is Washington’s birthday. Since the admission fee is now $30, there would be free admission on Presidents’ Day, and I was married the last time I went to Mount Vernon so I decided to spend the Presidents’ Day holiday there.
The good news was that I got to save $30 admission. The bad news was that so many other people had the same idea and that place was crowded the entire time I was there.
When I first arrived I saw a group of men put up a floral bouquet that was shaped like a Masonic symbol.
Here’s a fun fact: George Washington was a Freemason. In fact the George Washington Masonic National Memorial is located in nearby Alexandria.
I have to admit that the bouquet was pretty.
The first thing I did after I arrived was to go to the visitors center. There I was greeted with a giant bust of George Washington.
I checked out the gift shop where these George Washington dolls were on sale.
They also had George Washington-themed teddy bears on sale as well.
Th visitors center had a cafeteria where one could eat. I purchased an Italian meat sandwich (which included ham and pastrami), a bag of potato chips and a can of diet soda. The price wasn’t so bad considering the fact that I was in a popular tourist area. But I soon regretted my choice of lunch because I ended up spending more time in the restroom than actually touring the place.
Once my stomach started to settle I began to walk around outside where I found more indicators that George Washington once lived there.
I came across this really pretty stained glass window illustrating scenes from the life of George Washington.
I finally came upon the mansion itself.
The mansion was just as I remembered it from years ago.
Someone gave out timed tickets for touring the inside of the main house when I arrived in the area. I got the one for the tour that began at 3:40 p.m. I had an hour to kill so I sat outside and enjoyed the beautiful yet cold day.
I didn’t do as much walking as I would’ve liked. I grew physically tired. I began to curse myself for not bringing a cane with me because I could’ve withstood walking a bit more with some support. On top of that, there were a lot of people. Like I wrote earlier, Mount Vernon was crowded that day, which was a hassle. When I arrived at the line for the 3:40 p.m. tour one of the employees informed us that due to the large number of crowds, the tours were running behind schedule. The 3:40 tour wouldn’t begin until after 5 p.m. I wasn’t into waiting that long because the rest of Mount Vernon closed at 4 p.m. plus it was the time of the year when it was still nighttime by 5 p.m. Then there was the hassle of driving on unfamiliar roads at night and I decided to skip the house tour.
It’s been years since my last visit so there were things that I didn’t remember seeing before. One example was this museum that I didn’t recall seeing before. The museum itself had closed for the day (because I didn’t stumble upon it until after the 4 p.m. closing time). The entrance had this giant head of George Washington, which you can see below. What was really weird was that as you walked right by it, his face seemed to follow you.
I left Mount Vernon around 4:30 p.m. due to the crowds. It was great not paying the $30 admission but encountering crowds who were also taking advantage of the free day took some of the joy out of visiting Mount Vernon. On top of it, Mount Vernon has some lovely gardens but they tend to be dead in February because it was still winter.
There was another opportunity of visiting Mount Vernon for free on Washington’s birthday (February 22). Since it was on a workday there would’ve been fewer crowds. But the gardens still would’ve been dead. On top of it, the initial weather report had called for rain that day. The rain didn’t materialize on February 22 but it was cloudy and gloomy outside so I decided to just skip it.
Seeing all of these buildings have me thinking about visiting Mount Vernon again in April or May. I would have to pay $30 but the gardens would be lovier to look at. If I arrive early in the day, I could make a full day at Mount Vernon. If I actually go there again, I would go on a warm sunny day that’s not too hot. I could bring my own lunch (instead of eating another sandwich that gave me diarrhea on the day I went) and eat on a bench outside. On top of it, Mount Vernon closes at 5 p.m. from April through October.
I need to do more fun outings because I don’t know if I’ll get the opportunity if Donald Trump somehow manages to get reelected president and goes through with his threat of ruling as a dictator.
Back in December I got a jury duty summons for February, 2024. I was taken aback because I could’ve sworn that it hadn’t been that long ago since I last served on a jury. Where I live if you serve at least one day of jury duty, you are excused from further jury duty for three years. But then I remembered that I had written about the last time I served on jury duty in this blog and that entry showed that I wrote it in 2016. So it’s been eight years since the last time so I had to go. I was annoyed because, as that 2016 entry shows, I’ve gone on jury duty five previous times since 1998 and, with my latest summons, it’s the sixth time of jury duty for me.
