One of the best ways, I’ve found, to become intimate with a new place is to attend a festival. Any festival. Food festivals, naturally, rank #1 on my list of the most desirable festivals to seek, but art, I’d have to say, ranks a close second.
Did you know that the song, “Build Me Up, Buttercup” always puts me in a good mood?
It doesn’t matter that my allergies have practically crudded my contact lenses to my eyelids and my husband’s in Afghanistan and the dogs have been waking me up at 5:30 every morning so they can drag me 2 miles around the neighborhood.
Ultimately, it’s The Foundations — not the sunrise over the lake or the smell of my morning coffee or any amount of caffeine — who put the spring back in my step.
Which only further proves that I was born in the wrong generation.
Technology makes me nervous, and I’m pretty sure that a poppy-seed from my bagel just got stuck inside my keyboard.
That wouldn’t have happened with a typewriter.
Of course, then this whole blog thing wouldn’t be happening either, and I’d probably be haphazardly wandering the streets of Fayetteville talking to anyone who will listen about the merits of Poo-Pourri while shoving photos of family vacations in their faces.
But instead, I get to shove them in your faces, which is much more gratifying.
So.
After our first day in Colorado was spent guzzling free alcoholic beverages at the Coors brewery, we decided we needed some culture in our lives. My mother, her boyfriend Ed, Justin and I hopped on a train that speedily dropped us in the heart of downtown Denver.
(Can I just say for a second how much I love public transportation? Seriously. My dream is to live in a city with clean, efficient public transportation — where I can jet from one place to the next without worrying where to park my car, how much it’s going to cost, or whether I might lose the drag race I just accepted with a 60-year-old man. True story.
I won.)
Just one of many modes of Denver mass transit.
Anyway.
Our first stop in the Mile High city was for food.
You know my priorities.
Justin, always the advocate for anything highlighted on the Food or Travel networks, opted for Biker Jim’s Gourmet Dogs. We were searching for their street cart at the specified location, but ended up walking several city blocks to the actual restaurant when we learned it was an off-day for the food cart. Turns out this was a wise decision, since I’m pretty sure they don’t sell beer from the food cart.
But I’ve been wrong before.
The decor is minimal and industrial, but their main food is hot dogs. What do you expect?
An interesting juxtaposition of good ol’ “Amurcan” cuisine, gourmet ingredients, and several oddities you’d be more likely to find dead on the side of the road than in Manhattan’s finest establishments make up the simple menu.
Tip: The larger the selection of food on a restaurant’s menu, the crappier it will likely be. Smaller, more selective menus are generally where you’ll find the best food.
I ordered the Weiner Wellington — an insanely delicious rib eye steak brat with mushroom duxelle and grainy Dijon cream wrapped in puff pastry and drizzled with Bordelaise. I don’t know what most of that is, but I do know this: It tasted like heaven wrapped in fluffy clouds dipped in gravy.
For $8.50, this is not the most I’ve spent on a dog, believe it or not. Nor is this the widest selection of toppings I’ve seen. But it was, my friends, the tastiest.
Take one.
Take two.
Take… *burp*
Now. I honestly can’t remember what Justin and Ed ordered. It may have been the southwest buffalo. It may have been the Wild Boar. Maybe the smoked bacon Bat Dog, with avocado puree, tomato cream cheese, caramelized onion, and bacon bits. And I know the idea of the rattlesnake and pheasant dogs were at least discussed.
But I do know they were delicious.
Pretty sure this is the Bat Dog.
And… um… boar, maybe?
But they weren’t quite as good as mine.
It was the puff pastry that sealed the deal.
If this is Denver, consider me a fan.
I wouldn’t say I’m a beer snob, but if you stick a can of Coors Light in front of me, I’m not going to lie — I’ll ask you to bring me a glass of water instead because it tastes the same and has far fewer calories.
Unless it’s a hot summer day and I’m craving a cold light beer to get me through a project or a giant, juicy hamburger, I’m usually going to pick a darker, heavier beer.
So when Justin said he wanted to tour the Coors Brewery while we were in Colorado, I was intrigued because I hadn’t been since before I was of legal drinking age, but also secretly wishing we could have gone to some other brewery.
Turns out, though, that this one was worth the trip.
We arrived at the complex in Golden, Colorado, parked, and waited in line for about 20 minutes before getting on a tour bus. The folks at Coors run a smooth — and free — operation. My only complaint is that the outdoor waiting area wasn’t covered, hence my first high-altitude sunburn of the trip. Our tour guide was hilarious, taking us on a quick run through downtown Golden before dropping us off outside of the brewery.
