First stop — always — is — or should be (support local!)  — the Maryland Foods Pavilion. Beef, lamb, pork, chicken, turkey, seafood, veggies and fruits, all grown in Maryland, all cooked in Maryland, are served by Maryland volunteers who want to keep Maryland local on our radar.  Everywhere you turn there are Maryland vendors, dishing out Eastern shore fried popcorn shrimp and clams; beef from the upper part of the western counties; french fries made from potatoes grown right here in Baltimore County, and more.  (See below *for information on who participates… it’s a list worth reading.)

For those who need junk food, consider first a non-junky-junk milkshake, brought to you by the Young Farmers Association (more kids who volunteer to help keep local thriving).  Briggs Ice Cream, straight from Hyattsville, makes a tasty excuse, alone, for coming to the fair.  And after that, go hit the midway and knock yourself out on fried oreos, corn dogs, fried dough, Chinese chicken on a stick, Polish sausages loaded with onions and peppers, cotton candy, candy apples (hello! It’s the fair!!!!) and more.

Now for the rides (to save on money, make sure to go on all-you-can-ride wristband days; *see below).  Heigh-ho!  First up, Zero Gravity — the ride that spins you around, pinning you to the wall. Stand inside with no harnesses whatsoever and centrifuge yourself. It’s really weird that there aren’t straps to hold you in, but, hey, as a kid said, “You can’t even pick your head up, it’s like a magnet. You’re stuck there!”

Oh, the mighty Fire Ball. The ride that keeps rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until it finally loops into a complete circle.  It’s a veritable round fury.

The Starship 4000 is like Zero Gravity on cool. Your body gets pinned to the wall, just like in Zero Gravity, but there’s a ceiling. You’re in a seat, then the spinning begins, then the seat pulls up and it’s time to start climbing.  Don’t worry, the seat pushes up with you.  At the end, the seat falls down with you in it, too. This is a ride with a lot of action. 

The Wellingfling Swing is the classic fair ride. You sit in a swing, fling out into the nether regions, get a great view of the fair, feel like you’re flying, and you’re constantly afraid you’re going to bang into the swing next to you. Super fun stuff.

The Musik Express is a roller coaster that goes around in the same circle — really fast — only it goes up and down as if on waves — really fast — and there’s a lot of noise, with a siren that goes off, blasting in your ears — as you go really fast.

The Claw is force and fun.  It takes you on a figure-8 path, and when you’re on the bottom of the figure 8, the seat presses you against the harness and there’s tremendous pressure — and then you swing up into the air and the release is amazing!

Those are just a few of the rides on which to lose your lunch.  There are many more, plus games, plus buildings full of farm animals, farm produce (the giant pumpkins and watermelons are huge!), non-farm vendors (selling things you wish you could buy on the spot: hot tubs; mattresses that prescribe your perfect sleep number; knives; candy, etc.). So grab some bucks, grab some kids, or just go be a kid.  This only happens once a year — and it’s a must-do.

Hot tip: stay until night.  The lights are sweet junk food for the eyes!

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*The Maryland Foods Pavilion

Maryland Farm Bureau Young Farmers — dairy.

Smokers Catering — chicken.

Spring Meadow Farms — fruits and vegetables.

Eastport Concessions — lamb (can only be found at festivals)

Hillside Turkey Farm — turkey.

Baltimore County 4-H Club Fair Association — beef.

Conveniencecatering07.com — seafood.

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*WRISTBANDS: Ride Wristbands, for $20, will be available on Friday, August 27th, Monday, August 30th through Thursday, September 2nd and Monday, September 6th (sold only from 12 noon to 6PM).  Ride wristbands can be purchased at the midway ride ticket booths.

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For More Information:
Maryland State Fair
Aug. 27th to Sept. 6th
2200 York Rd
Timonium, MD 21093
(410) 561-5610
The Maryland State Fair
Map to the Fair
 

From September 13-19, and again from October 11 - 17, choice Baltimore spas will be taking part of National Spa Week, which means that they’ll provide signature spa, beauty and fitness services to consumers for just $50.  Yep.  You heard it right.  Services that originally cost anywhere from $80 all the way up to $450, are going to be $50 during Spa Week.

Toscana Medi Spa, Spa Sante and Odyssey Salon & Day Spa are just some of the spas already on board to participate. Visit www.spaweek.com for more Maryland spas and check out the list below.

