St. Michaels, MD for Your Girls’ Weekend
For me, besides the presence of your best friends, the perfect girls’ getaway includes three ingredients: physical exertion---preferably something outdoors; a bit of pampering; and good food (with a glass or two of wine). You’ll find all these in St. Michaels, Maryland and great shopping, too.
For your outdoor adventure, try biking along bucolic Eastern Shore bike paths and catch the ferry across the Tred Avon River to Oxford, a tiny coastal town with a peaceful waterside park.
Even if you take afternoon tea at the elegant Robert Morris Inn there, you should still indulge in a cone from the Scottish Highland Creamery before pedaling away. While it’s true that you’ll have had your fill of scones and Darjeeling, you’ll be burning lots of calories with your bicycling, so don’t miss the chance for a scoop at this shop. Owner Victor Barlow began working at an Italian ice cream parlor in Edinburgh when he was only 15 and he’s brought the “secret family recipes” to Oxford. It seems only polite to give them a taste.
Or, take full advantage of your watery location by booking a kayaking excursion. ‘Peake Paddle Tours offers guided boating trips through local salty marshes or freshwater streams. I recommend gliding along the waters that thread through Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge’s 25,000 protected acres (in nearby Cambridge). Fall is the best time to spot waterfowl or soaring eagles.
For pampering, head to the Inn at Perry Cabin’s Linden Spa for a floral-infused massage or pedicure. You and your friends can sip cool cucumber water while robed in terry cloth by the infinity pool while you wait your turn.
You won’t go wrong sharing a perfect thin crusted wood-fired pizza and salads at Ava’s. Or, if the Eastern Shore means steamed crabs to you, split a half-bushel in the screened porch dining room at the Crab Claw near the (very worth visting) Maritime Museum.
Attractive B&B’s dot the area. After breakfast at yours, find a few antique treasures to take home.
My friend Gail presses oranges each morning now with a green, cast-iron, vintage (seriously heavy) juicer she admired for its practical and sculptural appeal. We girlfriends were there to help her carry it to the car. Think of all the cool things you can help each other fit into the trunk---souvenirs of a great girlfriends’ getaway.
Richmond: Art on the Edge
My friend Lynn and I recently visited her daughter, who’s a student at VCU. I had been to Richmond before, but the scenes and impressions were all lost to memory and I looked forward to re-discovering the hidden angles and edges of Virginia’s capital city.
Maddie is an art major and was keen to show us not only the galleries near her house in Jackson Ward (J Ward, to those in the know), but the objets d’art nearest to her heart: the neighborhood’s abandoned buildings and empty lots. We called it the “Maddie Tour” and knew we were getting a different look at the city than most visitors.
Maddie’s street is typical for J Ward: red brick townhouses bordered by wrought iron fences. This part of Richmond is second only to New Orleans in its use of decorative cast iron. That, and the 600 homes listed on the National Registry make J Ward great strolling grounds for architecture lovers. The entire district is a National Historic Landmark.
Jackson Ward is like a perfect half moon: exactly in between waxing and waning. We saw lots of boarded up storefronts, but also artsy shops like Quirk (also exhibiting artworks) and hip coffee joints like Lift.
Art galleries have tucked in, enjoying the lower rents of a half-moon part of town. Older businesses, like Eugene’s Barbershop, run by Eugene’s grandchildren, are still getting by, but other spots, like all 22 floors of the Central National Bank building, are only filled with ghosts and crumbling walls. Fearless Maddie led us right to the old revolving door and in we went! I felt like we were walking in an artwork titled “What Was.”
We had lunch inside the honey-colored walls of Mama J’s, a restaurant specializing in comfort food. And you do feel comforted from the moment you walk in hungry until you leave with a belly-full of greens, catfish, and macaroni-&-cheese.
In stylish Carytown later on, popcorn and a $1.99 movie at the lavish landmark of Richmond’s former glory, The Byrd Theatre, was the perfect finish to our day.
Richmond is best known for its history as the Capital of the Confederacy, but art-lovers take note: the city is a haven for artists and rich with design. Even the Police Station looks artsy.
Past and Present Merge in Fredericksburg, Virginia
For your Memorial Day excursion, I recommend a road trip to Fredericksburg, Virginia. If you are reading this from a desk chair in the DC area, within just an hour and a half you can be in this very walk-able town on the Rappahannock River, rich in Colonial and Civil War history. Mary Washington, George Washington's mother, lived and died in Fredericksburg, and James Monroe, fifth President of the United States, also lived here for some time.
Civil War buffs will know that between December 1862 and May 1864 the four fiercest battles of the Civil War were fought in the surrounding area. The battlefields are part of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.