Hey, red shirt guy. Get out of my shot.
Since the last time I was there, they turned the brewery part into a self-guided tour. The nice thing was that we could meander as we pleased, listening to our little self-guided tour speakers. Coors also had stations set up throughout the walk where employees could answer any questions we might have.
Of course, I don’t remember anything I heard through the speaker, so let’s just look at the pictures, shall we?
I have no idea who this woman is. But she wouldn’t move, so I took the picture anyway. She happens to be pointing to the label of what I’ve since discovered is a very awesome beer.
The infamous copper kettles. All I remember is that there were a lot of them, and you could determine the various purposes of each by looking at the size of the shaft. (Ha!) Also, the big red signs.
We’ll call this Mission Control. I’m pretty sure that guy was watching football. Or porn. Or both.
Hmm… how does one test the quality of beer?
By drinking it, I imagine.
About halfway through the tour we came upon the Fresh Beer Room, where we were able to sample exceedingly fresh Coors or Coors Light, straight from the source.
I’ll admit it was tasty, fresh as it was, but it was still just Coors.
One of the coolest parts was the packaging room. The maze of conveyor belts, gears, and complicated looking machinery had us mesmerized for several minutes. Waaaay up high in the back, we could see cans coming in. Then stuff would happen and suddenly they’d be in boxes.
Crazy.
By this point we were getting antsy and ready for the final stop of the tour — the bar.
The coolest part about the entire experience, aside from seeing that it’s actual people — not elves — who are responsible for putting beer in my fridge, was the fact that everything was free. Including 3 pints each of our choice at the end of the tour.
The Colorado Native was good, but the Batch 19 was phenomenal.
Couple of Batch 19s.
I asked the bartender how they manage to keep the locals from stopping in every day for some free beers, and he said that they don’t! Guests are limited to one visit per day, and he said there are students from the Colorado School of Mines who show up daily.
Daily.
Dude. I totally went to the wrong college.
I know, I know.
I’ve neglected you and you don’t know why.
Unless you follow my Facebook page, in which case you know we hopped a plane to Denver a couple of days ago and haven’t been seen or heard from since.
Unless you frequent the Coors brewery in Golden, Colorado, which case you probably came to know me and my high altitude sunburn and my affinity for Batch 19, a pre-prohibition style lager quite well.
The trip wasn’t exactly spur-of-the-moment. But for some reason, it seemed really far away for a very long time, and then suddenly it was here, and I was throwing the majority of my clothes into a suitcase on the morning we left while Justin impatiently tapped his foot in the kitchen and gently reminded me that we still had an hour drive to the airport and would I please hurry up because it’s raining and we still have to go through security and GOOD GOD, WOMAN there’s no way this suitcase weighs less than 50 pounds.
And then we got to the airport, where our combined suitcase weighed exactly 49.5 pounds thankyouverymuch, and anyway it was free because he’s active duty military and oh, also our flight was delayed for 2 hours due to inclement weather between Raleigh and Dallas so sit back, relax, and have another cup of very expensive java.
These things always have a way of working themselves out.
Justin just doesn’t understand how I roll.
So now we’re here, in Colorado, partaking in the consumption of beer and mountain scenery and beer.
When we finally arrived after many delays and plane-sittings and plane farters and children who kick seats, I entered what can only be described as Mecca, otherwise known as the Denver Airport Ladies’ Restroom.
Obviously, I had a hard time capturing the true beauty with my iPhone. And I was a little nervous that the cleaning lady, who was already staring at me with bemused curiosity, might call security if I pulled out my DSLR.
It’s only the second time we’ve visited my mother in the 6 years she and Ed have lived here, so it’s amazing how we fall into a routine, like we only live a few hours away and do this every weekend. Wake up, fix coffee, stare at the display of distant mountains to see what kind of view they care to give today: mysterious haze, sharp lines and saturated contrasts, shimmering mirage. Always something new, sometimes slapped rolling and haphazard across the horizon with careless impressionist watercolor abandon — and other times sketched carefully with such detail and accented with dark oils that they actually look real.
Soon, Justin’s family will come wheeling into town (a couple of his aunts already live here, which is just sheer good fortune), and we’ll spend that overwhelming chaotic time together eating and laughing and drinking and my mom will feel, for the first time in a long time, what it’s like to have lots of family around at once.
