Brick Fair

Location: Brick Fair, Chantilly, Virginia, USA
Visited: August 2011 and 2012

A few weeks ago I happened upon a little Ziplock baggie of clippings from the 2011 Brick Fair, a celebration of all things LEGO held every summer at the Dulles Expo Center not far from my house. It's great fun to look at all the amazing creations everyone puts together each year. Definitely recommended if you're a LEGO fan.

Yes, yes, I know the scan isn't very good. The book is getting full and it's getting harder to lie flat.

Chicago, IL

Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA
Visited: December 2011

I grew up in Central Illinois, so I am no stranger to Chicago, but I hadn't visited the Windy City in several years. After spending Christmas in Iowa with my family, we decided to spend a night in Chicago rather than making the cross-state commute at the crack of dawn to make our 9am flight out of O'Hare. My husband suggested we see a play, and we settled on La Cage Aux Folles at the Bank of America Theatre. We were both familiar with (and fond of) the movie The Birdcage, which is based on the same play, and we were certainly not disappointed. My husband suggested we do this any time we fly into Chicago, and I think it's a marvelous idea.

Oh yeah, before the play we dined at the Italian Village restaurants - specifically, La Cantina. So delicious! We were stuffed by the end of it and definitely satisfied. Hooray for real Chicago Italian food!

Alexandria, VA

Location: Alexandria, Virginia, USA
Visited: December 2011

Though I'm in Alexandria often, this was a special occasion. A couple friends and I went on the annual Historic Alexandria Candlelight Tour, where we got to actually enter several buildings we'd previously only seen from the outside: Gadsby's Tavern, Carlyle House, Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary and Lee-Fendall House (for which I unfortunately did not pick up a brochure). My favorite was the apothecary; I wish we'd had more time to really look at it all. Everything was decked out to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, but the costumed guides threw in plenty of tidbits from the rest of the buildings' histories. We didn't dally that long at any place (save about ten minutes of sitting with hot cider at Carlyle), and yet it took us the full three hours to see all four sites. They evidently do a different time period each year, so there's a decent chance this could become part of my holiday traditions.

Asheville, NC

Location: Asheville, North Carolina, USA
Visited: October 2011

One of the best parts of Asheville was the large number of local shops and restaurants. Links ahoy!

• We spent quite a bit of time at Malaprop's, an independent bookstore and cafe. Tasty food and fun selection of merchandise.
  
• I very much enjoyed shopping at the Mast General Store, the Kress Emporium, Grove Arcade, and ZaPow art gallery.
  
• The Chocolate Fetish had some seriously delicious treats.
  
• Mellow Mushroom gave me flashbacks. (There's one in Charlottesville, VA, where I went to graduate school.)
  
• Awesome noms were, er, nommed at Laurey's, Asheville Brewing Company, and Twisted Crepe.
  
• I stopped by West End Bakery and enjoyed some delicious cookies solely because there was an OBCZ there. This isn't the first time I've eaten somewhere directly because of BookCrossing. I also caught a wild book there that had mysteriously transported some 250 miles from West Virginia to North Carolina.
  
• I walked the entire Asheville Urban Trail, thirty plaques and statues detailing the history of the area. Some truly strange pieces (hello, giant iron?) but some beautiful ones too.

Asheville, NC

Location: Thomas Wolfe Memorial, Asheville, North Carolina, USA
Visited: October 2011

The house tour was all of a dollar, and our guide was simply excellent. Check out the replica of Julia Wolfe's business card in the upper right corner! I've never read any Thomas Wolfe (and, to be perfectly honest, don't intend to either), but the memorial was really great. And if there's a biopic, he should totally be played by Tim Robbins. The end.

Asheville, NC

Location: Asheville, North Carolina, USA
Visited: October 2011

I did not visit Biltmore because it cost $60 to get in, but I did wander nearby Biltmore Village, and hey, the brochures were just chock full of pretty pictures.

Asheville, NC

Location: Asheville, North Carolina, USA
Visited: October 2011

My husband went to Asheville to attend MoogFest. I joined him to explore the town. It's full of art and history and steep hills - in other words, just my cup of tea. Like many places, there was an Occupy Asheville group. I included the Miss Gay Latina Asheville ad because while the flyers were posted around town, I saw exactly no Latin people of either gender the entire time I was there, gay or otherwise. The Asheville Art Museum was pretty underwhelming for the price.

I suppose this would be a lovely time to mention that my husband's remix of "The Rocket Wife" by Tara Busch won third place. It's for sale and all proceeds go toward the Bob Moog Foundation. Go give it a listen!