So I showed up at 7:30 a.m. (which is when we had to show up) and, just like the other times, I sat in the jury lounge for a few hours while we waited to see what kind of cases were going to go on the docket. After a while one of the jury coordinators received word that one case may be heard in court on that day. I was among the names that were called and I was given a white card with a number on it. I would be known as “Juror 44.” The only thing I knew that it would be a criminal trial but I never learned what kind of crime it was. Then we waited some more.
Meanwhile the jury coordinators received word that another court case was on the docket but, since I was already assigned to a courtroom, I just sat back and watched other prospective jurors get their numbers, which were printed on green cards. There were other prospective jurors who waited for potential assignments to a courtroom but they never received an assignment because only two trials ended up being scheduled.
The jury coordinators told us that there are times when, after jury selection, a trial would be abruptly cancelled. It was usually because the defendant changed his/her plea from guilty to not guilty at the very last minute. I honestly thought that I would have to go inside of a courtroom, disclose to a judge that I was once a crime victim (my townhouse was broken into a number of years ago while my then-husband and I weren’t home and a laptop and VCR were stolen), get dismissed by either the judge or one of the attorneys, then return to the jury lounge. That has happened every other time I’ve served on jury duty.
But then something amazing happened. At the very last minute the defendant had changed his/her plea to guilty and that trial was cancelled. Since there was only one other trial scheduled that day and the jurors had already been chosen, we were free to leave. We were even told to keep our white numbered cards as souvenirs. I took a picture of the white card number 44 then recycled it because I had no other use for it and it’s not like it was something artistic or anything like that. (LOL!)
I had forgotten that the courthouse is a total maze and I ended up walking out the wrong door, which put me in front of the courthouse. Since it was a nice day outside and since I didn’t feel like going through a metal detector yet again in order to reenter, I decided to walk around the courthouse from the outside so I could catch the shuttle bus back to the parking lot where we jurors had to park our cars. I came across this interesting horse sculpture.
The saddle had a painting of an African American woman wearing equestrian headgear with the word “pioneer.” There was no mention of her name, which wasn’t good, especially since I was looking at that statue during Black History Month.
I looked at the other side of the statue and saw the same “pioneer” word along with a stylized painting of a woman embracing a horse on the saddle.
It wasn’t until I uploaded pictures of that statue on Facebook that one of my Facebook friends had identified her. The woman’s name was Cheryl White. A few days after I learned the woman’s identity there was this post that came into my Facebook newsfeed from the town of Upper Marlboro government and it had complete information about the statue and the artist. The horse statue is titled Jetolara and it was named after the horse that Cheryl White rode. Basically on June 15, 1971 Cheryl White became the first black female jockey in the United States at the age of 17. On September 2, 1971 Cheryl White rode the horse Jetolara to victory at a race in Waterford Park in Chester, West Virginia. Keiona Clark, the artist behind that statue, made this statement about her work:
“I wanted to honor her and create a spark, so that people understand Cheryl White’s contribution to American history as well as her legacy. Strong women and bright colors are my aesthetic, as I consider myself a strong woman and I feel that bright colors represent happiness and a celebration of life. I believe that public art should not only be visually appealing but should also inspire and educate; what better way to do that than to pay homage to a true PIONEER. Cheryl White (1953-2019)”
You can learn more about Keiona Clark’s art right here. As for Cheryl White, she has a Wikipedia page and apparently she had quite a career as an equestrian while being a trailblazer at the same time. I just only wished that someone had put up a sign that contains information about Cheryl White’s identity and why she was considered to be a pioneer so more people would be informed about her and her legacy.
As I continued with walking around the building I came upon this relief that was dedicated to Archbishop John Carroll, who was born on the site where the Prince George’s County Courthouse is now located.
The bottom base reads “Archbishop John Carroll. 1735-1815. Ardent patriot and champion of religious freedom. Born in Upper Marlborough (which is an older spelling of the town’s name) on this site. First Catholic bishop of the United States. Founder of Georgetown University.” If you want more information about his life and times, the Wikipedia is a good place to start.