We all want to spend some time with Justin before he goes to Afghanistan, and I suppose I’ve learned that I have to share.
It doesn’t hurt that his family is awesome.
But here’s the thing, in case you were wondering.
I know I’m domestiphobic.
I know this so well that I made up this whole word to describe my aversion to all things domestic and I think, on some level, that most of you can relate.
At least a little.
But that doesn’t mean that I won’t miss my husband.
All it means, in the end, is that I won’t miss his laundry.
You know?
If I could only use one word to describe the city of Philadelphia. I know exactly what I’d choose:
Really, almost everything I’d heard about Philly — aside from endless word about the deliciousness of its cheese steaks — alluded to its roughness.
Its edge.
Its subtly induced reputation for hard knocks and downed luck and overbearing, relentless strife.
From the obvious overtones of Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia” to Will Smith’s epic fight on the basketball court during the opening credits of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, the city was advertised as lonely and dangerous. With its gritty undertones of dreary streets and gray skies serving as cinematic backdrops for the trials of Sylvester Stallone and Tom Hanks in Rocky and Philadelphia, the city was portrayed bleak and hopeless.
Because of these things, Philadelphia just sat, dusty and neglected in the back of my mind, as this place I’d probably never care to see.
But then?
But then I saw it.
I really saw it.
I saw its richness in history, art, museums, green space, food, and culture.
And suddenly, I felt very, very misinformed.
I only had one day to explore, but now I know this: Philadelphia, I will be back.
Just giving you a heads-up.
Last weekend, a baby and her adorable parents took us to lunch.
See how cute those parents are?
In Durham, NC, there’s a place that, while the menu had grown over time, specializes in exactly 2 things:
Chicken ‘n Waffles.
Say, what?
Sounds strange, but Durham people know that Dame’s Chicken & Waffles is something special. Which is why we weren’t too surprised to see the gigantic line outside.
Bummed, but not surprised.
How long is the wait?
So we waited.
And we watched people eat.
And we studied the menu.
And we became mildly concerned that we were going to starve to death, right there on the street, watching people devour heaping plates of fried chicken and waffles.
Jesus, my husband has to stop looking cute while holding babies.
We became delusional from the hunger, gnawing on mice and stray appendages.
Have I been reading too much Hunger Games?
They called us just in time.
And all was right with the world.
So I’ll get right down to it.
The place has a great atmosphere — tiny, crowded, and cramped enough to see what everyone else is ordering.
(Pssst – I’ll give you a hint: Chicken. And Waffles.)
Alaina and I got started with champagne and lemonade. You know, to celebrate getting in. We were going to go with mimosas, but our waitress killed us on the up sell. The great thing is that they ended up being less than $7.00 each, and we were able to carry our mini wine cooler-tasting bottles of champagne through the Durham art show, taking nips to dull the pain of my poor choice in footwear.
I’m glad our drinks were light, because the meal was certainly not.
First came the sides.
A bowl of incredible fresh fruit — plump, ripe strawberries and sweet, juicy pineapple. The cheese grits (left) were delicious — not gritty at all, which, in my non-southern humble little opinion, is the only way grits are tolerable.
The spicy greens, while not exactly aesthetically appealing, were divine, if you like that sort of thing.
Judge with your mouth — not with your eyes.
And the mac ‘n cheese. Oh, my. I could’ve had this as my meal.
But we were just getting started.
On the back of Dame’s menu are several suggested chicken ‘n waffle combinations, including the “Orange Speckled Chabo,” served with a fried chicken cutlet, sweet potato waffle, honey-dijon mustard, and orange-honeycomb schmear, or the “Buff Brahmas,” served with your choice of wings or cutlets drizzled with whiskey cream sauce, a classic waffle, and peach apricot schmear.
The Buff Brahmas.
The verdict?
My fried chicken was cooked perfectly — nice and moist inside. Unfortunately, it was a little soggy due to the whisky cream sauce, which, while mighty tasty, definitely took away from the texture of the chicken. But everyone else loved theirs.
Now.
Let me tell you about the waffles.
And the schmear.
What’s schmear? Well. According to me, they’re little flavored dollops of mouth exploding gastrogasms.
To Dame’s, they’re flavored dollops of whipped sweet cream butter.
I schmeared my peach apricot schmear all over my beautiful waffle (and I’m not normally a waffle person), topped that with some maple syrup, and died.
Then I came back to life to eat some more.
