Photo by PoPville flickr user ekelly80

“Dear PoPville,

Now that fall is just around the corner, I would really like to visit an apple orchard of the pick-your-own variety. Do any of your readers have suggestions for ones that

1) are within 1 -1.5 hours drive from DC
2) pet-friendly
and bonus points for
3) include or are nearby wineries?”

The above “Dear PoPville” got me thinking about how much I love Autumn. So in addition to the specific questions above – I’d like to add a couple more – what’s your favorite Autumn seasonal beer. And more generally what’s your favorite Autumn activity in or near DC?

I promise this is my last Paris post but I had to share this building done by Jules Lavirotte in 1901. I could barely tear myself away from it.

You dig the style?

More photos after the jump. (more…)

Photo by PoPville flickr user Faucetini

“Dear PoP,

I was hoping to get some reader input on a good beach to visit for a long weekend this summer (hotel recommendations as well, if folks have them). It will be my family traveling (me, my husband and our 11 month old) and we’re hoping to go somewhere that is within a couple hours drive (the closer the better). We’re looking for a nice relaxing vacation, not a place where the 20-somethings go to party.”

Any good places for young families on the Delaware shore?

Photo by PoPville flickr user Gosia_K

“Dear PoP,

I’m wondering if any of your readers have any camping/cabining ideas, for drinking, cooking on a bonfire, with pets. We’re looking for a place within a two hour radius of DC. It seems impossible to find, I’ve always had to drive longer than two hours. Eats up a lot of “fun” time. Any suggestions would be great!”

We once looked at general camping recommendations back in Sept. ’10 but does anyone have specific recommendations for places where you can have a bonfire and take pets?

Photo by PoPville flickr user Madame Meow

I’m thinking this is gonna be worthy of a journey outside DC…

From an email:

WHAT: Domaso, a Kimpton Restaurant, is hosting its first annual “Top Dog Half-Smoke Challenge” in which ten renowned area chefs will showcase their interpretation of DC’s iconic local dish, and compete for the title of Top Dog. Admission is $20 per person and includes samples of all 10 half-smokes, a signature Skyy Vodka cocktail, tax and gratuity. Additional food and beverage will be available at cost.

Domaso will donate 100 percent of the proceeds from the event to benefit Brainfood, a non-profit youth development organization based in Washington, DC that helps build life skills and promotes healthy living in a fun and safe environment.

WHEN: Sunday, May 1, 2011 at 3 PM

WHERE: The terrace at Domaso
Hotel Palomar*
1121 North 19th Street
Arlington, VA

*Hotel Palomar is located two blocks from the Rosslyn Metro, accessible via the blue and orange lines. Street and valet parking are also available.

WHY: The half beef, half pork, smoked sausage has long been considered the District’s signature dish. This challenge is a unique way for the city’s top chefs to honor the half-smoke, and engage in some friendly competition for a great cause. The list of participating chefs is included below.

Victor Albisu, BLT Steak
Nathan Anda, Red Apron Butchery
Danny Bortnick, Firefly
John Critchley, Urbana
Scott Drewno, The Source by Wolfgang Puck
Paul Healey, Domaso
Liam LaCivita, Liberty Tavern/Lyon Hall
Dennis Marron, Jackson 20/The Grille at Morrison House
Peter Smith, PS 7′s
Chris Watson, BRABO by Robert Weidmaier
Ed Witt, 701 Restaurant

Tickets for the half-smoke challenge are available online at www.domasotrattoria.com.

Photo by PoPville flickr user fromcaliw/love

“Dear PoP,

Maybe I missed a previous post about this, but I am wondering if you or your readers know of any great farms that are within an hour of DC? I am hoping to visit a local farm this weekend to grab some fall goodies (pumpkins, apples, squash), and I am wondering if anyone has a recommendation?”

Where’s the best place to go apple and pumpkin picking?

Photo by PoPville flickr user ekelly80

Photo by PoPville flickr user fromcaliw/love

I know lots of folks here, including me, enjoy cold beer so I thought I’d share the following festival from a reader:

“Dear PoP,

I wanted to send you information on the 5th Annual Maryland Microbrewery Festival: http://www.marylandmicrobreweryfestival.com/default.asp?iId=HILHG.  It’s a great opportunity to eat some good stuff, drink some good beer, and get to see a really beautiful part of the state.  It’s $18 for the tasting, which is hard to beat.

