Resident Tourist Goes Packing
I knew after my family returned from our trip around the world that I would need to broaden my horizons at home beyond the familiar triangle of roads that connected Whole Foods to Giant to Trader Joe’s. Compartmentalizing my grocery shopping could no longer serve as my peak adventure; I was ready for something more.
I decided to wedge the new sense of myself as Traveler into the former, homebody version of me by making excursions to local destinations and writing about my experiences. I thought of it as kind of a friend’s guide to fun goings-on and dubbed it Resident Tourist.
The blog gave me a much-needed structure and a goal---a reason to get out and experience DC and its environs through the eyes of a visitor. Museums and markets; lively neighborhoods and nearby towns; greenhouses and gardens I’d meant to visit for years, became assignments. I had to go---a post must be written.
I was as easily tricked into this faux reporter’s role as someone who begins to arrive on time by setting home clocks a few minutes ahead. I knew it wasn’t real, but it did the trick.
But then something unexpected happened. The faux became real.
Steve Hull, who I’d met during a post-world-trip interview for the magazine, asked to include Resident Tourist on the newly-designed Bethesda Magazine website. Suddenly the whole enterprise moved from a private, almost secret, creative outlet to a real venture with actual readers. I was thrilled.
Much like a new devotion to jogging may lead you to finally trying Pilates or rock climbing, the task of exploring and writing, gave way to other big ideas. After years of aimless imaginings about my own future, the usual haze was beginning to clear. This new version of me---a person who wrote and photographed and conceived of things became the same sort of person who might go to graduate school and start a whole new life chapter.
So now I find myself on the verge of a new career as a teacher of English to speakers of other languages. I’m in the midst of my teaching internship and hope to find a job beginning next semester. I have been alternately overwhelmed, excited and exhausted.
Writing Resident Tourist was a perfect antidote to the demands of graduate school with its research papers and in-depth studies of linguistics, methods, and assessment design. Nothing was a better break from fine-tuning a critical review than bicycling through the city streets with hundreds of pedalers dressed in tweed or dangling from a zipline harness or ambling through the charming streets of Frederick or St. Michaels.
But I find I’m unable to gracefully mesh the duties of full-time teaching with the pleasurable pursuit of blogging. And my sense of adventure now comes from seeing the world through the eyes of the students I work with - young people from Burma and Guatemala, China and India. Their dreams are modest, their stories inspiring. I've stumbled into my dream job.
So, with this new calling on the horizon, I find that I have to let go of this great opportunity that Steve provided. With more than a twinge of sadness, this post bids farewell to Resident Tourist. For now.
Thank you Steve Hull and the staff at Bethesda Magazine for your support. And thanks to you all for reading Resident Tourist.
America’s first experiment with city planning: Greenbelt, MD
Greenbelt, Maryland in Prince George’s County has a certain “town that time forgot” quality about it. There’s a village square with a café whose back room is frequently filled with townspeople toe-tapping to that evening’s jamming, grey-haired performer and a never-renovated classic big-screen movie theatre with its original Art Deco marquee. The times I’ve visited, hoping for some small-town charm, I really only found quirky characters and odd-looking folks wandering around the almost-empty patio that fronts the café and the theatre. Also a vintage-looking dry cleaners, a co-op market, and a fairly decent Chinese restaurant. There’s something kind of faded about the place.
So why, in 1997, sixty years after its construction, was Greenbelt designated a National Historic Landmark? Knowing about its history adds a little color back into the sun-bleached signs.
Things were not going so well here in the U.S. in 1935 and President Roosevelt had some bold ideas to reinvigorate the post-agricultural job market. Land was purchased by the government as part of the New Deal and a town was planned which would give out-of-work laborers the job of building it and would offer places to live for the workers leaving farming for industry. Greenbelt is the first town ever “built from scratch” to be self-sufficient and walkable---a model suburban garden community.