Then I died again.
It. Was. Incredible.
Justin order the “Orange Speckled Chabo,” and we both felt that the sweet potato waffles were inferior to my classic ones. Though his orange schmear was zesty and delicious.
But mine? That combination of peach apricot schmear, whiskey cream sauce, and maple syrup was phenomenal.
A plate full of artery-clogging, diabetes-triggering deliciousness.
I wouldn’t take it back for a second.
In the end, we all felt like this.
But it was well — well worth the wait.
Have you had any excellent meals lately?
DO ride the subway.
It’s not as confusing as it looks.
DON’T fall into the gap, regardless of what the clothing brand might tell you.
The NYC subway is full of helpful tidbits.
DO look up.
There’s life up there.
DON’T buy what you can’t afford.
I’m just looking. I swear.
DO reflect.
Rebuilding.
DON’T try to use the Burger King restroom near the 9/11 memorial.
Unless you want to spend an hour of your one day in NYC in line at a Burger King restroom.
DO take the Staten Island Ferry.
Parking is cheap, the ferry is free, and it’s a great way to see the skyline and the Statue of Liberty.
DON’T stop to take photos in the middle of an intersection.
This could have been my last.
DO eat. A lot.
Never full enough.
DON’T assume that all fashion is good fashion.
Camel toe.
DO be grateful for guides who keep you on track.
If it weren’t for them, I’d probably still be wandering around Little Italy trying to pick a place to eat.
DON’T blink. You might miss something.
Erin.
I have a secret.
No, I’m not a street-walkin’, stick-legged, glowy-eyed hooker, as evidenced by that last photo.
It’s worse.
Shameful.
Here goes.
I don’t always love to carry my DSLR camera everywhere.
It’s bulky. It’s heavy. I have to mess with lens switching and cleaning and worrying about breaking something or expensive equipment getting stolen.
So sometimes, sometimes I just use my phone’s camera.
And you know, it’s not so bad.
It’s grainy. And gritty. And dark and unfocused.
But there’s something… raw, you know?
Imperfect.
It’s what I used while wandering the streets of Annapolis.
Not hookin’.
The biggest challenge, I think, that most people have with traveling, is finding the ability to strike a healthy balance between squeezing in all of the high-energy sightseeing they can possibly manage and actually getting a little R&R.
If they’re not careful, their vacation can turn into work.
Me?
I don’t have that problem.
I know when I’m feeling energized, and I know when it’s time to stop, find a cafe with outdoor seating, and sip a glass of wine.
Striking this balance can be particularly difficult on a road trip when, if you’re spending extended periods of time in the car, it can feel like you’re resting because you’ve been sitting for several hours, but in reality you’ve been a highly concentrated ball of compact energy — shifting music whenever the mood strikes; passing, passing, passing on the left; belting out the lyrics you remember to Billy Joel’s “My Life;” almost peeing your pants when you pass a cop and realize how fast you were going; spending the next half hour daydreaming about living in Europe and doing nothing but driving the Autobahn for days on end; telling yourself you don’t need any more homemade trail mix; and matching your vibrations to those of the vehicle while guzzling your double-shot skinny mocha.
When I left Angie’s place in Virginia, I felt refreshed. Energized. Her perfect energy of physical labor combined with wine-laced porch-sitting was exactly what I needed to rev up for the second leg of my trip.
I knew Erin would still be at work when I arrived in Annapolis, so I took my time getting there, opting for back roads (Hwy 310, anyone? Highly recommended if you’re making a journey up or down the east coast.) over the congested interstates with never-ending repeats of McD’s, T-Bells, and Flying J truck stops.
My method for road trip food selection is simple: If I see a place I like the looks of, I stop. If I see a sign that catches my attention, I stop. If Urban Spoon happens to tell me there’s something along my relative route that’s worth stopping for, I stop.
No need to overthink it.
That’s how this happened.
When I arrived in Annapolis, I decided to stop at a Trader Joe’s for the first time ever to pick up some of their infamous “3-buck Chuck” wine to bring to my compadre’s place. I wandered the aisles, impressed-yet-refusing-to-be-sidetracked by the numerous offered delicacies. I finally asked a sample girl where a sister could find some booze on this lovely afternoon, and she looked at me with what can only be described as an expression of the sincerest empathy. “In Maryland,” she said, because clearly I was a foreigner, “grocery stores can’t sell alcohol.”
Say what?