It’s happening out in lovely Carroll County this Saturday, September 25.  The leaves aren’t quite there yet, but this is a beautiful place nonetheless.  For those PoP readers who don’t know MD too well, Westminster is just 50 miles straight up north on Georgia Avenue.  There’s a bunch of ways to drive out there, but Rte 29 (aka Georgia) is the simplest and second prettiest (to Rte 27 after you get off I-270 and north of Damascus).

Anyway you get there, there’s lots of good food and beer:

Continues after the jump. (more…)

“Dear PoP,

I was hoping you could ask a question of your readers. As PoPville tends to include somewhat outdoorsy people, what are their favorite camping areas in the 2 hour away range? My friends and I are planning a trip and are looking for a real campground and not some KOA setup but something pretty rustic. I’ve been to Elizabeths furnace in the GW forest but was hoping to try somewhere new out.”

With the leaves getting ready to change this should be a particular nice time of year for camping. Anyone have specific Shenandoah recs? Other good spots within 2 hours of DC?

Photo by PoPville flickr user Rukasu1

“Dear PoP,

I’m guessing some Pop T-shirts have traveled the youth hostel-backpacker-Eurail circuit around Europe much more recently than I have so I’d love to tap the readers for advice. My favorite niece is finishing her masters in education this June and I’m cashing in my flyer miles and advancing her 10 years of birthday presents to send her on the “Grand Tour” for 4-6 weeks.

Times have changed a lot since my own trip (1985, mostly hitchhiking, and ultimately 2 years long.) Do people still prefer backpacks or is a wheeled suitcase/duffel better? (She’s more a city girl and not likely to climb any alps and will have a one-month Eurail pass.) What’s the best credit or ATM card for exchange rates? Does anyone still even use traveler’s cheques? How about phones? On my own recent trips to Europe I found public phones few and far between. (Even with my friends’ mobiles, we sometimes had trouble between the French, Italian and British) Any particular recommendations?

Has anyone had good experiences with “couchsurfing” or “Air bed and breakfast” or other home-stay arrangements?

She also loves to teach and do volunteer work – any info on short-term volunteer opportunities that might give her a better way to get to know people than just the youth hostel experience?

With such a short time, she’ll be doing mostly all the main cities and attractions, but any particular lesser known “don’t miss” places or experiences or festivals she should seek out?”

It was right after the 1988 Calgary Olympics that I first tried skiing and fell in love with it. So given the great Vancouver Olympics and all the snowfall we’ve received where is the best place near DC to go skiing? A friend of mine went to Whitetail about 1.5 hours from DC (you can get directions here.) She writes:

“The skiing was great, all groomed trails, some icy spots, but then it started to snow!! Not the top, but near the best conditions/snow I’ve skied in this area. Had there been less, or no ice, I would have said this was the best conditions. Got a bit pricier in the past few years tho… $59 for 8 hour pass. We all had our own skis.”

Anyone have any recommendations for the best local skiing options?

It’s funny, as one who was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Long Island folks are always surprised that I love to shoot. I grew up going to summer camp in New Hampshire where I became addicted to target shooting (and hiking). Anyway, over the past few years I’ve been a semi-regular at Prince George’s Trap and Skeet located at 10400 Good Luck Road in Glenn Dale, MD. Since I sold my car I took a quick 15 minute metro ride up to College Park and a friend picked me up at the station, five more minutes by car and we were at the range.

Trap shooting reminds me a lot of golf. You are competing with your friends but also really competing with your self. Each ticket costs $5.50 and you get 25 shots at a clay target. After every five rounds you rotate a spot. You simply say “pull” and a target is launched. After everyone has shot five times you move one position over.

If you don’t own your own shotgun you can rent one at the range for $8 and it costs $7 for a box of 25 shotgun shells. It’s a ton of fun, but be careful it’s very addictive! You can find more info including directions on their Web site here.

LOTH Poster, originally uploaded by Prince of Petworth.

A reader writes:

“

DSCN1932, originally uploaded by Prince of Petworth.