Gettysburg, PA

Location: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA
Visited: April 2011

Downtown Gettysburg is tourist central. Plenty of markers and souvenir shops. The highlight of the place for me, of course, was the Lincoln and Perry Como statue. Oh yeah, and we didn't actually see Bob Newhart, but he was advertised as the guest of honor at some upcoming festival. It was just so incongruous that I had to include him.

Gettysburg, PA

Location: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA
Visited: April 2011

The folks at the Rupp House were especially friendly, though we did get a bit of a chuckle out of the "Lincoln Slept Here" brochure. You too can buy a brick of a building that once house Lincoln for a night or two! Reminds me of our favorite marker of the trip, a tree with a plaque informing us that Lincoln "passed by" that tree. He didn't stop there, he didn't have any kind of interaction with it: he just walked past it. Excellent.

Gettysburg, PA

Location: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA
Visited: April 2011

This was a rather momentous trip for me. It's pretty much the motherload of snarfs, it was the last time I saw Cookie, and it was the trip when I completely screwed up my ankle, an injury which resulted in five months in a brace and from which I am still recovering. The visitor's center is lovely and the driving tour was a lot of fun. We didn't come anywhere close to hitting all the historical markers in the place; we'll have to spend another weekend mopping up the rest at some point.

Brandy Station, VA

Location: Graffiti House, Brandy Station, Virginia, USA
Visited: June 2011

Brandy Station is easy to miss while traveling south on VA-28, but the Graffiti House is pretty nifty: lots of signatures and doodles from Civil War troops, both Union and Confederate. Had I not been on my way to Culpeper that day, I probably would have stayed longer.

Centreville, VA

Location: Centreville, Virginia, USA

Despite living here for over four years, 2011 was my very first visit to Centreville Day. The very notion of "historic downtown Centreville" was somewhat amusing to me, since we don't really have a downtown area, but there are a handful of structures still standing in the tiny area that has been known as Centreville since the 1720s. It was really great to tour the historic structures around the area and the fascinating Spindle Sears House - a house bought from the Sears catalog in the 1930s. I also got to talk to some lovely folks from Patch, the Bull Run Civil War Round Table, and the NoVa Chapter of the Archaeological Society of Virginia. I was amused when the lady from Shen Yu was absolutely convinced she'd met me two weeks before at a wine festival I hadn't attended, and the treats I enjoyed from Mindy's Cupcakes and Gotta Have Chocolate were simply fabulous.

I'll definitely be stopping by again next year.

Elkridge, MD

Location: Elkridge, Maryland, USA
Visited: July 2011

I stopped by the Elkridge Furnace Inn because it's on the National Register of Historic Places, and while I was snooping around the grounds, looking for any additional snarfs, the head chef saw me and brought me inside for a tour. Super nice guy, as I noted. I have to go back and eat there sometime.

The "brief history" that takes up the bulk of the page is actually a single fold pamphlet that opens up to reveal - what else? - a brief history of the inn.

Wisconsin

Location: Wisconsin Dells and Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Visited: June 2011

I separated the H.H. Bennett Studio from the rest of the Dells pages because it was by far my favorite stop of the entire trip. The photo in the upper left corner also folds out to reveal another photo of Bennett in a boat, but I like the jumping dude better. It was one of the first pictures created with "high speed" photography, to the point where many people at the time believed it was faked.

The Wisconsin Veterans Museum in Madison was an impulse stop, but very interesting nonetheless. It is made up mostly of life-sized dioramas of every American military conflict, including the most recent.

Warrenton, VA

Location: Warrenton, Virginia, USA
Visited: October 2011

Warrenton was another "pick a place and go" sort of day. It's a pretty quiet and not so very interesting town, but I really enjoyed the Old Jail Museum. That was definitely worth visiting.

Wisconsin Dells, WI

Location: Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, USA
Visited: June 2011

Remember how I said how pleased I am with myself when I make fold-out pages? Well, here's another one. The other side is just a generic photo of the Dells. I had a marvelous time here in the land of kitsch. And let me tell you: the doughnuts at Paul Bunyan's are not to be missed. Yum!

Boyce, VA

Location: Boyce, Virginia, USA
Visited: August 2011

I didn't actually spend much time here at the Arboretum, but I just could not resist that gateway photo.

By the way, once I finish my backlog of pages and start posting about more recent trips, I'll include more information/anecdotes about the places I go.

Cumberland, MD

Location: Cumberland, Maryland, USA
Visited: August, 2011

This is a good example of picking a place at random and just going. Cumberland is a gorgeous mountain town between two and three hours from me. In addition to the lovely scenery, I also stopped by the Western Maryland Railroad Station and the surprisingly varied Allegany Museum. I unfortunately did not find enough paper matter to fill more than a single page, but it's definitely a town I hope to visit again someday.