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.
Visit the AVAM “Toot Suite”
If you’ve been meaning to visit the very-cool American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, now’s the time to go. Summertime Thursday evening admissions are free from 5 to 9, followed by movies shown under the stars on a 30-foot outdoor screen.
If you have (or if you are) someone who doesn’t mind a late drive home, this is a bit of heaven: An outdoor movie watched from a nice hillside after taking in a playful and expansive display of works by self-taught artists. You can bring a picnic along or buy popcorn and hotdogs on site.
The movies this summer celebrate the theme of the museum’s biggest current exhibit, "What Makes Us Smile?" co-curated by founder Rebecca Hoffberger, artist Gary Panter, and Simpson’s creator Matt Groening. Comedic films from “Airplane!” to “Some Like it Hot” are scheduled for screening. Click here for the line-up.
The museum itself is a joy. After checking out the whimsical sculpture garden and once you’ve admired Nadya Volicer's “Smile” welcome mat made from recycled toothbrushes, follow a hallway festooned with the boxes of your most beloved childhood board games, dangling model planes and helicopters to the three-floor gallery. It's the kind of place that features a massive collection of Pez dispensers and a Whoopee Cushion bench.
The day I visited, I lingered longest in a space staged as a bedroom featuring a bed with a headboard of beads and beetle wings made into an intricate and spot-on portrait of MAD Magazine's Alfred E. Neuman by artist Patty Kuzbida.
A glass case filled to brimming with vintage toys arranged in a scene both static and busy stood nearby, including a parade of every action figurine from under your brother’s childhood bed snaking around a double-decker London bus and toy cars of all makes and models.
Steps away, a dog made from guitar parts, picks, and sequins posed under an archway of coconut heads; an enormous and elaborate candy-dotted gingerbread house filled a corner of the room; a blue Electrolux refitted into a space rocket dangled from the ceiling; and this quote from Bill Cosby was painted on the wall:
“Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home.”
If yours are back home, take them to see a free outdoor movie and the coolest art around at the AVAM in Baltimore.
Don’t Forget the Hirshhorn
The Smithsonian Institution is comprised of 19 different museums and, although its overall impression is best described as venerable, there is a splashy appeal attached to certain galleries which dazzle visitors with diamonds or ruby slippers or Julia Child’s kitchen; with dinosaurs or rocket ships or pandas. In the surge to see I.M. Pei’s East Building or the stunning Kogod Courtyard, the Hirshhorn Museum can get overshadowed.
I have, at times, “forgotten” about the Hirshhorn, only including it on a personal tour at the last minute when a child in my party asks about the doughnut-shaped structure. Strangely for me, in spite of its spacecraft appearance, instead of pulling my attention away from the traditional Smithsonian buildings that surround it, I find that the cement-colored museum fades into the background. But, when someone like a curious child points it out, you are amazed that you could miss it: the architecture really makes a statement.
A 1989 review in the Washington Post had this to say: "[The Hirshhorn is] the biggest piece of abstract art in town---a huge, hollowed cylinder raised on four massive piers, in absolute command of its walled compound on the Mall.... The circular fountain...is a grand concoction...that for good reason has become the museum's visual trademark." (Benjamin Forgey, The Washington Post, November 4, 1989.) I do love the contrast between its tiered outdoor Sculpture Garden emphasizing the pleasure of rectangular spaces and its curved gallery walls, designed explicitly to hold the modern and contemporary works collected by Joseph Hirshhorn throughout his life.
Every time I go, I am reminded of the pleasure of wandering through this drum-shaped building. Walking the circular hallways becomes part of the artistic experience and it is never as crowded on a summer afternoon as the museum where the Hope Diamond sits. You can watch an edgy film in the Black Box theatre or scratch your head over some of the more untraditional works. (I was doing just that when a friendly docent stopped over with thoughts and explanations of a work which allowed me to unfurrow my brow and savor something that challenged my idea of what constitutes art.)
The museum does a great job with programming. There are Friday Gallery Talks, Meet the Artist lectures, After Hours events with music, and inventive workshops for teens. The collection offers Picasso, Matisse, Rodin, Calder, Moore, Hopper and many others, but focuses on art created in the last 50 years. A destination this bold and forward-thinking should not be overlooked. Move it to the top of your Mall destinations!
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!)
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…
The Value of the News
I listen to NPR and read the Post and the New York Times---I like to know what’s going on. And I like museums. But the Newseum never really appealed. It seemed less like a delightful afternoon and more like an idea born because, well, a museum of news had to be created just to use the name “newseum.” And I was rankled by the price.
When you live near Washington, D.C., you get used to going to the world’s most fascinating exhibits for FREE. You can stroll through the sculpture garden at the Hirshhorn, gaze at impressionist masterpieces at I.M. Pei’s famous East Building, and ogle Dorothy’s ruby slippers at the Museum of American History, all at no cost.
Spoiled by this bounty, I couldn’t imagine paying $21.95 to enter the Newseum. “Are you kidding?” (asks my stingy side). “So much money to visit a museum of news?”
