I like a little holiday magic — as long as it doesn’t involve ballet, the mall or It’s a Wonderful Life. This rules out most things, of course, except Christmas beers and tacky lights displays. This week, we ventured to two of the more spectacular light displays in the Washington Metropolitan Region: Baltimore’s 34th Street display and Gaylord Hotel’s Christmas lighting/ snowfall display.

Miracle of 34th Street

This display in Hampden, Baltimore’s colorful hipster meets hillbilly neighborhood, stole it’s name from the famous Christmas flick. It’s famous throughout the region — this site even names it one of the seven best light displays in the world. And I’m not sure why. This display is joining the long line of destinations that have disappointed the writers of the blog — up there with Asheville, NC, and Assateague Island.

Really, only on house — the first one, which is pictured in all the photos — is spectacular.  On the short block, most of the houses donned lights that were comparable to what you’d see on normal houses in a normal neighborhood: a few mechanical reindeer, some icicle lights draped from the overhangs and multi-colored bulbs on the bushes.  However, I did enjoy the hub cap Christmas tree and bike wheel snowman produced by someone the website calls “Jim the artist.”

Post lights: Grab an Irish coffee at my favorite Baltimore bar/restaurant, the quirky, Poe-themed tavern Annabel Lee’s.

Verdict: I’m always looking for a reason to go up to Baltimore, so this fills that requirement. If you’re not a fan of DC’s downtrodden neighbor, skip it.

Gaylord National Hotel

This corporate conference complex lives across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge from Old Town Alexandria. The complex was meant to be shopping, restaurants and bars surrounding the river-front Gaylord Hotel and conference complex. Unfortunately for it, the place opened its doors to the recession.

Despite the empty storefronts and annoying parking policy (street parking costs $3/hour 24 hours a day. We didn’t try the garage), the hotel and lights were beautiful. The lobby and atrium were decked out in Christmas finery. It snows — its, um, actually soap bubbles — every night at 6:15 and 9:15. I’m easily entertained and found the novelty charming — just don’t stick out your tongue to catch a flake.  We also got to see the Christmas fountain light show, which was peculiarly religious. It involved hymns and Bible readings.

Post lights: Hit up Bobby McKeys, the piano bar down the street. There’s no cover (but the beers are over-priced), and you’ll be treated to some interesting renditions of Piano Man, Journey hits, Brick in the Wall and whatever else patrons request.

For more DC area Christmas light displays see the Tacky Light Tour site and Bull Run Festival of Lights.

It’s been a busy year. We started this as a humble Wordpress blog and expanded to our own website. We traveled up and down the East Coast — covering Maine to North Carolina. We’ve eaten jelly fish, ramps, duck fat fries and lobster fresh from the boat. And we’ve had a beer (or two) in every stop along the way. Here’s a recap of the best and worst of our first year.

The Best Bars

Novare Res Bier Cafe and The Great Lost Bear in Portland, Me.: With the help of the guys from Portland Taps, we found these two amazing beer bars. Great selection, great atmosphere (Novare Res had a cellar quality; The Great Lost Beer bar was like a log cabin in the Great North Woods).  See our post here.

Brewer’s Art in Baltimore:  I don’t understand why Baltimore gets a bad rap with Washingtonians. Bar hopping there makes for a riotous, and affordable, night out.  This bar in particular is great. Its is in the cellar of a Victorian townhouse and on tap are the bar’s own Belgian-style microbrews. Even Esquire magazine noticed; it named Brewer’s Art the best bar in the US this April. Wow!  See our post here.

Flying Dog Brewery in Frederick, Md.: While this is not actually a bar – and we did visit many great bars this year – it comes in 3^rd. Flying Dog has an excellent spread of beers of which you can enjoy limitless samples.  The atmosphere at one of these Saturday afternoon tasting is that of a well-behaved college house party – strangers chatting and spilling out on to the back porch. And, did I mention, its $5. See our post here.

The Best Surprises

Yeah, of course Maine was gorgeous and New York City was a captivating metropolis filled with excellent food.  These places/events were just as amazing – in ways we never expected.  

Davis-Elkins loop – Although I’ve been singing West Virginia’s praises since this blog began, I have yet to influence anyone to actually go there. I don’t give up easily.  Follow this route for a road trip, a mellow escape from DC insanity and a getaway that’s great in the winter.  There’s skiing, burritos and beer. Just do it! See our post here.

