Washington Monument light-up

On Thursday Dec 6, there was the annual light up of Baltimore's Washington Monument at Mount Vernon. This is not to be confused with the Washington Monument at D.C. although both were designed by Robert Mills.

Visitors to the 178 feet (54 m) monument can climb 228 steps to the top for an excellent aerial view of Baltimore city and obtain information on George Washington and construction of the monument at the ground floor museum.

Shortly before 7 pm, the mayor of Baltimore, Sheila Dixon, gave a rousing speech and flipped the switch, lighting up the monument and triggering the fireworks display.

For the sake of taking pictures, I took off my right glove. My hand was numbed from the bitter cold that night. Without a tripod, I had to hold my breath to minimize movement for longer exposure (1/10 s) .

Traffic was re-routed for this event. Among three of us who had arranged to watch the fireworks, I was the only one who caught it since Eduardo and Jianshi could not find parking lots. They arrived at 7.20 pm, long after the fireworks had extinguished and workers were removing the road blocks. To make things better, I treated them to Korean food at Jong Kak Restaurant at the intersection of Charles St and 20th St.