So it wasn’t until Groupon offered $10 tickets that I could even summon the spirit to go. I talked my friend Laura into joining me. And in we went, feeling dutiful.
Inside the 7-level, 250,000 square-foot space we found pairings of news and history. Artifacts from major historical events, like panels from the Berlin Wall or the mangled antenna from the top of the World Trade Center, are presented next to relevant news reports.
Around the WTC wreckage: a wall of framed front pages illustrated with appropriately garish color photographs and 72-point type both echoing and shaping the world’s reaction to the terrorist attacks on 9/11.
Near the Berlin Wall panels, we stood in the shadow of a Checkpoint Charlie watchtower, captivated by grainy black and white images of NBC News’s footage of East Germans crawling through tunnels to freedom in the West.
You can also follow the news about Hurricane Katrina as it unfolded---from the initial weather warnings to the still unbelievable images of acres of strewn splinters that were once houses in Mississippi and of people desperate for rescue from their rooftops in the Ninth Ward.
In the three hours Laura and I had carved out for the Newseum, we visited perhaps one half of the exhibits. Entry tickets allow re-entry the following day---sadly, not an option for either of us. I left reluctantly, realizing that I’d happily spend the money to come again and feeling much more thoughtful about the meaning of "free."
Waxing Philosophical about Madame Tussaud’s
When I heard that Mme. Tussaud’s, the famous wax museum, was opening a branch in DC some years back, I rolled my eyes. Why go see wax figures of people when I lived in a place where I could visit actual sites of historical importance? Why see a fake Abe Lincoln when I could go to Ford’s Theatre or the Lincoln Memorial?
Touring a museum filled with famous people made of wax was cheating: cheap thrills and no intellectual heft.
I'd been taught to think this way in the eighties when I was part of a student group in London. Our cool professor pooh-poohed the idea of visiting the original Mme. Tussaud’s there in favor of more nourishing pursuits. For me, it was the first lesson in being a discerning traveler: some places had value, others didn't.
It stuck. Twenty-five years later, when I agreed to let my teenage children and niece choose a downtown destination on a recent outing, I cringed when they picked Mme. Tussaud's.
I decided I'd try to sneak "teaching moments" in wherever I could (and hope that no one I knew saw me going in the doors).
A bit of research revealed that there are not only celebrity and sports figures at the DC Tussaud's, but political figures as well. Surely some wax version of a president would spark a mini history lesson.
And a collaboration I found advertised online between the museum and local libraries ("Wax Figure Hunt at your Local DC Library!) let me know that the wax museum was trying to brush up its airhead reputation. They'd even dedicated a room to facts and figures relating to the making of wax figures---an average of 200 measurements for each face! Every single hair inserted individually!
But ultimately, even though I made them learn that the wax man with the impressive mutton-chop sideburns was President Chester A. Arthur, visiting Mme. Tussaud's was just one big photo op. (Ropes that used to keep tourists from nearing the figures have been removed and interaction is encouraged.)
After giving our children enriching opportunities and exposing them to challenging ideas, coaxing (or maybe dragging) them through their share of impressionist art exhibits and making them sit quietly at the ballet, appreciate Shakespeare, and stay awake at a symphony, they are, culturally speaking, quite well-fed. A little dessert from time to time should be okay.
It can be fine, once in a while, to pose like you’re friends with Malcolm X or Katie Couric; to pretend that Julia Roberts is leaning on your living room chair; to get in J. Edgar Hoover’s face; or to get a picture with Jackie O. Right?
What do you think? Can you explain the strange pleasure of staring at a wax Tom Cruise?
The Peacock Room
Thomas Jeckyll, interior designer and architect, was close to finishing his big 1876 commission: to design a dining room for shipping magnate Frederick Leyland which would fittingly show off Leyland’s collection of blue & white porcelain. A friend of Leyland’s, the famous painter James McNeill Whistler, happened to be working in the front hallway of the same house adding embellishments and decoration. He suggested to Jeckyll that a little yellow in the walls would be just the thing to tie in the centerpiece artwork: his own La princesse du pays de la porcelaine that hung above the fireplace. This portrait of a sinuous and elegant princess dressed in Asian clothing defined the room (and was most decidedly NOT “Whistler’s Mother”).
Leyland authorized the little dabs of color here and there that Whistler thought would finish off the room and left for a business trip. Jeckyll, another brilliant design complete, left for other pursuits.
After that, what happened foreshadows “Extreme Makeover, Home Edition.” Alone at the house, Whistler fancied up the room with gold paint and peacock feather designs on the ceiling; he painted on top of the leather wainscoting with a Prussian blue, and created ornate peacocks in gilded paint on the shutters. Proud as…well…a peacock of his work and eager to show it off, he invited friends (including the press) over for lavish parties in the room.
The story goes that Whistler excitedly informed his out-of-town patron that he’d transformed the room into a state of glorious perfection. Then he presented a very large bill. The wrangle that followed over payment and permission is famously illustrated on the wall across from La princesse: two showy peacocks---one, sporting ruffled silver chest feathers that conjured up Leyland’s typical attire stands, plumage in full array, amidst a mass of spilled coins; and another, more composed, with a curled forelock similar to Whistler’s hairstyle, poses across from it. Here is a spat, immortalized, and available to see by anyone who visits Washington D.C.'s Freer Gallery.