Kinetic Sculpture Race – I heard about this race from a blogger meet-up. I mentioned that we cover quirky travel, and this event sprung to everyone there’s mind. For the Kinetic Sculpture Race, groups of friends, classmates and coworkers make human-powered parade floats that can float in the bay, push through sand and coast down bumpy brick roads. It’s amazingly odd. Next year, I’ll be bringing a bike so I can better follow along with the race. See our post here.

Ohio Brew Week –The word “festival” (and its cousin “fair”) often makes me shudder. It usually means high prices, hoards of people and lots of vendors pushing useless junk (used laser disks, anyone?) However, this beer festival was the complete opposite. It was festively crowded and reasonably priced. We heard some great music and tried beers I’ll never see elsewhere. And there was a beer choo-choo. See our post here.

The Biggest Disappointments

We really wanted to love to these popular destinations, but they just fell short.

Assateague  – Although camping on the beach sounds romantic and relaxing – think: falling asleep to the sound of the waves and taking an early morning swim — the reality is that you are camping in a hostile environment. Sand is everywhere, mosquitoes swarm and the sun beats down without mercy.  I wanted to love Assateague. But Assateague didn’t love me.  After a weekend of being eaten, burnt and drenched, I submitted. See our post here.

Asheville – Maybe it was the rain, but this southern city let us down. It wasn’t nearly as outdoorsy or hippified as I hoped it would be. Although, West Asheville had a food co-op, coffee shops and dive bars, downtown was too upscale. How many boutiques does one tiny town need?  I think we missed Asheville’s heyday.  See our post.

Best beers

Saison Dupont from Brasserie Dupont: This is a truly world class beer.  If you want an introduction to the style called Saison, this is the beer to try.  My favorite brew, at my favorite restaurants with my favorite person; it doesn’t get better than that. Find it at Annabell Lee Tavern, Baltimore MD

Grand Wazoo Batch 2 at Jackie O’s Brewery: A bourbon barrel-aged sour dark ale with raspberries, definitely a one-of-a-kind beer.  This brew really showed off the range and diversity of the beverage.  It’s flavors are probably more in line with a wine than any beer most people have tasted. Had at: Jackie O’s Brewpub, Athens OH

Dale’s Pale Ale from Oskar Blues:  Our go-to summer beer.  Dale’s is a very tasty IPA that comes in a can.  Naturally, makes it perfect for camping, tubing, and backyard barbeques.   Had at: just about every trip that involved a cooler.

View a map of our trip

Baltimore Crabs:

Crabs are Baltimore’s culinary claim to fame, and Faidley’s Seafood in Lexington Market claims to have the city’s best crab cakes. We had to check it out.

I’m always weary of this dish. Crab cakes are often less lumps of delicious seafood and more hunks of deep fried bread crumbs. Faidley’s gets its crab cakes right. The jumbo lump crab cakes were enormous. They were nicely seasoned with huge chunks of meat and very little filler. However, Faidley’s is not a restaurant. There’s no seating, only long counters that diners stand at while devouring their seafood feasts. Not exactly a great place to relax after fighting our way through holiday rush hour traffic.

The bill: $18.99 for the jumbo lump crab cake platter with 2 sides.

Philly Cheesesteak

Although Philly was in our top places to visit this summer post, the city of brotherly love has been demoted. It’s a dump. I had imagined it to be like Boston: Colonial architecture, cobblestone streets and old townhouses. It wasn’t. However, I may have missed the scenic part of town, because our trip to Philly lasted two hours. That was enough time to grab a cheesesteak and a beer at Devil’s Den.

As a Philly novice, I headed directly toward the most famous sandwich joint in town: Geno’s Steaks. The cheesesteak vendor is controversial. It has sign informing patrons: “This Is America: When ordering please speak English” (it’s in a largely Latino neighborhood) and is covered in police paraphernalia. It serves zenophobic attitude along with its tasty meat and cheese-wiz sandwich.

Some Philly natives, however, who sat beside us at our picnic table (the restaurant has no indoor seating), said that neighboring Pat’s King of Steaks was better. Indeed, the line a Geno’s was nearly all out-of-towners: half visiting businessmen and half teenagers at Jesus summer camp.

The bill: $16 for two sandwiches. No drinks.

New Haven Pizza

A few months ago, I watched a Travel Channel special on the US’s best pizza. They hit the standards: New York, Chicago and some organic, California hippy pies. But the country’s best pizza, known as “apizza,” was in New Haven, Connecticut. I scoffed: “New Haven? When will I ever go there?”

The answer: last week.