I eventually made my way to the back of the building where the shuttle bus stop was located. I managed to take a couple of photos of the three horses statue before my shuttle bus arrived.
When I arrived back home the first thing I did was to recylce that white card with the number 44. The second thing I did was to file away my jury summons that has a stamp on it proving that I actually served on jury duty, which means that I won’t have to serve again for at least three years. I’m definitely holding on to that summons that is now a receipt because I remember when I last served in 2016 I received another summons just two months later. I had to photocopy my summons with the stamp from that jury duty session, put it in the mail, and I was excused.
With the number of times I’ve had to serve on jury duty in my life, I really can’t wait until I turn 70 because I can request that I get excused from jury duty based on my age. I have to say that it’s one of the rare times when I am actually looking forward to my 70th birthday. (LOL!) However I have many years to go before I reach that milestone. (LOL!)
In previous years (especially since my husband left) there were times when I went to Tysons Corner Center anywhere between 2-4 times a year. In 2023 I only went there once and it was on my birthday. It seems like ever since the Disney Store went out of business I feel less inclined to go there. Yes, there’s still the American Girl Place but that store is so expensive. They sell doll clothes that cost around the same price (if not higher, depending on the outfit) as what I would buy for myself at Target or Walmart. I’m just not into going into stores where the prices are too high for my taste because they are a total waste of time.
I still like going to American Girl Place to check out the dolls, it’s just that I don’t feel inclined to do so very often because most of their stuff is out of my price range.
So my birthday came around and I realized that I hadn’t set foot inside of Tysons Corner Center in 2023 so I decided to go there for my birthday before 2023 ends in 16 days.
I took the Silver Line Metro to Tysons Corner Center and took the pedestrian bridge to Metro Plaza (which is directly outside of the mall and is the closest location to the Metro station). They had these really cool Christmas/winter-themed sculptures that glistened in the sunlight.
They had this Christmas tree sculpture with a red sled inside (so anyone can sit in there and take selfies).
Here’s the red sled where one can sit in and take selfies.
And if those sculptures looked neat in the daytime, they looked even more amazing at night. I took these photos when I was leaving the mall and I was on my way back to the Metro station.
Inside of the mall they had these artsy customized athletic shoes on display, which were pretty cool.
The display said that more of these customized shoes were being displayed on the lower level near Barnes and Noble. Except I went to that area and I found no customized shoe display, which was a bummer. At least the two shoes I saw looked cool.
As a birthday treat for myself I purchased a hand-rolled ice cream from Sawadika Ice Cream. Seeing the worker make this is just as big of a treat as the ice cream itself.
Here is what my Oreo cookies and cream ice cream treat looked like after it was made but before I ate it.
After Sawadika Ice Cream I made my way to the American Girl Place, which had this Christmas Tree.
The first doll I got a look at in detail was this limited edition Shimmering Silver Holiday Collector Doll. It’s a collaboration with Swarovski so the doll has those expensive Swarovsi crystals in her jewelry and her outfit.
The doll came in this box that is printed to suggest something sparkly.
In some ways that doll reminded me of the elf queen Galadriel from movie trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, except this doll doesn’t have pointed ears.
I took a liking to that doll. In fact, I briefly felt tempted to buy her until I saw the $265 price tag. I know that most of the huge price is because of the Swarovski crystals but it’s still a pretty steep price for a doll that was originally created for young girls to play with.
They had a Hanukkah outfit with a little menorah that’s perfect for a doll. It was pretty cute.
Part of the reason why I wanted to get to the American Girl Place before 2023 ended is because I hadn’t had a chance to see the 2023 Girl of the Year in person. It turned out that there were three years of Girl of the Year dolls. I saw that the 2022 Girl of the Year, Corinne Tan, and her sister, Gwynn, were still on the store shelves.
I wrote about Corinne and Gwynn Tan last year so I’m going to move on to the 2023 Girl of the Year, whom I hadn’t seen until my birthday trip.
For the 2023 Girl of the Year they had an Indian-American girl named Kavi Sharma. She is described as being into songwriting, showtunes, dancing, and performing. She is very pretty.
I especially loved her traditional Indian outfit, which is currently sold separately.
I also loved her furniture and accessories. I found myself wishing that there were human-sized versions because I would love to have them in my own home.