Last year was the first time I went to the Montgomery County Fair and it was amazing! So I was walking around this weekend and spotted this car in Bloomingdale. And it reminded me that the demolition derby at the fair is this Saturday. The demolition derby is by far my favorite part of the Fair. So if you can make it Sat. you should check it out and you’ll have a blast.

You can read more about the fair and find directions here.

The following was written by PoP contributor, Charles

You don’t actually have to be much of a bluegrass fan to really like bluegrass festivals. Half the fun is putting as much psychic distance between yourself and the city as seems possible without a plane ticket or a passport. Pitching a tent on the banks of Shavers Fork and watching bluegrass on a hand-built stage, surrounded by green mountains and the sort of people who find your DC plates exotic enough to start up a conversation does that quite nicely.

But the music is pretty good, too. I am no bluegrass expert, but one of the most memorable musical moment I’ve ever had came a couple of years back at “Li’L Margaret’s Bluegrass and Old Time Music Festival” when a heavy-set blind guy named Michael Cleveland threw down against a skinny kid called Patrick McAvinue and they tore the place up with just a couple of fiddles and a stand-up mic.

We didn’t see anything quite that astounding last weekend, at the “Pickin’ in Parsons (West Virginia) Celebration of Bluegrass and Hillbilly Music,” but we caught most of the 15 acts that played over three days and barely heard a bad note. Every now and then one of the better known acts, like Rhonda Vincent & The Rage or Randy Waller and the (next generation of, apparently) Country Gentlemen seemed a little slick. But the music was fun and heartfelt and occasionally brilliant, in a setting that’s the mountaineer equivalent of the smoky bar where you caught Nirvana just before Nevermind came out.

It’s mostly the music, but it’s not just the music. Apparently there’s redneck Borscht Belt, also in the mountains but several hundred miles south of the Catskills, and the one-liners are unrelenting. Karl Shiflett in particular seems to be trapped in an old Hee Haw rerun (“My fiddler got on the airplane and set down next to a preacher….”), and what’s up with the weird faces and that thing he does with his leg? But his playing makes up for his corn. And outfits like the Hillbilly Gypsies and the Tennessee Mafia Jug Band are clearly out to have as much fun as you are, and if that means a few groaners in between truly impressive picking (and, with the Gypsies, the hottest hillbilly girl in America singing murder ballads), well, it’s just a way of reminding you that all this talk about culture and tradition is nice, but we’re here to have a good time. Continues after the jump. (more…)

Dumser’s has been a part of the history of the Ocean City Boardwalk since 1939 ~ Dolle’s Candyland specializes in homemade salt water taffy Since 1910, originally uploaded by Robert Lz.

As a kid I loved Ocean City, MD. I remember scarfing down buckets of Fisher’s popcorn, Dumsers ice cream, chocolate strawberries from Candy Kitchen (what can I say, I was a hungry kid), then immediately racing off into the waves only to return 5 minutes later with a massive stomachache, and a craving for more popcorn. We’d run around all day and stop by the Gocart track on the way home to race off any excess energy before the long, slow trek home bumper to bumper with the other day-trippers who were too stingy to stay in a beachside hotel.

Yet I can’t stand the place now. Not to offend OC fans, I think the beach is a poor option for DCers to trek to when in need of sun. I went a little while ago to reminisce over my younger days face-first in a bucket of Fishers, and instead got a different taste of Ocean City – that tasted a little like brine. The boardwalk, which when I was a kid seemed like the yellow brick road, is now overrun by obese children. The beach is sardine-like crowded and filled with discarded Big Gulp cups and taffy wrappers, and just when you think you found an OK spot to squeeze into, you realize your neighbors are apparently into blasting Garth Brooks and not having a full set of teeth and screaming things like ‘WADE GIT YOR CIGARUT BUTTS AWF MAH TOWEL OR AH WEAL STICK THIS HERE UMBRELLU STRAIGHT UP UR…’

Also the attendants of the Ocean City rides really need to ease up on the Drakkar Noir.

Maybe there are hidden gems of the city that I haven’t experienced? But for now I’d pick Rehoboth, Assateague, hell even Dewey, over OC. What am I missing out on?