The dwellings were rental apartments or semi-detached houses, equipped with modern appliances and thoughtfully designed to include things like cross ventilation, picture molding, and even specially-made-to-scale furniture (more jobs for more craftsmen!) to perfectly fit the modest spaces. You can tour a historic house, furnished and staged just as it would have been for original tenants in 1937 or click here to watch a video.
Driving through town, I could almost imagine the sparkle and promise of this place with its crescent-shaped walkways and connecting footpaths meant to separate pedestrian traffic from vehicular traffic. The apartment facades with their original glass block windows are, like the square, a bit dingy after time, but stand as good examples of Art Deco design.
Come for the history and the architecture, but stay for a movie on the 40' screen and a cold beer afterward at the New Deal Cafe. You can toast to FDR and his bold idea.
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!)
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?
Cycling Capitol Hill
BIKES! Gleaming in a row and for rent in a new sleek space right outside Union Station. What a good way to cover the spaces in between tourist sites: that long walk from the train to the Capitol is collapsed into a pleasant few minutes under a canopy of trees when you’re pedaling through the park.
My friend Laura and I had geared up at the Bike and Roll rental shop and were sent on our way by the earnest young men running the stand. Included in our fee were helmets, locks, and handlebar pouches that held our cameras while we meandered across the Hill on rented wheels.
You can ride on the sidewalks in DC; a nuisance for pedestrians I’m sure, but we were too timid to brave the traffic on anything but side streets. A bike lane runs assertively right in the center of Pennsylvania Avenue, but in spite of the old maxim that doing something you haven’t tried for years is “just like riding a bike,” I was too tentative and wobbly on mine to surge down that mid-lane bike route.
It was enough of a challenge for me to manage the places where sidewalks buckled over tree roots and to navigate the sharp turns you need to make once you pedal up the ramps from street to curb when you’ve got the “walk” light. (It sure makes you aware of the difficult choreography wheelchair users must have to master!)
Careful to avoid bicycling over the dark-suited Senatorial types, we weaved along the walkways aiming for the Capitol and the Supreme Court just across from it. I’ve seen these buildings hundreds of times, but the grandeur never diminishes. I was like the greenest tourist, enthusiastically snapping too many pictures and pointing out architectural details, reading the words “Equal Justice Under Law” in a sort of soft-focus, idealistic reverie.
We first used our handy bike locks at the Library of Congress. Inside, the photo taking really got out of hand. Everywhere you look, richly saturated, colorful beauty: every view ornate, every wall and ceiling a deep pastel hue. You will love the view from the balcony on the third floor looking over the vast reader’s room.
You can wander in to the very core of the building, its symbolic soul: Thomas Jefferson’s library. His collection of grammar books and French histories and notes on the Serpentine wall at UVa and volumes by Milton and drafts of the Declaration of Independence and his writings on slavery sits shelved in glass rows. You can gaze at the spines and consider all the research and thinking and wisdom behind the decisions he made as he crafted a plan for a new country. Fascinating, but a lunch-time hunger pulled us away.
A few minutes of riding got us to Eastern Market. We strolled down the brightly lit promenade ogling olives and platters of clams.
Crabcakes from Market Lunch with a side of grilled green beans and green-fried tomatoes fueled us up for a leisurely ride back through the drizzle to the friendly fellows at the bike shop.
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.
O’s v. Nats: It’s in the Ballpark
This summer I had the pleasure of pretending to be a baseball fan at both of our local stadiums, the relatively new Nationals Park and Camden Yards in Baltimore.
We took Metro to the Nationals game, watching the train fill with more red caps and shirts at every stop. I enjoyed the lively scene coming down the promenade on the short walk from the Navy Yard Metro stop to the front gates as people bought peanuts, met friends, and socialized before going in to root for their team. There's a great sense of arrival approaching this stadium. It feels like a party at the gates.
The new phenom, Strasburg was pitching (latest surgery news here), and people seemed giddy to be there. Luckily, in spite of the buzz, we were able to buy tickets on the spot for pretty good seats.