That music note neon sculpture is to die for!
Kavi definitely has a sense of style that is quite unusual for a young girl between the ages of 8-11.
Kavi also honors her Indian heritage by practicing yoga.
Here is where the Girl of the Year gets really crazy. In the past American Girl would do this: First, the company would send a representative to the ABC show Good Morning America where that rep would announce on the air who the new Girl of the Year will be. Good Morning America would air that episode as close to New Year’s Day as possible. (The show itself airs Monday-Friday so if January 1 happens to fall on a Monday, the announcement would be made on the Friday episode.) On January 1 the new Girl of the Year would formally rollout at American Girl Place stores across the United States. (I went to such a New Year’s Day rollout once. It was in 2015, the year that Grace Thomas was the Girl of the Year, and I went to the Tysons Corner Center store.) Once the new Girl of the Year doll was given the formal rollout, the previous year’s Girl of the Year doll would be retired and both the doll and all of the line’s clothes and accessories would be removed from the store shelves.
In the last few years the previous year’s Girl of the Year dolls would remain on the shelves beyond her year and seeing Corinne and Gwyn Tan still remaining on the shelves after their year of 2022 ended was no exception.
But this year had a surprise I didn’t expect. I assumed that the 2024 Girl of the Year wouldn’t be formally rolled out until January 1 so she wouldn’t be on the store shelves yet. I was shocked to see that the 2024 Girl of the Year was already available for sale even though the new year hadn’t arrived yet.
Her name is Lila Monetti. She’s described as an Italian-American who lives in St. Paul, Minnesota and she’s into gymnastics. She is a cute doll.
There was a time when the area in the next picture would have a giant poster featuring who the current Girl of the Year was and would include some life-sized prop (such as a surfboard) where people can take selfies. After the COVID-19 pandemic began the store stopped having the life-sized props because they were trying to limit any chance of viral contact but they still stuck with giant poster featuring who the current Girl of the Year was. Since the American Girl Place now sells three year’s worth of Girl of the Year, I think someone probably said “Fuck it! Let’s just put up a generic ‘AG’ poster so we won’t have to change it each year since we now have multiple Girls of the Year on sale.”
Then there are the historical doll line. American Girl has finally ditched that BeForever name. I personally never liked it because it felt grammatically awkward and it just sounded dumb, especially when pronouncing it. In any case, American Girl decided to come out with two new historical dolls that would represent 1999-2000. That was Y2K, which had all of this crazy hysteria over the coming of the Y2K bug (which never happened because computer experts had worked around the clock to prevent anything disruptive from shutting down the world’s computers). But American Girl decided to come out with two dolls to educate its target audience of girls ages 8-12 about that time when people literally became paranoid and lost their minds over the Y2K bug.
American Girl thought that it would be a great idea to not come out with one doll but two dolls as well. They are supposed to be twins. American Girl decided to make them fraternal twins instead of identical (to reduce the chances that families would try to save money by buying only one doll and get their daughter to one day pretend that her doll is Nicki and the next day she would pretend that her doll is Isabel). They also decided to give the twins radically different personalities with different senses of clothing style. That way parents can spend at least $230 getting both twins. It’s a win—for American Girl.
So now let’s meet the twins. Isabel Hoffman prefers to dress as a preppy. (She definitely reminds me of Cher from the 1995 movie Clueless.)
Nicki Hoffman is a skateboard enthusiast and her dress style reminds me of a cross between Tony Hawk and the Seattle grunge music scene of the early 1990s.
Their vintage 1990s computer equipment brought back memories for me. I still remember having to connect to the Internet via a modem that was connected to a telephone line and it made this horrible screeching noise every time you logged on.
If American Girl hadn’t decided to have fraternal twins represent the 1990s, I probably would have bought one 1990s historical girl to go with Melody (representing the 1960s), Julie and Ivy (representing the 1970s, and Courtney (representing the 1990s). But I wasn’t into spending at least $230 to get both twins. I guess I could’ve just decided on one but I couldn’t decide which twin I wanted. They both appealed to me in different ways. I decided to solve the dilemma by giving these two dolls a hard pass.
