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.
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?
Why You Should Go to Staunton
My personal limit for a reasonable weekend excursion is three hours in the car. More than that, to me, and the “travel-time to adventure” ratio feels out of balance.
Here’s a spot that pushes up against the comfortable distance, but is so worth the journey: Staunton, Virginia. (Don’t read that in your head as “Staw-nton”---it’s “St-ANT-on.)
You should go for more than just a creamy shake from Kline's Dairy Bar…
Architecturally, the town is filled with riches. The Civil War did not ravage Staunton and the charming storefronts and homes in and around Main Street are a testament to this. The place is stuffed with Victorian character and faded advertisements from the 20th century painted on vast brick walls. Woodrow Wilson's birthplace is here, too, for you Presidential trivia types. Take a walking tour led by a local expert.
The Blackfriars Playhouse, a replica of Shakespeare’s indoor London theatre, presents the Bard’s plays year-round. Get tickets for a play after your day of strolling and shopping and be sure to arrive early enough for the pre-show's high-energy hijinks.
We had a delicious cheesy pie at Shenandoah Pizza while a folk guitarist entertained and all of Beverley Street was buzzing on Saturday night. It’s truly an artsy, groovster hotspot dotted with coffee shops and actors, yarn stores and poets. (But Sunday morning was a different story. Staunton was closed up tight with pursed lips and no breakfast. Our footsteps echoed along the previous night's vibrant sidewalks. We finally found a cafe open in the Wharf area---called the Wharf, but waterless, this is where the train station is---and sipped a perfect latte. The poets and musicians must have been sleeping or at church---or possibly both at once.)
Stay overnight in a comfortable B&B room at Frederick House or have a elegant hotel experience at The Stonewall Jackson Hotel.
Buy (or blow!) your own glass ornament at Sunspots Studios downtown. Your kids will be entranced, don't you think, by the free glassblowing demonstrations?
And I'm sorry to keep piling on the demands, but do not even think of heading home without visiting the Museum of American Frontier Culture where settlers' homes and farm buildings are tended to by staff in period clothing who share the stories of America's earliest immigrants. Yes, there are sheep to pet!
Next time I go, I have my heart set on taking Amtrak. Only $41 from Union Station to Staunton (a four-hour journey by rail). You can easily walk from the station to the town and to most of the attractions. I love the idea of reading and gazing out the window on the lovely ride south and west into the Shenandoah Valley. Then the traveling becomes the adventure.
