Hey y’all! I’m Jenn and I blog over at A Country Girl’s World! I love to travel but right now with paying for our wedding, my fiancé and I don’t have the extra cash for big trips right now. To keep ourselves entertained, we love to do daytrips! I live in the tiny farm town of Whiteford, Maryland and while there isn’t much to do in Whiteford (unless you want to learn how to milk cows) there is so much to do within an hour’s drive.
Ladew Gardens – Located in Monkton, Maryland.
Ladew is a great place for nature lovers to go and take in the beauty of the topiary gardens. There are many different gardens on sight and all of them are beautiful!
Just a short drive away is the beautiful historic waterfront town of Havre de Grace. There is a beautiful promenade walk and Concord point lighthouse sits right in the middle of it. Havre de Grace has some great restaurants such as the Promenade Grill which is also right on the water. It is also great for antiquing if you’re into that.
There is always something going on at Boordy’s! Boordy’s is a great vineyard located about 30 minutes southwest of my house. They always have tastings & tours, and usually always have some fun event going on. We have gone to Boordy’s on a few occasions just for something different (my favorite is the Autumn Wine Fest). Fiore is a winery located about 5 minutes from us and though they don’t usually have as many events as Boordy’s, they always have tastings and the property is beautiful. We actually had my friend’s bridal shower there and it was great!
If you are ever in Maryland from the end of August to the beginning of October you MUST go to the Renaissance Festival! It is my absolute favorite thing to do in the fall and it’s so much fun! The food is so good and they have an insane amount of shows going on, there is always something to do! And jousting, I mean who doesn’t love jousting!
We are also lucky enough to live super close to Baltimore (close enough that I commute there every day) and Washington DC. So, even though we live in Cowtown USA, we still find plenty fun things to do super close to home!
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Hi guys I’m Jess and I blog over at SpottedSunshine! I’m here today to tell you about the amazingly quaint little town I
found a few years ago tucked somewhere between Baltimore and DC: Ellicott City!
Full Disclosure here: I grew up a wandering nomad military brat so Ellicott City isn’t my
“hometown” in that sense of the word, but I have absolutely fallen in love with
it here and can’t really imagine living anywhere else!
Old Town Ellicott
City is one of those charming remnants from around the civil war and little
history fact here: Ellicott City Station is one of the oldest surviving stations in the US! The B&O Railroad Museum is open Wednesday through Sunday and when the weather is nice, you might even catch re-enactors wandering around town as well!
The one thing I love to look for when I'm traveling though, are fun and free events. Especially during the spring and summer, Ellicott City has the perfect answer to this in the local wine store: the Wine Bin.
I’m sure you’re probably wondering if I didn’t mean to say wine bar? Nope.
Definitely a shop, they offer a wide variety of wines and beers, even local beers on TAP! And usually they offer free samples for whatever they're currently tasting that day. Though to
be honest the free alcohol isn’t why this place is so great, no it’s awesome
because during the spring and summer months they offer a couple of really
amazing free events. Starting in April (April 4 this year) they have a “Yappy
Hour” the first Friday of the month, which is this great event where you can
bring your dog (on a leash) and sample some wine outside when the weather is
nice and there are lots of other doggies to play with an even a doggy version
of an ice cream truck with treats for your pooch. How cool is that? My other
favorite event is the Summer Movie series, every Saturday throughout the summer
they show a movie on the big screen attached to the side of the building. It’s
free and it’s awesome! You can even buy a bottle of wine from the store, grab
some take out from any one of the amazing restaurants in town and set up camp
to watch movies like Grease, Arsenic & Old Lace (one of my fiancé and my
first dates), even new movies like the Avengers just to name a few. A great way to spend a summer evening!
Ellicott City also offers one more thing that I love to look for in older cities that I'm visiting: GHOSTS! It's even cooler to think that this is where I live, I haven't seen any ghosts myself, but the locals say the town is pretty haunted. And I recently discovered that Ellicott City offers ghost tours every Friday and Saturday April through November, that's definitely on my list for this summer!
There’s a surprising amount to do in a town that only spans
one street, it’s definitely worth a weekend visit, or even if you can only just
stop by for an afternoon. Grab a cup of delicious coffee from the Bean Hollow
or even one of at least 99 different beers from the Phoenix Emporium, maybe
chat with a ghost or a local. I like to think it has a lot of the same charm as
Annapolis or Baltimore and some of the same history as DC, just not quite as
crowded.
2 comments:
Love this post! The Havre de Grace promenade is beautiful, I love going for walks and kayaking around there.
I totally agree! I love going there in the summer, it's so pretty :) A friend of mine even got married by the lighthouse :)
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