The other thing I learned is that the historical dolls no longer come with paperback books that tells the full story of the characters. Instead each historical doll will only come with a paperback journal and if you want to get the complete story about the doll’s background, you would have to purchase the official book that’s sold separately. I thought about doing just that until I learned that the only copy of Nicki and Isabel’s official book comes in hardcover only and it costs $25.
While I would love to read their book just to see how American Girl handles the Y2K bug controversy, I wasn’t into paying $25 for a hardcover book. I’m just going to check that book out of the public library instead.
I briefly checked out Claudie Wells, the historical doll who’s supposed to represent the 1920s. They had a bakery just for Claudie. It’s a less fancy version of that French bakery that came out in 2015 when Grace Thomas was the Girl of the Year that cost a whopping $500.
Claudie’s bakery cost $295. It’s cheaper than Grace’s bakery was back in 2015 but it’s still way too pricey for me.
After I left American Girl Place I took a couple of photos of that fancy Santa’s Chalet area where Santa Claus was working.
I ate my birthday dinner at Wasabi, the Japanese place that serves sushi on a conveyor belt, just like this video that I shot back in 2011.
After dinner I purchased a bag of gummi bears from Lolli & Pops. I also walked around a few stores. I found this racy Christmas sweater from Spencer’s Gifts that had a winking Santa coming down the chimney saying “I Like to Go Down.”
As I was making my way back to the Metro station I found out that the Winter Lantern Festival was being held just across the street from the Metro station. If I hadn’t been so completely exhausted from walking around Tysons Corner Center, I would’ve gone there as well. But I was too tired. The lights from the Winter Lantern Festival made the whole area really stand out in the darkness.
Back in December, when I decided to go to Darnall’s Chance to check out the entries in the annual gingerbread house contest that is held before Christmas, I brought two of my Disney Nuimos with me—Rocket Raccoon and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Here’s a photo of them outside of Darnall’s Chance, where the brown building had been decorated to suggest that it’s a giant gingerbread house. It was so incredibly cute!
I shot a short video slideshow of the Disney Nuimos in front of some of the gingerbread house contest entries, which you can view on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Enjoy!
I went to three different holiday events on that day, starting with checking out the annual gingerbread contest entries at Darnall’s Chance House Museum in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. It’s been years since I last went to that annual contest. (I remember going one other time when I was still married and it was definitely before I started this blog in 2010. I didn’t bring a camera that time but I remember being impressed by the creativity.)
So this time I managed to bring my smartphone where I shot video footage of the entire place. I used it to create my latest episode of The Baltimore and Washington, DC That Tourists Rarely See. You can now view it on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
I also shot still photos as well. I thought it was cute that someone did the outside of the brown Darnall’s Chance house to make it look like a giant gingerbread house.
The Christmas tree they had on the main floor was incredibly gorgeous to look at.
I took photos of the contest entries. I really admired the creativity that went into making these unique gingerbread houses.
I also took a few shots of some of the permanent exhibits in the museum.
I had a very busy Saturday on November 4. I spent the morning attending a local holiday bazaar at a local Catholic church in Maryland while seeing some really gorgeous porcelain dolls, which I wrote about in yesterday’s post.
After that bazaar I went to Wendy’s where I ate one of those $5 biggie meals for lunch. Then I boarded the Metro for downtown Washington, DC.
I had learned through a Facebook ad that there was going to be a car show featuring Trabants, which are the cars that were manufactured in East Germany during the Cold War. I remember when the Berlin Wall fell and seeing television footage of East Germans traveling to West Germany in their Trabants. My then-husband and I went to see U2 when they were on their Zoo TV Tour and the band used Trabants as spotlights for the stage. It was such an amazing sight to see. A few years later my now-ex-husband and I visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland where they had some of the Trabants that U2 used during that tour on display. It was really cool to get an even closer look at the cars that we could get when we saw U2 perform at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC.
When I saw the Facebook ad, I decided to check out the Trabants in person one more time for old time’s sake. I’ll admit that I felt wistful going to a car show alone since I’m divorced now and my ex and I are no longer on speaking terms. In the old days he would’ve loved to see those cars in person. (I rarely see him in person these days. It’s just as well that I don’t. I’ve had friends tell me that he and the woman that he left me for both look miserable.)