A Day Spa & Salon by Zina in Canton Square
Be Lifestyle MedSpa
CFMA Medispa
City Magnolia Day Spa
Dermatology & Clinical Skin Care Center & Rockledge MedSpa
Facelogic Spa - Columbia
Farashe the Day Spa
Hela Spa & Ted Gibson Salon
Jolie the Day Spa & Hair Design
O’HAIR Salon + Spa
Pamper Me Please Travel Spa
Pebbles Wellness
Ravissant Clinical Day Spa
Red Door Spa - Baltimore
Renu Med Spa
RiMahni Glo Day Spa
Robert Andrew Salon & Spa
Roxsan Day Spa
Serenity Zone Medical Spa
Smile Spa at the Smile Design Studio
Soul… Day Spa and Salon
Spa Sante
Strippers Waxing Salon & Boutique
The Spa at Turf Valley
Toscana Medispa
Trendz Rejuvenation Medi-Spa

Happy Spa’ing!

The Boom with a View package, which includes a Wonderful Room as well as tickets for two for the rooftop celebration, are available for $619 and can be purchased by calling 1-877-WHOTELS or visiting Boom With A View.  Beginning Monday, June 14, individual tickets for the evening (without Wonderful Room) will be sold for $200 per ticket by calling 202.661.2478.

For after shopping, the spa is indulgence squared. Take a dive in the saline pool (no chemicals!), and then check in for a 50 minute Reiki Energy Healing, Self-heating Mud massage—or really hit the pampering hard with the Ultimate Day of Beauty, which is 300 minutes of a Therapeutic Massage, a European Facial, a gourmet Spa luncheon, a Deluxe Manicure with Paraffin and Deluxe Pedicure with Paraffin.  Hello!  This is called service.

Last but not least, the food here is excellent, as is the bar (very comfortable and welcoming). The name of the restaurant is unfortunate - ENTYSE—but don’t let that throw you.  The farm-to-table approach of cooking doesn’t let down—highly recommended, the Organic Amish Chicken with Potatoes Puree, Glazed Vegetables and Chicken Jus—and is accompanied by picks chosen by the very charismatic Sommelier Vincent Feraud. 

If you’re looking for the perfect Mother’s Day getaway, look no further than this Ritz property.

The Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner
http://www.ritzcarlton.com
1700 Tysons Boulevard
McLean, VA 22102
Hotel (703) 506-4300
Spa (703) 506-2694

Book your ExecuCar reservation online, or call (800) 410-4444

If you’re looking for the best hotel to hit the snooze button on early in the morning to take advantage of the Smithsonian Museums, the Willard is the place to bed down.  And if you are a museum fanatic, you really will want to stay close, as the Smithsonian consists of not one museum, but 19 museums, 9 research centers and over 140 affiliate museums around the world. Lucky for the D.C. traveler, you only have to cover the first 19.

The hotel offers major indulgence, with all the basics of a luxury hotel (huge rooms, marble bathrooms, heavy wooden furniture, flat screen TVs, wired-to-the-hilt everything, and then some).  And the 17 pieces of equipment (including treadmills, cycles and weight training) in the Fitness room, followed by a spa treatment (or two or three), will help you pump up or wind down for or from the museums.

WHY STAY?  This is the real Washington, D.C., where all the Presidents have been staying or eating almost since the day it opened in 1818.  Calvin Coollidge lived here; Ulysees S. Grant took his afternoon cigar and brandy here; Abraham Lincoln was smoked in pre-inauguration by famed detective Allan Pinkerton to keep him safe from a possible assassination; and more pedestrian celebrities joined, among them, Gypsy Rose Lee, Emily Dickinson, P.T. Barnum, Houdini, Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg, P.T. Barnum and more.  Perhaps the most amazing celebrity incident came when, in 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his “I Have a Dream.”

WHERE TO EAT?
Café du Parc is an amazingly authentic French bistro (they’re quite rare in the States, actually), where most D.C. natives go for their puff pastries and morning breakfast meetings.  And even though the Occidental Grill and Seafood restaurant might overpower it with history (and photos to back up that history), the food at Café du Parc is perfect for any meal… and so easily accessible from the guest rooms or off the street (plus, no stuffy suits and ties required). Highly recommended is the pate plate.

WHAT TO DO IN-HOTEL?
The Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa at the Willard offers 80 minute Swedish Massages that make leaving the hotel to visit the D.C. museums and monuments almost seem second in priority.  Why leave to go anywhere when you can be this indulged.

The Willard Washington Interncontinental Hotel
1401 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.
Washington, D.C., 2004
1-877-270-1390
http://www.ichotelsgroup.com

This year the choreography is particularly spectacular, as if the cast and crew took some sort of magic fairy dust, because there’s not a dull step. The lighting crew deserves a special round of applause, as they backdrop and forefront the skaters, making them appear as if they’re skating inside a rainbow.

Maybe no other town loves to bring its kids to a Disney show as much as Charm City. This is a Baltimorean’s ritual. So get your tickets fast!

WHAT:
Disney On Ice—100 Years Of Magic

WHERE:
1st Mariner Arena, Baltimore

WHEN:
February 3-7

TICKETS:
Ticketmaster.com