For this week’s blog post, I’m recalling a memorable — but accidental — day trip we took during a vacation in West Virginia a couple years ago. With winter about to begin this year, it’s the time to think about warmer weather day trips — perhaps start planning a few more! It’s my guess we […]
Seeing Birds at the National Aviary
Winter school break looms large over the holiday season. What to do with the kids between Christmas and New Years? Why, take them to the National Aviary, of course! There are few opportunities to get swooshed by a Victoria Crowned Pigeon (the bird is so much more fabulous looking than “pigeon” implies), or swooshed by […]
Lights on the Bay Brings Holiday Cheer
This year we also returned to Lights on the Bay, in Sandy Point State Park, to see what new lights have sprung up. It’s been several years since we’ve driven through the light display. The Lights on the Bay display is a 2-mile scenic drive along the shore of the Chesapeake Bay with approximately 70 […]
A Symphony of Lights Celebrates the Holiday Season
Going to Christmas lights displays, such as Howard County’s Symphony of Lights, has become a holiday tradition for my family. Symphony of Lights is a dazzling display of more than 100 larger-than-life animated and stationary holiday light creations, made up of more than 250,000 bulbs. During the past 21 years, nearly 2 million individuals have […]
A Different Kind of Gettysburg Spirits!
Gettysburg is almost as known for its ghosts as it is for its Civil War battlefields. But increasingly, there’s a different kind of spirits lurking around this historic town! No exploration of Gettysburg would be complete without checking out one of its wineries or distilleries, so we headed to Mason Dixon Distillery (MDD), well within […]
Twentythree Thousand, One Hundred Ten
The battle of Antietam, which took place on September 17, 1862, was a pivotal moment in the Civil War. It’s worth remembering that it was, and still is, the bloodiest single-day battle in American history. Every year on the first weekend in December, luminaries are placed in the battlefield to memorialize the fallen. Twelve hours, […]
Garden of Lights Celebrates the Holiday Season
This year, the Garden of Lights, Brookside Gardens’ holiday outdoor light exhibit, celebrates its 19th season as a Baltimore/Washington, DC area family holiday tradition. During just one month a year, Brookside Gardens is illuminated with more than one million dazzling colorful lights shaped into hand-crafted, original art forms of flowers, animals and other natural elements. Stroll […]
Just Ducky: Seeing Pittsburgh on Land and by River
If you want a serious tour of Pittsburgh, don’t go on the Just Ducky tours. But if you want to see a little of Pittsburgh by land and by river and have some fun laughing at some corny jokes and quack-quack-quacking at people you drive past, then this is the tour for you! I enjoyed […]
Native American Heritage Month
My employer asked me to write an internal newsletter blog about a Native American site in Maryland in honor of Native American Heritage Month. In a state and region with river names such as Monocacy, Potomac, Patapsco and Patuxent, I thought it would be easy to find a native American heritage site. I grew up […]
Gunston Hall, George Mason’s Retreat
One of the most famous men of his time is now one of the least known: George Mason. His Virginia Declaration of Rights anticipated and most certainly influenced what became the Bill of Rights. In fact, he is often referred to as the “father” of the Bill of Rights. Mason was a colonial Virginia planter, politician, […]
Come for the Battlefields, Stay for Dinner
Exploring Gettysburg and its famous Civil War sites will make a visitor hungry! And where better to go than to one of the region’s 16+ restaurants (discounting fast food joints and chain establishments)? Of course, Gettysburg and Adams County is well known for its agritourism, with its orchards, farm stands, and vineyards. Now, local restaurants […]
Benjamin Parry Mansion
Right in the center of New Hope is a conspicuous and lovely stone mansion — clearly an old building (and therefore, incredibly interesting to me!). We were visiting Bucks County and staying across the street in the Logan Inn, so I was excited when I realized that the Benjamin Parry Mansion was open to the […]
Visiting our Ice Age Past at Cranesville Swamp
Cranesville Swamp Preserve is a 1,600-acre preserve situated in Preston County, WV and Garrett County, MD. The swamp formed 15,000 years ago during the last Ice Age, when glaciers inched close but never reached Maryland. The climate warmed and the glaciers retreated but many of the boreal plants remained. Nestled in a mountain valley bowl […]
Fort Washington Stood Sentinel Through Multiple Wars
Fort Washington is a War of 1812-era fort which has stood sentinel, guarding Washington DC through most of this nation’s history, although it didn’t always look like it does now. The original fort, overlooking the Potomac River, was completed in 1809, and was originally called Fort Warburton, but later renamed. During the War of 1812, […]
The Ghosts of Historic Savage Mill
Those aren’t orbs — those are raindrops! Very close to home is the ghost tour of historic Savage Mill, in Savage, Maryland. Savage Mill is a historic cotton mill complex in Savage, Maryland, which has been turned into a complex of shops and restaurants. Buildings in the complex date from 1822 to 1916. Led by […]