So I went to the aforementioned holiday bazaar then stopped Wendy’s for lunch before boarding the Metro. What I didn’t know ahead of time is that there was this massive protest being held in downtown DC. It was a pro-Palestinian protest against the Israeli war in Gaza which is supposed to crush Hamas, the terrorists who committed those horrible acts in Israel on October 7 but, in reality, it seems like more unarmed Palestinian civilians are getting killed than Hamas terrorists. The disinformation on social media is so disorienting that it’s hard to know which reports are correct and which are pure propaganda with no basis in reality.
So I was on a crowded Metro car going to and from the car show. The Metro was just as crowded as weekday rush hour. I took just a couple snapshots of some of the people on the car.
Here are some photos of that march that I found in various tweets on Twitter/X the following day.
The Trabant car show was held outside of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC and it was definitely far less crowded than the protest march. When I first arrived I saw a German oompah band playing the theme from the James Bond movies. That performance was such a hoot that I managed to shoot the last minute or so of that performance. You can check it out yourself on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
I managed to get an even closer look at these Trabants than I did previously at the U2 concert and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. These cars do have a certain charm to them, even though my 2010 Toyota Yaris is probably sturdier and produces less exhaust smoke than a Trabant. I was surprised to learn that there are people in the Mid-Atlantic region who own these cars since they aren’t exactly a status symbol these days. Despite their cute and charming looks, I would not want to drive a Trabant around the Capital Beltway during rush hour.
I shot some footage of the cars as their owners started them then drove away. I made three short videos from the footage. Here are some links where you can view them.
Video 1: TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
Video 2: TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
Video 3: TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
The event took place outside of the International Spy Museum. I had never been to that museum before, even though I am a DC area resident. I went online using my phone to get a ticket to check the place out while I was there only to discover that Saturday ticket prices were $30 per person. Weekdays were slightly cheaper at $28 per person. I’ll admit that I’ve been spoiled by the free admissions to the Smithsonian and National Gallery of Art museums but those ticket prices to a privately-owned museums like the International Spy Museum are a bit high for me right now. Maybe if I ever get a decent paying job one day or if there is some kind of a special discount ticket sale, I’ll go to that museum and spend an entire day there. Oh well.
Last summer I attended the German Festival at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium. I drove to the North Linthicum light rail station then took the light rail to the fairgrounds. When I was on my way back to the Fairgrounds light rail station after spending a few hours at the festival, I saw this interesting little wooden statue that was perched on a fence. I took a photo of it with the intention of writing a post about it and then promptly forgot about it for a while. It was only last month when I was clearing my phone of extra photos that I came upon this picture again.
I thought it looked pretty cool with the clouds in the background. Here’s a closeup of that shot, where you can clearly see the sash that the muscular man is wearing that says “Andy Strong.” (I guess Andy Strong is the name of that little muscular man.)
I was in Baltimore on a Sunday attending the second and final day of VidCon. As I was walking back from the Baltimore Convention Center to the parking garage where I had parked my car I noticed this plaque on the sidewalk that was devoted to the 1,000th curb cut that was created in Baltimore for people who have to use walkers, wheelchairs, baby strollers, or wheeled suitcases.
It basically said “Mayor William Donald Schaffer and the Citizens of Baltimore. 1,000th Curb Cut. July 22, 1985” and it included the internationally recognized symbol of a stick figure in a wheelchair. The one thing I love about walking around Baltimore is that you can encounter sudden unexpected things like this.
I attended the final day of the first-ever VidCon that was held in Baltimore earlier this month. It sounded really interesting and I wanted to check it out. I only paid to attend the last day because that final day had the most panels that I was interested in, and the prices were a bit high. I also wasn’t sure if I would like VidCon at all and I felt that it would be less financially painful if I paid only for one day only to have it turn out to be a bust than to pay for a full weekend.
There was already one disappointment before I even went to VidCon. The previous month I had gone to the 1A Fest in downtown Washington, DC where V. Spehar from Under the Desk News (available on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram) spoke at a panel. They said at the end that they was going to be in the general area so fans can come up to them and say hi. Except V. was whisked away from the area and the rest of the crowd were told to leave because this rainstorm was due to arrive soon. The storm was incredibly bad with lightning and heavy rain at times. The storm became so bad that the rest of the festival was cancelled.
