Another DC rush hour

My husband has agreed to write a series of posts on some of his favorite weekend road trips. Jack (not Kerouac, though the style is similar) has always lived on the East Coast. While he loves cities, he also has a deep appreciation for small towns, country and coastal landscapes, mountains and woods – and has helped me appreciate them more as well. Combined with history and humor, this makes for a good read.
– Wendy

Escape from the City: Introduction
by Jack

It’s the weekend.
I want to trade the smell of bus diesel and the sound of angry commuters laying on their horns for scents more marine or arboreal in nature and maybe at some point something close to silence.

So I hit the road.

From time to time I try to remind myself there is a world outside my particular circumferential highway, and the day trip or overnight getaway is the perfect way to do so. Joining the obligatory weekend migration from a large city is best done with some planning or at least a working knowledge of the terrain. In that regard I like to first commit the upcoming trip to a theme:

• The R&R: find one relaxing spot and…relax.
• The Expedition: embark on a journey of exploration, planned or spontaneous.
• The Adventure: where one must be pitted, pitted I say, against something daunting, or capable of daunting, if not you, then someone of at least 10 years of age.

Next comes the logistical outline: transportation, accommodations, activities. Anticipation of a trip is often its own reward and in some unfortunate cases its only reward. It is in this stage that the only “perfect” escapes abide, virtuous in their untested state, unblemished by the transit from imagined to experienced. Plus you still haven’t tallied the bill.

Comes the day to set out. You have picked a theme, say…R&R, made all the necessary arrangements and hit the road. Only to come to a halt barely 20 miles in. There before you is evidence of the appeal of your chosen endeavor, hordes of like-minded travelers jamming the highway as far as you can see. You check various navigation apps or those witchy foldy paper scrolls and find some alternate routes. It might not help you get anywhere quicker but better to be ambling down some picturesque back roads than sitting still on four lanes of asphalt watching the clock tick away the moments of the all you can eat steamed shrimp happy hour at your still distant hotel. But wait …you say, was I not pitted? Yes! Is the traffic not daunting? Yes!Yes!Yes! I respond, you have had an adventure! (Some adventures are crappy.) Now on to the relax! You can combine the themes!!! Often circumstances will of their own accord anyway. There’s still no more free shrimp…but oh well, we move on from themes to locales.

I reside in the Washington DC area so I will be documenting trips a two to three hour drive from here. DC is situated not far south of the Mason-Dixon Line, between the mountains and the coast, at the end of the eastern megapolis. The three hour driving radius offers an incredibly diverse range of destinations. Large to small cities, ocean and bay, Piedmont and Blueridge.

So in upcoming posts I’ll detail trips to all of these marvelously different areas and hopefully come up with some interesting ideas and useful recommendations.

St.Michaels, Maryland- well worth the trip