Whistler titled the mural, “Art and Money; Or The Story of a Room.” Leyland must have been at least as amused as he was insulted---he allowed the painting to stay. (But I like to think he wore fewer ruffles after that.)
I wasn't too worried about the original room designer, Jeckyll---all in a day's work, I assumed. But then I read this from his biography, "His disastrous experience with James Whistler over the decoration of Leyland's dining room (the notorious 'Peacock' room) precipitated a mental collapse, and he spent the last years of his life in a Norwich asylum."
Art Appreciation
Friends were staying in Baltimore for the weekend and we decided to meet for a look around The Walters Museum in the Mount Vernon Cultural District. The Walters has an exceptional collection of art objects: Paleolithic axe heads, mummies of women and cats, and child-sized suits of armor.
Roman sculpture in a sun-filled, marble-floored courtyard, Impressionist and Renaissance paintings, vases from Ancient Greece, Faberge eggs, Tiffany vases, ossuaries, and sarcophagi.
Some rooms are so crowded with ornately framed artworks, that there’s a Victorian salon feel to the place. It freed me from the need to approach each individual piece with academic intent, absorbing and retaining information from the accompanying information plaque. Instead, I stood happily immersed in the visual cacophony.
The building (actually three conjoined and each with its own architectural style) is a delight to walk through. The center, original, museum has a room you can’t miss. The name alone will make you want to grab your keys and drive north: The Chamber of Wonders.
My friend Gail describes visiting the Walters to be like rambling around in a curio cabinet and the Chamber of Wonders is the distillation of that feeling. Inside are the wonders of Nature on display in shadow boxes and glass-fronted bureaus and hung on every inch of wall space.
Cheetah skins and giant mounted butterflies; the head of a moose; shelves of seashells; enormous beetles pinned in a case; the full body of an alligator above the doorway that reads, “Through Such Variety is Nature Beautiful.”
The Egyptian Room has an entirely different feel. The space is hushed, the lighting muted, the artifacts in spare groupings.
It’s a room to whisper in. You’d have (barely) heard me say, “Look, a cat mummy,” before I tiptoed over to a set of mounted carved tablets etched and painted in 2000 BC (and still looking good!)
And when you think you can’t possibly be any more amazed, walk past the statue of George Washington atop the obelisk just outside the Charles Street exit and cross the street to The Peabody Institute.
You can walk right in to the famous library there. “The Peabody Stack Room,” according to the Institute's website, “contains five tiers of ornamental cast-iron balconies, which rise dramatically to the skylight 61 feet above the floor.” It could be an adjunct to the Chamber of Wonders: a work of art in its own right.
Space Fix
After a visit from out west, my parents had a homeward bound flight to catch at Dulles---a perfect chance to check out the Udvar-Hazy Center, the National Air and Space Museum’s enormous facility to show off all the cool planes and spaceships that don’t fit in their Mall site. While I am impressed by the concept of flight and amazed, in a general way, by advances in aerospace technology, the idea of an excursion to see planes and more planes made me feel a snooze coming on. But I did it for Dad, a retired United Airlines dispatcher with a fondness for flying machines.
We paid $15 to park, a fee that rankled until I read that it was meant to deter airport users. (Dulles is only four miles away. There is a free shuttle between the airport and the museum---a great layover idea, I think.) Entrance to the Center is free. Once we got inside, the parking fee annoyance evaporated.
Three levels of walkways circle the perimeter of immense hangars and planes are everywhere: Perky, yellow circus “Jennys” dangle from rafters like toys, positively dwarfed by giant spy planes, chalky gray and ominous.
Aircraft of all conceivable shapes and colors fill the space, suspended from the 10-story high trusses. Even for someone not so interested in the history of flight and the contributions rising from military needs and subsequent space exploration, the sight of thousands of flyers all massed in these giant rooms was awe-inspiring.
The Enola Gay is there.
So is the Space Shuttle Enterprise in a room hung with satellites, like holiday decorations.
The super-sonic Concorde rests in ironic and silent stillness, sleek and long on the hangar floor, a misfit amongst tiny hovering biplanes.
In glass cases, you can ogle an assembly of Charles Lindbergh collectibles or china and furniture festooned with designs representing another flight craze: hot air balloons. A teacup, salvaged from the Hindenburg (see video here), rests next to its saucer---a reminder of the failures amidst all the soaring successes.
You’ll see Amelia Earhart’s pilot goggles and her stylish flight jacket, but you won’t find her Lockheed Electra: it’s been missing since 1937.
You can take a free tour and hear tantalizing tidbits like this that I overheard as we lingered for a moment at the Blackbird SR-71A:
“…if a bullet was shot alongside this plane, the plane would outpace it.”
In fact, this stealth bomber has flown from NY to LA in 64 minutes. That’s 2,094 miles per hour. Look, it’s crazy fast---nothing flew faster. And it’s parked just inside of the front doors of the Udvar-Hazy Center. Next time your dad’s in town, go see it.