But then I learned that V. Spehar was going to be at VidCon as a Featured Creator and I felt that at least I would have another chance to meet them. But then, about a week before VidCon, V. made this video announcing that they had to cancel VidCon because they tested positive for COVID-19. So that was a disappointment but I was still looking forward to seeing VidCon.
Usually I would drive my car to the North Linthicum light rail stop and take the light rail the rest of the way into the city because the round-trip fare is cheaper than the parking garages. But one of the panels I was interested in started early in the morning and the light rail doesn’t begin before 10 a.m. on Sundays so I ended up driving into the city. I was lucky that I found a parking garage that was a 15-minute walk from the Baltimore Convention Center that charged a special Sunday rate of $15 for the entire day.
Unfortunately I took the wrong path trying to walk from the parking garage to the Baltimore Convention Center so I ended up missing this early morning panel on animation that I was interested in. So I took a few photos of the convention in general, starting with this selfie where I wore my sparkly Minnie Mouse unicorn headband.
I know I had typed in a previous post that I was going to wear my Stitch hat to VidCon but I ended up changing my mind at the last minute because the temperature went into the low 80s that day and the Stitch hat tends to be a bit on the hot side when wearing in on a warm day. So I arrived wearing my Minnie Mouse unicorn headband instead while taking some photos of the entrance to VidCon.
Here are my badge and bracelet that I got from the registration booth.
The bracelet had this metal chip inside that I had to use to tap gates at certain areas of the convention in order to get inside of certain areas like the Exhibition Hall or to get readmitted to the convention if I had to step outside of the convention center for any reason. Pictured below is one of those gates that I had to tap with my bracelet if I wanted to access another part of that convention.
Since I missed the first panel I had plenty of time to get a seat to the next panel that I was interested in. It was held by Desiree Martinez on “Monetizing Your Passion: How to Make Money as a Small Creator.”
I found her workshop very informative with plenty of tips and, yes, I took a ton of notes. Whether I can be as successful as her remains to be seen.
After the workshop ended I found that the second panel that I was interested in was being held in the same room as the one that I had just attended so I basically stayed in that room and ate my lunch that I brought with me. (I purchased a chicken caesar salad along with two sodas from Wegmans the day before VidCon and brought it with me because it’s cheaper than buying food and drink at the Baltimore Convention Center. The nearby Harborplace is literally a dying mall that is going to be torn down sometime in the near future so going there for lunch just wasn’t an option for me.)
The second panel I attended in the same room as the first was interesting. It featured Amanda Golka of the YouTube channel Swell Entertainment and Hassan Khadair, who I mostly knew from his hilarious videos that he makes with this Mickey Mouse puppet. Here’s a video that’s a compilation of some of his Mickey Mouse puppet shorts that he’s uploaded on TikTok and YouTube.
Hassan Khadair also has a second YouTube channel called Bad Days, which is devoted to general commentary and he doesn’t use the Mickey Mouse puppet at all. Here’s a recent video from that channel where he tries every pumpkin spice food in America.
I confess that I wore my glittering Minnie Mouse unicorn ears because I had the chance to meet Hassan Khadair. I also brought three of my Disney Nuimos for that same reason—Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Here’s a photo I shot of the trio before the panel began.
So Amanda Golka and Hassan Khadair did a panel titled Creator to Creator. They spoke about their experiences with starting their YouTube channels and similar topics. It was pretty entertaining seeing them interact together.
After the panel ended Hassan Khadair hung around talking to those who attended the panel.
Here’s a shot of the Mickey Mouse puppet that he uses in his videos.
I approached him and told him that he influenced my style while showing him my three Disney Nuimos peeking out from the bag where I carried my lunch in.
He recognized the Disney Nuimos and he was very knowledgeable about that line. When he mentioned that the Nuimos have magnets in their hands a woman who was there was curious about the magnet part so i took two of my Nuimos out of the bag and showed how they are able hold hands due to those magnets.
I didn’t talk with him for very long because there were other people who wanted to talk to him and the room was getting prepared for another panel that was being held there.
I didn’t see much of Amanda Golka after the panel but I saw that she made this YouTube video about her experiences at VidCon a few weeks after appearing at that convention that’s worth watching.