A historical sign I read as I strolled around town said, “In May 1864, ambulances…clogged the city’s streets. Virtually every public building became a hospital filled with wounded soldiers….By today’s standards, conditions were gruesome. Mortality rates were high.” I blinked in the sun and while runners in a 5K maneuvered through the streets and shoppers sipping lattes strolled past I tried to imagine the sights and sounds of such horror on these same blocks.
In fact, there are graveyards aplenty and a handful of ghost-themed walking tours offered in Fredericksburg to capitalize on the mayhem and loss in this town, strategically located between Washington, DC and Richmond.
Fill an afternoon visiting Mary Washington’s house, the Masonic cemetery, and museums. Restaurants and shops line the bricked sidewalks. Nearby, the Belmont House offers tours of its gardens, and the home and studio of artist Gari Melchers. (You will learn all about Melchers and wonder why you didn’t know of him before!) Alternatively, Kenmore House, George Washington’s sister’s estate, close by and open for tours, is a great example of Georgian-style architecture. On Saturday and Sundays in June, Shakespeare is performed on the lawn at Kenmore.
History, parks, art, good coffee, shopping and a river: Fredericksburg has something for each member of your traveling party and is an easy drive away. ("Easy," that is, if 95 South were a swift, traffic-free route. Leave early in the morning before the appearance of thick, maddening columns of barely-moving cars!)
Bonny Kilmarnock, Virginia
As a wrap-up to spring, friends from college, Louise and Becky, hosted a reunion of sorority sisters at their Northern Neck cottages for a weekend of reminiscing and a beer or two. I had grown up in Virginia, but for family road trips, we generally headed to the Shenandoah Valley, winding past farm-dotted hills and signs advertising tours of stalactite-filled caverns. When I got my driver’s license, I kept my wanderings to the Manassas Pizza Hut or battlefield parks. On occasion, I’d take a drive to see the big city lights of Fairfax. Somehow, during all of those years, I never made it over to my home state’s scalloped watery edge, only 75 miles from Washington, DC.
Like Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the Northern Neck has hundreds of miles of shoreline.
The landscapes, forested and engraved with creeks, made me think of Pilgrim and Indian scenes (the fake, happy ones with the sharing of tobacco and dried corn). Staring at the marshy undulating coastline, I had one of those history class fantasies: Chief Powhatan might paddle past out of the fog or a caribou could make its way to the water’s edge for a drink. The filmstrip narrator in my head reminded me that Native Americans were here tens of thousands of years before John Smith showed up in 1607 acting like he owned the place.
My friends' Northern Neck cottages were in Kilmarnock, a town that owes its name to Scottish settlers who were drawn to the tobacco economy and good farmland. A kilt-wearing bagpiper adorns the watertower and tartans grace the lightpost banners on Main Street. (The only sign of the Indians was a wooden one decorating a shop doorway.)
Kilmarnock is a wee, charming town with a handful of restaurants and shops for fashion and antiques. I found a sky-blue princess phone on sale at Twice As Nice on Main Street. (I dreamed of one of those phones all of my teenage years while waiting in line to use the single 10-pound monster that conveyed my countless hours of flirting and sighing through its heavy black mouthpiece in the 1970s.)
Nearby is Christ Church, a pristine example of 1735 colonial architecture, which holds a service once a year in May called the “Kirking of the Tartan.” The town’s bagpipe band plays and tartan-sporting congregants gather to commemorate Scottish resistance to attempts by the English to break the clan system.
You can stay in the Kilmarnock Inn. The guesthouses are named for the eight presidents from Virginia. Breakfast featuring fresh local food is included (blue crab Benedict or Virginia ham and eggs) and you’ll be just around the corner from that wee shopping street. Though the biggest draw to the area isn’t shopping, but frolicking on the river. Or my favorite coastal activity---daydreaming on the dock.
George Washington Slept Here
On my way home from a lovely weekend with college friends in Kilmarnock, Virginia, signs promising a glimpse of George Washington’s birthplace lured me off course. (Remain on seat’s edge: Kilmarnock post forthcoming.)
Before the Commanders in Chief were from such highfalutin places as Arkansas, California, or Hawaii, Virginia was the preferred spot to give birth to presidents. In fact, more presidents were born in the Old Dominion than anywhere else. It was a pretty hot streak all the way through to ten if you don’t count those interloper Massachusetts Adamses (John and John Quincy at 2 and 6, respectively); or, of course, that rascal Andrew Jackson (7) of South Carolina. Or New York’s Martin van Buren (8) and his unruly sidewhiskers.
