Baltimore Crab Feast!

Boy do I miss the year 1998.  My oldest sister Dana was living in Baltimore, Maryland then and working for Enron so during the Summer, me, my mom Jean, my sister Casandra, my girlfriends Sherry and Thais, their mother Yvonne and my girlfriend Gina would take the opportunity to get out of Connecticut, shoot down the highway and visit Dana and her family for the weekend.  We loved Baltimore for 3 reasons:

 1.  Lexington Market – a foodies’ paradise — a large, indoor market of good, diverse eats!

2.  Baltimore Inner Harbor – Love marinas (as a matter of fact, anything water related) and people watching!

3.  Baltimore Crab Feast Cruise-to-Nowhere – On this week(end) night cruise-to-nowhere, which boarded at 630pm and departed at 7pm, you could, for one reasonable price, eat all of the hard-shelled crabs you like, be entertained with live music and dance it all off under the starry night sky!

The Baltimore Crab Feast Cruise-to-Nowhere was hands down our most favorite part of the trip.   It was like being inside a really cool nightclub (but on the water) with a DJ and finger-licking good crabs for days!

The line to board the cruise ship always wrapped around the block.  Everyone and their grandmother seemed to be in that line.  This was back in the day when busloads of people came to Baltimore for these crab feasts as good news travels fast!  Once inside, and after getting our bearings,  we would find a seat at a long wooden picnic table.  At the table we  were given heavy-duty paper bowls, plastic cutlery, wooden mallets, a sharp knife, hand wipes and plastic bibs.  Each table was completely covered with brown paper wrapping and each had extra heavy-duty paper bowls on them for the crab residue.   Serious business was about to go down! (smile).

Incidentally, there were also service bars in select areas of the cruise ship but alcoholic drinks were not included in our price.

Here we are all dressed up and ready for our night out.

Here we are on the cruise ship right before feeding time (smile).

Here is a picture of me and my late mother Jean right after we ate.  Happy faces!

Again, this was 1998, I was 36 years old and Enron hadn’t collapsed yet…