I can understand her being disappointed by VidCon Baltimore because she had previously attended the one in Anaheim. From my perspective, I had never attended any other VidCon before so I was a total newbie at this convention. There is one thing that I have to admit though. I’ve been to other events at the Baltimore Convention Center, such as Otakon (before it switched locations to DC) and Baltimore Comic Con. VidCon was small compared to those other events (especially Otakon). I’m hoping that VidCon was small because it had never held that event in Baltimore before and it’ll be a bigger event next year with more panels and other type of events.
After that second panel ended I walked over to Exhibition Hall. Here are a few of the booths that I saw there, starting with one large booth where people were playing video games on the provided computers.
Some of the participating content creators had their own booths where you could purchase merchandise or contributed to a Kickstarter campaign to fund a project that they have in mind.
Some of the more popular YouTube channels, such as Gaming Mermaid, had larger booths.
VidaFair had this idea where you could get people to rent your content per video instead of subscribing to your video channel. It’s basically another method of monetizing your content so you can profit off of what you create. Their booth had props where you can get your photo taken while wearing or holding them.
Sune had this pretty elaborate booth. Basically Sune is a place where individual artisans can sell their handcrafted wares while providing videos about their work. It’s like a cross between Etsy and video hosting sites like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
I found that the people running the booths that featured hair and makeup products were the most aggressive. Every time I was on the periphery of those booths there were people who were waving at me to come over to their booths. They reminded me too much of the people who run the hair and makeup kiosks at some of the more upscale malls where they will wave you over to their kiosk then attempt to pressure you into buying their products. I didn’t go anywhere near those booths at VidCom because I wasn’t in the market for buying new haircare products and makeup. I managed to take a photo of that area from a distance.
If there was a booth at Exhibition Hall that I felt was the most memorable at VidCon, it was PBS, which was promoting an upcoming nature documentary called Spies in the Ocean.
The PBS booth had giant screens that showed underwater nature scenes while animatronic undersea animals like a dolphin, a shark, and a manatee moved their heads, fins, and flippers at various intervals.
Exhibition Hall had places where people of all ages can just chill out, such as Camp VidCom, which is pictured below.
Off to the side of Exhibition Hall was the Meet and Greet area where you can have the chance to meet your favorite creator. That area was only open to those who purchased the two-day Community pass or the Industry track. Since I had only purchased the one-day Community pass, that Meet and Greet area was off-limits to me. I didn’t mind since Hassan Khadair was the only participating creator whose name I even recognized and I managed to meet him after the Creator to Creator panel had ended. As for everyone else, I would’ve been awkward at meeting them because my first questions would’ve been “Who are you? What do you do?”
There was a Community Mainstage at the end of Exhibition Hall where the participating content creators were doing things like doing a quiz show or dancing or singing karaoke. (I didn’t stick around that area too long.)
Exhibition Hall had a booth that was staffed by the local tourist promotion group called Visit Baltimore. Basically they had a QR barcode that you scanned in order to bring up a video game on your smartphone.
Basically the video game was a Pac-Man clone where you get to control a crab who’s eating snacks while avoiding seagulls who are out to stop your crab.
Once you use up all of your three allotted lives you go back to the Visit Baltimore booth where you show your score and you get rewarded with a cookie. They originally had a variety of flavors to choose from but by Sunday the only cookie flavor they had left was a sugar cookie with chunks of peppermint candy so I took it. I found the cookie to be pretty tasty.
I expected people to wear cosplay costumes at VidCom. In fact, that was one of the reasons why I wore my Minnie Mouse unicorn headband. Compared to a comic convention or an anime convention, there were far fewer cosplayers at VidCom. I managed to shoot a photo of one of the few cosplayers I saw at VidCom—two people were dressed at Mario and Luigi from the Super Mario Bros. video game series.
I’m glad I only purchased a $59 one-day pass because there was so little at VidCon in terms of the panels and the Exhibition Hall that I would’ve been pissed had I purchased a $110 two-day pass or the $699 Industry Track. I don’t regret going to VidCon because I had fun and I enjoyed the two panels that I attended. Would I go to VidCon next year? I don’t know for sure. It would depend on who would be there, what panels and events were being offered, and whether I would have the time or money to go.
Sagittarius Dolly 
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