Ok, well that's not the hottest streak. But, as you can see, every time Americans tired of these flirtations with honchos from elsewhere, Virginia was ready to provide more leadership. Check out the illustrious list: George Washington - 1st; Thomas Jefferson – 3rd; James Madison – 4th; James Monroe – 5th; William Henry Harrison – 9th; John Tyler – 10th; Zachary Taylor – 12th; Woodrow Wilson – 28th
I’m not sure what happened between Zachary Taylor and Woodrow Wilson (and since then), but if you’re traveling in Virginia and you’d like to tour a president’s first home, you’ll never have to go too far.
Even if you’re not on a quest to rack up birthplace site visits, it’s worth a stop to roam the grounds of Pope’s Creek Plantation and think a little bit about young George, who was born here in 1732. The farm and buildings are only about 2 miles from Route 3. (You’ll know you’re there when you see the ubiquitous obelisk that seems to accompany every memorial of our first leader. This one’s 1/10th of the size of the D.C. memorial.)
Stroll along the brick pathways and visit the few reconstructed buildings. (I will personally never tire of standing in a low-ceilinged colonial kitchen watching a costumed demonstrator channel a plantation cook.)
A Christmas Day fire in 1779 wiped out the original structures, but in 1936 archaeologists excavated the foundation of George’s first home. The outline is marked in oyster shells---so appropriate to that riverside Virginia geography.
The Potomac River flows along the edge of the farm looking vast and brown. You can fish here or even sunbathe (say the signs). I think George enjoyed the first activity, but not the other: he always looks stately, but pale.
Across the lane you can enter a walled burial ground where three generations of Washingtons are interred, including George’s grandparents. A gift shop (the other ubiquitous accompaniment to memorials of George) and Visitors’ Center offer books, films, and exhibits about the first Father of Our Country.
I'd say that the country is ripe for another Virginia-born leader (after Obama's second term, of course). It's been a long stretch since Woodrow Wilson dealt with Prohibition and World War I. Think of it---you may be reading this from a future presidential birthplace site! How about it, Virginia readers, are any of your daughters or sons up for the job?
A Chilly Easton Weekend
You may not picture yourself in a shore town until summer. And you may think of the Bay Bridge as a conveyor of idling cars and brake lights. That’s why chilly spring is a great time to visit Maryland’s Eastern Shore. You can zip across the bridge at the speed limit and have the place all to yourself.
My husband’s from the Eastern Shore and so is his whole family “all the way back,” so I’ve spent a lot of time in the clustered towns there. St. Michaels is better known as a tourist destination with its shop-lined streets and docks for your sailboat. But Easton is my favorite. Easton is the less-flashy sister---the one with good bones who doesn’t need to be the center of attention.
Here’s my recipe to a perfect spring overnight:
Pinpoint your weekend by checking out the calendar at the Avalon Theatre for your favorite show. The Avalon is an intimate Art Deco performance space downtown and Roseanne Cash, Marshall Crenshaw, and Randy Newman are a few upcoming acts that caught my middle-aged eye. The breathtaking “Live at the Met in HD” series is also broadcast there. Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" is next for screening.
Take a minute to download and print the self-guided walking tour (click here) that points out interesting architecture and historically significant spots in town.
Book a room at the snug Bishop’s House B&B or try the just-renovated, posh Tidewater Inn. You won’t need your car once you’ve gotten settled in.
On Saturday morning you can prowl for antiques and shop at the cute boutiques on Goldsborough Road and Washington Street. I especially love Lizzy Dee. Even though I am too short for the chic and casual clothing there, earrings always fit and so do purses and printed scarves. Stop into wooden-floored Crackerjacks for a toy-laden nostalgia trip and leave with a yoyo or 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle.
Make sure to get onion rings and a shake at the soda fountain at Hill’s Drugstore to reinforce the Mayberry feel of the place. (Believe me, there’s a lunch counter; just keep walking straight past the shelves stocked with aspirin bottles and ice packs…)
The attractive Art Academy closes at 3 on Saturdays, so go after lunch and amble through. Afterwards, you can use your handy downloaded walking tour map to become the Easton expert that you’ve always wanted to be or rent bikes for the trails around town. Another great feature of the Eastern Shore: No hills!
Have dinner before the show at the artsy Out of the Fire where you can tuck into a plate of crispy polenta with wild mushroom ragout.
Head home right after Sunday breakfast. Like many small towns, Easton closes up tight to fill up its 38 churches.
Maybe I’ll move to Easton and open a rollicking Sunday coffee shop and feed muffins to all the visitors who find nothing but locked doors elsewhere in town; or maybe a tattoo parlor to get people ready for the beach come summertime…