New Haven, most famously home to Yale, also has two storied pizza restaurants: Pepe’s and Sally’s. Both serve the thin, mozzarella-less pie. Their specialty is the white clam pizza; it’s thin crust, garlic, oil, clams and a hard cheese, such as asiago.

Sally’s was closed for the 4th. That left us with Pepe’s, the original New Haven pizzeria, which promised a crunchier crust. At 1:30 pm, the line for a table was out the door. However, it was fast-moving and we had a seat within 15 minutes.

The pie was great – and huge. A medium is plenty for three people. It was covered in fresh clams and garlic (two of my favorites). The crust was chewy and light. The staff, however, was grumpy and brought us drinks in minuscule glasses. You can’t have everything.

The bill: $29. One Medium pizza. Two soft drinks. And one Sam Adams in a Pepe’s pint glass.

Boston Clam Chowder

Apparently, Boston is a popular destination on July 4th weekend. The downtown was unbearably crowded with tourists like ourselves. So, on the hunt for the city’s most famous chowder, we had to settle for Quincy Market, a touristy corridor of food stands in the middle of downtown.

The definition of “clam chowder” is a matter of opinion and geography. Here’s a quick lesson: Manhattan chowder (a name that actually came about as a way of insulting Rhode Island clam chowder) is traditionally made with a clear broth and a generous portion of tomatoes. Boston Clam Chowder uses cream or milk based broth, butter, potatoes, and onions. You may have also heard people talk about San Francisco clam chowder, which is really nothing more than Boston clam chowder served in an edible sourdough bowl.

Many locals rave that Boston & Maine Fish Company has the best chowder (I’m saying ‘chowda’ in my head) in the city.  It didn’t disappoint. We squeezed up to the bar and sipped our soup as swarms of visiting families bumbled through the market. The soup was creamy, hot and chock full of clams and potatoes. What more could you ask for?

The bill: $7.50 for clam chowder in a bread bowl. Or get a lobster roll and chowder for $16.

Each spring, Baltimore hosts the East Coast Championship Kinetic Sculpture Race, a day-long triathlon for art. Creators pedal their masterpieces (mostly paper mache creations mounted on bicycles) across the bay, up hills, through sand and mud pits and right in the middle of downtown.

Appropriately, for this quirky contest, the biggest prize goes to the most average. The Mediocre Champion is for the sculpture that finishes closest to the middle.

For more photos of the Kinetic Sculpture Race (and We’re Out of Here blogger in the Baltimore media) click here or here.

I like Baltimore. Maybe because it reminds me of Cleveland: gritty, on the water and, to use a travel writer’s favorite word: unpretentious. So, Baltimore is where I chose to spend my birthday.

Clipper City

First, I hit up Clipper City brewing company’s beer tour. Embarrassingly, I always find myself at some micro brewpub or beer destination (check out this post on Frederick, Maryland’s Flying Dog Brewery). I am becoming a beer snob. However, compared to the Flying Dog tour, Clipper City’s was lacking. No unlimited samples, only four beers on tap and no rowdy tasting room pub that spills out onto the lawn. The tour — though funny and informative, unlike the unintelligible, rambling of the Flying Dog tour guide — was way too long. After 40 minutes of hops, bottles and beer packaging, I headed back to the tasting room.

Dining with Poe

Second, We’re Out of Here visited Baltimore’s Edgar Allen Poe themed restaurant/pub, Annabell Lee Tavern. Named after the Poe love poem, this restaurant is worth a visit if only to sample the best sweet potato fries. (Yelpers also rave about the duck fat fries, but we didn’t cough up the extra $2.) The food (pub standards with an upscale twist ; we had the lamb sliders and snapper tacos) is delicious, the drink menu thorough and the place cozy.

Baltimore’s Haunted Bar

Afterward, we met two friends and headed out to two classic Baltimore bars: Brewer’s Art, the cavernous Belgian beer bar located mostly in the cellar of a Victorian mansion, and Club Charles, a haunted dive.

After a ten-hour beer marathon, I don’t remember much of what Club Charles looked like: just its red decor and creepy mural of hell, which someone claimed was painted by WPA artists in the 1930s. My friend who is writing an article on the subject for her magazine BMore Live insisted the place is haunted and showed us eerie photographs of white blobs. She said the owner had been avoiding her, because during a previous interview with a reporter, a ghost shoved the owner. She fell down the stairs and broke her arm.

Fortunately, we made it out intact. However, when we arrived back at our car, we found it had a flat tire. (Must have been the ghosts.) Watching the other half of We’re Out of Here change a flat at an inner city gas station was the perfect way to end a birthday.