From our house to the crazy house...

The old gate house at Shepherd Pratt Hospital, in winter

...is but a quarter mile!

Husband and I took the Oldsmobile out for a spin yesterday and drove hither and yon, getting our Baltimore legs, as it were.

And with me behind the wheel of Miss Peola, no forbidden path is safe.

We live about .25 miles from Shepherd Pratt, one of Baltimore's esteemed medical facilities, that families never brag about.  Its down on North Charles and its campus is a winding road that bobs and weaves through a magnificent campus.  But because it is a *mental hospital*, its a place that you don't want to be seen driving into.

The main building is a fabulous Victorian structure, much like the one that Olivia DeHavilland was committed to in the Snakepit.

Father in Law spent his professional career as a psychiatrist, and did his residency here at Johns Hopkins.  So as soon as we can speak with him (and hope that his HEARING AIDES ARE IN HIS EARS) we might see what he recalls about the place.

I have an old picture somewhere in these boxes of the old mental hospital, er, excuse me, sanatorium back home that reads "PLEASE DO NOT STARE AT THE PATIENTS", but that was a different era. 

Alas, as we drove through the campus we didn't see anyone who looked remotely as if they needed to seek asylum.

We DID however note a pack of Towson University male students jogging in their short shorts and shirtless through the campus, and we did enjoy watching this fine specimens as they ran and jogged by.  Several of the muscular young men had what is called overly developed pectorals, or as Mr. Peenee would say, man titty.   And that was good enough to drive my husband and I crazy for a good ten minutes.