Having lived in various states and counties south of the Mason-Dixon line for quite some time, I thought I’d already witnessed the gamut of restrictive alcohol sales. In Georgia I performed the grocery store walk of shame on more than one occasion — carrying my case from the registers back to the darkened shelves on a Sunday afternoon.
But this? This required people to make a whole other stop.
“But I just came from Virginia,” I whined.
She looked at me like I probably should’ve stayed there.
No matter. I stopped at an upscale winery and delicatessen where they wearily eyed my selection, poised to judge. “Hey!” The counter lady’s eyes lit-up. “This one’s a very popular choice!”
Apparently my skills are improving. Or rather, my luck was improving, since I randomly selected the bottle based on price and the label. But I smiled anyway, like I hear that all of the time, and went on my merry way.
Now let me just say this. Erin doesn’t actually live in Annapolis. She lives on an island just across the Chesapeake Bay, on the other side of one of the coolest bridges I’ve seen in my life. I’ll have a photo in another post, but hear me: If you have a chance to cross this 4-ish mile bridge in your life, do it.
That is all.
I arrived at her adorable house, ready to curl up on the sofa with a book and a beer I knew she’d left me in the fridge.
But then I saw it.
Her view.
I was shocked.
Not just by the generosity of the Red Stripe, but by the fact that she lives on an inlet that leads out to the Chesapeake Bay.
In fact, if I would’ve stolen her canoe and paddled out just past that last house you see on the left, I would’ve had a spectacular view of the Bay Bridge.
Then I probably would have drifted out to sea, never to be seen or heard from again since I have zero upper body strength, but at least I would’ve died happy.
Instead, I spent the rest of the afternoon curled up in a lawn chair alternating views of my book and the water.
Hey. Don’t judge.
I’d already had a long day driving and shopping for wine.
And that’s the thing — when you find yourself alone in a new place, or especially with people in a new place, it’s easy to run yourself ragged trying to do all there is to do and see all there is to see. At some point, you have to force yourself to accept the fact that you’re never going to do and see everything. That life is an ever-changing kaleidoscope of actions and reactions, mirage-like events that sometimes you see and sometimes you don’t. And sometimes you just have to sit back and enjoy the ride.
So to me, I wasn’t wasting time.
I was enjoying the moment.
As Billy would say,
I don’t need you to worry for me cause I’m alright —
I don’t want you to tell me it’s time to come home.
I don’t care what you say anymore, this is my life —
Go ahead with your own life, leave me alone.
Thanks, Mr. Joel. I’m glad someone gets me.
What’s your travel style? Would you have camped out with a beer and a book, taken the canoe, or hopped back in the car to explore the town? How do you strike a balance between work and play when you’re on the road?
My apologies, but I’ve had no real time to write or edit photos — Headed to Baltimore in a few!
Isn’t this always the conundrum of someone who wants to write about travel?
When you’re traveling, where is the time for writing?
But I can tell you this — I feel great. Alive. Better than alive. The road is better than any rejuvenating facial cleanser sold at the local drug store.
In the meantime, check out this killer crab cake sandwich I stopped and ate on the drive at a place called Java Jack’s Coffee House:
Taken with my iPhone.
In a last-minute decision to take Hwy 301 North from Williamsburg, VA to Annapolis, MD so I could avoid the ever-terrifying experience of I-95 around D.C. (though sadly bypassing the IKEA there as well), I passed through a little town called Tappahannock.
No, I don’t know how to pronounce that.
It’s perched along the southern edge of the Rappahannock River.
No, I’m not making this up.
Anyway. I saw this little white house once I passed the inevitable slew of fast food and American family style restaurants and entered the older part of town. I was greeted with a smile and told to seat my self. I was, by far, the youngest patron there on a Monday morning at 11:15. Sadly, I’d just missed breakfast, which I’m convinced now would have been spectacular. I was just about to ask whether they’d make an exception to their 11:00 lunch rule when the waitress informed me that one of their specials for the day was a crab cake sandwich.
Well.
I hadn’t technically crossed the Maryland border yet, but I figured my 15 minutes late for breakfast was a sign I should partake an hour early in some famous Maryland crab.
For all of my culinary expertise, this may have come from a can.
Taken with my iPhone.
But I can tell you this: It certainly didn’t taste like it had.
With a full belly and more solitary scenic driving ahead, Java Jack’s proved an excellent Virginia sendoff.
Oh, and the bathroom was spectacular.
Taken with my iPhone.