As someone who is only mildly and politely interested in what’s happening on the diamond, ambiance plays a big role in my baseball outing. In spite of the joyful, red-colored gaiety in and around Nationals Park, I prefer the old-timey, intimate feel imposed by the long brick warehouse wall and the sweeping city views at Camden Yards. Even the gleeful roar that sounded as Strasburg took the mound is not enough to entice me to this more concrete-feeling baseball park.
Nationals Park, designed by the same firm that created the plans for Camden Yards (and about 15 other parks since then), purposefully lacks the retro touches of the Baltimore design. But whatever makes it more modern, also gives it a generic feeling. Nor does it feel attached to its city in the same way the Orioles’ park does.
Josh Levin writes, when he compares Nationals Park to the temporary former home of the team, “If RFK Stadium was an old acquaintance who'd seen better days, then Nationals Park is the pal who's always asking you for money."
I found both excursions rather expensive and both venues filled, in a theme-park kind of way, with pricey food stalls, high-cost souvenirs, and even kiddie rides. Certainly, if you’re taking your family to a game, you’ll spend hundreds of dollars on the event. (The Team Marketing Report, a sports marketing publishing company, shares its shocking averages here.) My friend Adam looked at the children-sized Orioles jersey for his daughter and politely walked away: $79.99 seemed high, even for this ardent O’s fan and devoted dad. At least you are immersed in the historical feel and beauty of Camden Yards when you surrender your dollars there.
This photo is by Amanda Lippert, www.baseballstadiumreviews.com
For me it comes down to this: Nationals Park has Teddy's BBQ, the racing presidents and also, “Shout” by Otis Day and the Knights during the 7th inning stretch. The Orioles’ park sits amidst great pubs and restaurants, has awesome crabcakes for sale inside the gates (only $12 which is barely a mark-up compared to the $7.25 you spend for a beer!), and, curiously, “Thank God, I’m a Country Boy” as its mid-game, crowd-rousing ditty (“Life ain’t nothin' but a funny, funny riddle!")
Sadly, if you’re sitting in a seat at Camden Yards, you’ll be (one of the few fans) in one of the most beautiful parks in the country, watching the worst team in the league. Still, I’ll take the Orioles and the longer ride home.
Old Town Alexandria
In honor of our trip to Old Town Alexandria, I snipped the tags from the wide-legged summer weight pants I’d snagged on my last visit there. This past winter a quick dip into to the Gap Factory Outlet on King Street netted me some staples – shorts and shirts for my kids – plus these comfy pants at a mere $9 – and, best of all, I’d forgotten about them until they fell out of my closet a few weeks ago. There’s nothing better than buying something for a song because it’s past season, then tucking it away for the winter and rediscovering it just as you’re wringing your hands in front of the closet because you have nothing new to wear.
Dani and I got an early start the day we explored Old Town. We timed our departure to occur just after the morning rush, when Rock Creek Parkway is relatively quiet, and the cool water rushing by makes you feel like you’re already on a vacation of sorts, because how could this much natural splendor be found in the midst of so much urban sprawl?
We parked by the Torpedo Factory Art Center and the weather was so glorious that we took a quick stroll along the waterfront before heading inside. Constructed in 1918 to manufacture torpedoes, the building served that purpose until just after World War II. For several years it served as government storage space for items varying from munitions to dinosaur bones.
In 1974, after the city of Alexandria purchased the property from the U.S. government, it opened as a space for artists and has remained an important creative venue with various tweaks, additions, and renovations ever since.
This massive waterfront structure now houses 82 studios showcasing artists working in every possible medium. In our all-too-brief survey of the studios, we came upon sculpture in stone, glass, wire, and various combinations of materials, as well as paintings, photographs, jewelry, clothing, works in enamel and exquisitely crafted ceramics. If you’re lucky, the creative types behind all the artwork will be working in their studios. We chatted first with Pat Monk, who makes enormous sculptures of stainless steel that he welds in the back of his studio space. My favorite was his whimsical “Dragon’s Tail,” the result of a collaboration with a friend who creates stained glass.
