Leave the Light On, Darling

I do not know my way around Charm City.

Heading there on the BW Parkway, we passed a flashing highway sign that said, "Speed Enforced...Smooth Operator."

Call us idiots, but we had no idea what that meant or why it would be on a sign.

Despite four trips to Baltimore in the past three years, I was useless as a navigator on today's odyssey.

Oh, we got there just fine, but ended up doing the Grand Tour of Baltimore neighborhoods once inside the city limits.

Wouldn't you just know the only ones we didn't hit were Canton and Fell's Point, the two areas I know.

We passed row houses with marble stoops in almost every neighborhood. We admired rooftop decks with views of Camden Yards.

Somewhere after the Greek neighborhood but before the Latino neighborhood, we passed Corn Beef Heaven but didn't have the sense to stop.

Or later, any idea where we had seen it.

Didn't a wise man say that it's the things you don't do that you regret?

When we discovered Corned Beef Row, we couldn't find the corned beef. Luckily, we kept our humor and kept going.

It only took one heavily-accented gas station owner, one not-nearly-scruffy- enough art student, one tattooed girl walking a dog and one female mailman to set us on the right path.

Days, weeks and months later, we arrived at the Baltimore Museum of Art, home to an incredible collection of Matisse works.

Given our delayed start, we wasted no time in scoping out the Cone Collection.

Claribel and Etta Cone were Baltimore residents who had a life-long passion for collecting Matisse's work.

And money, apparently. Lots and lots of cash.

Included in one of the galleries was a flat screen with a virtual tour of the sisters' 1930s Baltimore apartment.

By touching the screen, you could enter rooms, walk down hallways and open doors where every inch of wall space, bathrooms included, was covered in art.

I aspire to be a Cone sister.

There's nothing like walking galleries filled with Matisses of every size and color palette with another art geek.

We would have made normal people gag with our non-stop art references.

There were two Giacometti sculptures of human figures, one that made me weak in the knees, and both much bigger than any others of his I've seen .

"Man Pointing" had the rough-hewn look of so many Giacomettis, but a real presence. You wanted to follow his finger.

"Headless Woman" was as smooth as glass and truly a stunning representation of the female form, if a bit attenuated.

The artist said that his female figures represented the way he felt when he looked at a woman.

I'd say that it's the way a woman would want a man to feel when he looked at her.

The time passed so quickly that we only had time for a little European art and the American period rooms before a guard warned us it was almost closing time.

Hoping to unobtrusively linger, we slipped into an empty American painting gallery only to have the lights flickered, indicating they were serious about closing time.

Fine. Close your museum before people are ready to leave.

Not to worry, we took the stairs down to Gertrude's where we had a reservation at the bar for dinner.

Our bartender immediately got our attention with his Moonshine Manhattan, an alluring combination of Corsair Wry Moon un-aged rye whiskey, blood orange bitters, white sweet vermouth and a Luxardo cherry.

Because the Wry Moon rye is un-aged, technically it's moonshine, which made for my second moonshine this week should anyone be counting.

Going forward, Friend chose the White Hall Cabernet Franc and I the Paul Jaboulet "Parallele 45" Rose.

The bartender gave me major props for my pink choice, acknowledging that he was a fan.

"Good choice. I've been drinking that all summer," he endorsed.

Getting lost and ogling nudes make a person hungry and we were starving.

P.E.I mussels were a logical place to start, especially because of the unique broth of Loose Canon Ale and grain mustard with Andouille sausage.

I liked the broth a lot but my beer-loving friend loved the broth and sopped long after I'd given up.

Mmm, beer.

A huge seafood salad of mixed greens with lump crab meat, scallops and shrimp  was offset with BBQ pulled pork sliders with chow chow on brioche buns.

"You really can't have too much pig, can you?" my friend asked rhetorically.

No, but I really can't have too much art, either.

We drove home through a driving rainstorm that turned 95 into an endless parking lot with brake lights everywhere.

Even so, it couldn't take away from a perfectly charming day sipping moonshine in Charm City.

Our only regret was that the lights went out too soon.