A Zipline Harness is the New Black
If you live near Bethesda, within an hour you could be part of the latest extreme action craze: dangling from a steel cable and whirring from one big tree trunk to another. It seems that everyone’s trying zip-lining these days.
Before 2002, it would have been unlikely to have a friend share zip-line stories over drinks, but now you can’t hoist a beer without knocking into someone who’s harnessed up and zipped. And the number of thrill-seekers has been doubling each year since 2008. In our area, there are three nearby canopy tours and many more within a few hours drive.
Recently, I found myself sweaty-palmed and inching across slender balance beams suspended above the forest floor, wishing the obstacle course features of the park weren’t so darned high up.
It isn’t enough to just ride across vast clearings on your line, you also have to swing Tarzan-style into giant nets and crawl through hanging tunnels.
My kids loved it, though from now on, I’ll be quite happy to stay on the ground. You have until mid-December to try it for yourself and share tales of your own harness-fittings at this year's seasonal parties.
October in MD: From Wenches to Zombies, Expressing Your Inner “Other”
Maybe you’ve been to the Renaissance Festival and have noticed that people---adult people and lots of them---really love to play dress-up. There’s something liberating, it seems, about becoming someone else for a while.
Whether a temporary wench from medieval times in a fetching leather bustier or a kilt-sporting woodsman gnawing at a roasted turkey leg, you can walk amongst the colorful flags and crystal shops with cheer---your government day job just a hazy, future-tense prospect.
In costume, you are a character on a set, free to improvise different lines for a while, far from your cubicle and pinching office shoes.
Short of a Halloween party, the RennFest was the most acceptable place to dress-up and release your inner “other.”
Until Silver Spring’s Zombie Walk, that is.
Apparently, there are hundreds of the undead among us. Ellsworth Street and Georgia Avenue has teemed with them once a year since 2008. This year, the zombies come out on October 22nd.
Heads, bloody and still sticking to the hatchets that cleaved them, desperate fingers reaching from outstretched tattered sleeves, pale empty faces moaning for “Brains!” Zombie couples, zombie superheroes, and little zombie babies parade past the Discovery building, toward the specially-scheduled zombie movies at the AFI. It is a sight of sore eyes!
If you are not the zombie-dressing sort, come for the spectacle of it. (Though you may find that, like when you are inside the wooden fences of the RennFest, the one who looks strangest is the jeans-wearing, camera-toting, stuck-in-the-modern-moment YOU!)
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.
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?
Finding Balance at Brookside Gardens
I stepped outside this morning and needed no parka nor an umbrella. I thought I’d better do some quick basking in case Spring changes her fickle mind again. I feel like a grumpy 7-year-old who’s been kept from a stack of birthday gifts for an extra two weeks. Finally, today I can tear off the wrapping.
Feeling as knobby and flaked as a sycamore, I meandered along the aromatic pathways in Montgomery County's Brookside Gardens and found a magical balance. My gnarled attitude smoothed out along with my furrowed brow. Early pinks and shocking yellows promised more color to come and my fussy mood lifted away onto a breeze.
You can’t stare into a cherry tree and stay disgruntled. Or sniff a hyacinth. Try it.
You’re Closer Than You Think to Being Seaside
The stubborn chill of March in Washington DC has me daydreaming about taking a break to search for spring. I happen to know about a sugary sand oasis in Florida where, in the same amount of time it takes to put your winter clothes in storage, you could be hopping into your rented convertible and motoring toward the idealized town called Seaside.
"The Truman Show" was filmed in this Florida Panhandle community in 1998 and you may feel you're on a movie set: It's a perfect town, built on the principles of New Urbanism. Every street connects via walkways to the town's center and porches are close to the sidewalks to encourage conversation with passersby. You can shop for records and books on the square and hear a concert on the green. Points of access to the beach are framed by architecturally unique sculptural entryways. They're impressive, but the real thrill is reaching the top of the stairway to find the Gulf Waters impossibly blue and shimmering. The antidote to the DC wintery air that will not relent.
Oh, think of it: squeaky white sand under bare feet, a fruit shake from one of the Airstream trailers that serve as sidewalk cafes along the main strip, an outdoor breakfast complete with a Bloody Mary and beignets, Cruiser bicycle rides past candy-colored cottages.
Southwest Airlines has direct flights from BWI to Panama City. Don’t forget suntan lotion and your book club read. By the time you get home, you’ll be able to put those coats away until next year.
Looking to Chill
Last winter, I succumbed to peer pressure to downhill ski despite total lack of skills and an intense dislike for speed.
Still emotionally scarred a year later by a harrowing descent on the green level “Salamander” slope at West Virginia's Timberline Resort, I resolved on this year's ski trip to bring a stack of good books and crossword puzzles and to skip the slippery antics.
I would prop pillows by the cozy fireplace and not even once think about riding the swaying ski lift, dangling like an earring over a vast icy mountainside, while people darted like hornets all over the slope below.
No, this year, I would avoid the whole chaotic scene and stay put in our cabin. Or at least that was my plan until I heard about White Grass.
Just 5 miles from our rented house was a laid-back cross-country ski mecca with a homey café and a hippie vibe and it was there, after enjoying a delicious bowl of spinach and barley soup and a turkey panini, that I found my new sport.
White Grass has been outfitting cross-country skiers since 1959 and it has a North Pole vintagey feel: a big pot-bellied wood stove glows in the foyer and handpainted signs adorn the rental area. No molded plastic boots stomped up steps; no bad, expensive hot-dogs and pizza congealed in the lodge; no lift lines (or ambulances parked nearby!)
The difference between the hubbub of the downhill slopes and the whispery winter trails at White Grass was the perfect cure for my ski-related terror. A 20-minute mini-lesson (only $6!) with a cute instructor had me striding and gliding in short order past barns and horses and snow-laden pine branches.
I stuck to the “easy beginner” trails, but there are more challenging ones with sections of hills and twists for the thrill-seeker. For a path to becoming a fearless skier, it's totally chill.
How about you? Would you trade downhill thrills for a country glide through the woods?
The National Arboretum: D.C.’s Secret Garden
You may have lived for decades somewhere in or near Washington DC and never strolled some of the 450 verdant acres that make up the U.S. National Arboretum, the largest green space in the District and one of the world’s loveliest gardens. I only had some vague idea about where it was and, in fact, I would describe it as a good bit off the beaten track. Whether a tourist or a resident (or both!), you would be unlikely to stumble across it. You really have to mean to find it.
Smack dab on ugly New York Avenue is the main entrance to a wooded wonderland of trees, flowering shrubs, and gardens. Find fern valleys, conifer forests, and a childrens’ garden. Clip-clop across arched bridges, take a break under a spreading evergreen on a gnarled wood bench, hear your own breathing against the babble of a creek.
Walk meandering pathways and forget that you are not miles from traffic and pollution---even though a certain walk leads to the edge of the dismally sad Anacostia carrying a flotilla of discarded water bottles and dirty flotsam. Even beside the neglected river, you have two very different views, depending on which way you face. One is this:
But the other is this:
