Hagerstown, MD

Place Visited: Hagerstown, Maryland, USA
Date: December 2018

Hagerstown is a pleasant little town but unfortunately very little seems to be open on Sundays in December. I did have some very nice coffee at Rooster Moon and admired the architecture of some local churches, but by and large I didn't stay long.

Frederick, MD

Place Visited: Frederick, Maryland, USA
Date: December 2018

I don't usually feature visitor centers quite so prominently, but this one might as well have doubled as a museum. I also took a brief drive through Mount Olivet Cemetery, but there was a funeral going on so I didn't stay long. There's a lot more I still hope to see in Frederick, but perhaps next time I won't go the weekend before Christmas. Traffic was just a touch crazy downtown.

Church Creek, MD

Place Visited: Church Creek, Maryland, USA
Date: December 2018

My tour guide at the Stanley Institute in nearby Cambridge strongly urged me to make a side trip to the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center and boy am I glad I followed his advice. Tubman was a badass. I'd known a little of her story but had had no idea just how many people she saved. It's also a sober reminder of how Maryland, now generally thought of as part of the North, was unquestionably a slave state. Definitely worth the detour.

Cambridge, MD

Place Visited: Cambridge, Maryland, USA
Date: December 2018

This was a magical trip. I decided to spend the day on the Eastern Shore. I first stopped by the Spocott Windmill, where I spent a very relaxing time drawing. There was no one around, but all the doors were unlocked, so I quite happily browsed all the buildings. It felt good to be trusted to be alone in such a place.

Later that day I stopped by the Stanley Institute. It didn't look open, but while I was peeking in windows, a gentleman drove up and offered me a tour. He had to drop off something at his mother's house so he opened up the school for me and let me look around (again, on my own) until he got back and gave me a simply marvelous private tour. He even took me through the church across the street that wasn't quite open to the public yet. He also recommended a place that wasn't on my itinerary, the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center, but that's another post.

Artomatic

Location: Hyattsville, Maryland, USA
Visited: December 2015

Artomatic is a lovely art show with over 500 artists, taking over an entire building. I attended the last show, in Crystal City, and I'm glad I made it to this one as well. And just barely - I finally managed to attend on the next-to-last day of the show. I was sick as a dog and it was probably a terrible idea, but I'm glad I went all the same. Very inspiring.

Dubuque, IA

Location:Dubuque, Iowa, USA
Date visited: December 2013

While visiting my family over Christmas, my aunt, my cousin, and I went tooling around town, looking at all the old buildings. It's a beautiful old river town, one my family's lived in for generations. We even watched some bald eagles fishing on the partly-frozen Mississippi River. Oh yeah, and the Killer Bee shots were pretty delicious. :)

The Newseum

Location: Newseum, Washington, DC, USA
Visited: December 2012

Though extremely well done, I found this museum far more depressing than I'd expected. Of course, I should have known: what makes the news, after all? Crime, tragedy, and politics. I loved the section with the old newspapers, and the 9/11 and Oklahoma City Bombing exhibits were interesting and heartbreaking at the same time, and the assorted homages to fake news (The Daily Show, SNL, et al) were fun. I'm not sure I'd go back, but I'm certainly glad I went.

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.