A short walk away we found Cindy Packard Richmond, painting boats in her airy, light-filled space overlooking the water.
I was particularly taken with her still life paintings – pears, and asparagus painted in luscious but true–to-life colors – while Dani pined for a painting of goldfish shimmering like jewels.
We would have poked around longer on the upper floors, but we had an 11:30 reservation to experience the Lickety Split Lounge Lunch at Restaurant Eve. I was sold the minute I’d heard the name, and I tried my best to inject it into every sentence that day, as in, “Dani, I think I’ll just pop into the restroom here before we go to the Lickey Split Lounge lunch, okay?”
Essentially an express dining option offered only in the restaurant’s bar area, it provides an easy-on-the-wallet approach to sample the culinary wonders of this venerable Old Town eatery. For $13.50, diners can choose two items from a fairly broad selection that includes soups, salads, sandwiches and desserts. We loved it. And yes, beets were involved.
After lunch I started to feel, as I nearly always do on these excursions, that we’d barely scratched the surface of Old Town. Luckily, our next stop was nearly next door to the restaurant. Diva, an upscale resale boutique on South Pitt St., houses two floors of secondhand clothing in good condition, plus a great selection of costume jewelry.
I walked out with a flouncy, feminine skirt, while Dani scored a great pink sweater. Next I whisked Dani through the stylish lobby of the Hotel Monaco in King Street as we hustled back to the car.
We drove a few blocks up King Street and parked in front of Misha, on S. Patrick Street.
Misha is a no-frills coffee lover’s café, sporting at least two ancient refrigerators, a plethora of community notices, and a wide communal table in one room, where a man sat playing solitaire with the smallest deck of playing cards imaginable.
We ordered iced coffees and sweetened them with simple syrup, a nice touch that puts you on notice that you’re in serious coffee drinker territory.
Just a half block from Misha’s, back on King Street, is The Hour, one of the funkiest, most appealingly laid-out specialty shops around. If you’re a “Mad Men” devotee, The Hour cries out for a visit. Open for about a year, this shop is a place whose windows I’d peered into longingly on earlier Old Town trips, but I’d never before walked inside.
Two floors of cocktail glasses, martini shakers, colorful serving trays (including unusual Couroc trays of black lacquer – a personal favorite of mine) and serving dishes offer all you need to throw a rocking retro party.
All items are helpfully labeled as either vintage or new, so you don’t have to scrutinize a piece and screw up the courage to ask if it’s “authentic.”
I didn’t buy anything, only because by the time I’d climbed the stairs to the second floor I was in sensory overload mode, feeling a desperate urge to buy almost everything. Or at the very least, to get myself a stiff drink. I vowed to return without a caffeine buzz to peruse the wares in a calmer state. Perhaps Don Draper could join me and offer up suggestions…
We ended our Old Town excursion with a reminder of why we don’t make the trip more often: a traffic snarl just past National Airport that had us crawling along the GW Parkway for several miles.
This development didn’t ruin our day by any means, but it did spark a conversation about the many ways that traffic woes in the DC area lead people to think twice, perhaps, before striking out to explore. While we were in Alexandria, we had to dash back to the car every hour or so to feed the meter. (There is free parking for 2 hours directly across from the Torpedo Factory, but I stupidly forgot that option). We could have easily taken the Metro to Old Town and availed ourselves of the free trolley that runs frequently between the Metro station and the base of King Street at the waterfront.
In fact, my husband and I enjoyed an overnight escape in Old Town last winter, sans car. We packed an overnight bag, walked to the Metro, and were riding the Trolley to the Hotel Monaco less than an hour later. It was easy, and liberating. When I return for the martini glasses and olive forks at The Hour, I just may take the Metro.