A Relatively Short Guide to Maple Fest

Every year you are excited, and every year it doesn't disappoint. You fly up on Friday, trying to relax on the three-hour plane ride to your favorite city in America. It isn't easy to relax, however, because you can hardly contain yourself.

You take a cab to an English basement on Capitol Hill. It belongs to the hostess with the mostess, the reason you started going to Maple Fest in the first place. You hug all ten friends that you haven't seen in a year, and try to catch up a little bit before the first meeting of the weekend, or Maple Summit, as it were. This meeting is usually to decide whether you want to stop at Cracker Barrel on the way to Southwest Virginia, or at Sweetgreen before you leave DC. You decide on a Sweetgreen salad because it's the last healthy thing you'll be eating all weekend.

You stuff your bags into one of three cars and climb in, wondering who will be DJing for the three-hour drive to Southwest Va. You talk with your car-mates, listen to Taylor Swift, and most likely stop in Harrisonburg to get snacks (that salad certainly wasn't enough...). You are starting to feel like the old you, the real you that only surfaces in a few places. You know it's going to be a good weekend.

Finally you arrive to your destination, and it's early to bed, early to rise. You have to get to the all-you-can-eat-pancake breakfast as early as possible to avoid the line. Before you leave, you pack a snack pack, graciously provided by your hostess' mother, of baked goods, crackers, and candy. Armed with a camera and a cup of coffee, you leave the house around 7:30am. You drive through the mountains to Highland County. You watch the trees fly by from your seat in the back, their branches bare from the lingering winter. You arrive at the breakfast, and see with disappointment that there is already a line. A long line. But you will wait, of course you will. It's tradition. An hour later you can finally smell the pancakes cooking, the griddle hissing with grease, and the low hum of folks enjoying themselves. Finally, you're in! You get your food and devour, making sure to smother the sausage gravy on both patties of sausage, and soaking each pancake with more maple syrup than you've had in the last five years combined. After you're finished, and can no longer eat another bite, you chug your milk and stand, freeing up table space for the hundreds of people still waiting in line.

"You" in pure Maple Bliss.

You then drive to a sugar farm, where they make maple syrup. You tour the sugar barn, and contemplate buying maple candy in the gift shop. You decide against it, since you're pretty sure your veins are already full of sugar. You buy a maple BBQ sandwich (you've digested those pancakes enough by now), and a Diet Coke, and chow down on the farm's delicious take on a bbq sammy. By now everyone is high on sugar, and you wonder briefly why everything is so damn funny.

Your maple bbq sandwich.

Your beer flight.

You are finished eating for the afternoon, and shortly after find yourself in downtown Staunton (that's pronounced "Stan-ton"), where you visit a wine tasting room, a brewery, a little bookstore, and another wine bar. You see someone you met your first Maple Fest and it is kind of awkward, but the wine is making you happy and you get through the embarrassment.

You go to one more bar before you realize you've had just about enough, and it's time to go back to your home for the weekend. Your friends decide to order pizza, and you eat (seriously, how are you ingesting so much?) while playing Cards Against Humanity. You don't want the day to end. But eventually you give in to your sugar and alcohol fatigue, knowing full well a hangover will hit shortly after 6am.

A little Staunton street art, explaining your feelings exactly. 

You wake up to the smell of bacon and coffee, and come downstairs to find that your hostess' sweet parents have cooked you an enormous breakfast, as they have done every year. You are grateful and very touched by their generosity and hospitality. After breakfast, you pack, walk around the grounds of the house, and chat with these friends who surround you, whom you never get to see, who are your best friends. 

The drive back to Washington is quiet, as you nap or think about the week ahead. The group makes one last stop at a winery to do a final wine tasting and to savor the sweetness of the weekend. You arrive back in DC shortly after and stay with a friend/former roommate before leaving the next day. You are exhausted, but your heart is full. You cherish your weekend with your buddies and count yourself one lucky gal to have such amazing friends. You and your friend stay up late catching up and reliving old times. You anticipate your trip home tomorrow and the perpetual search for your next career path. But for now you push those thoughts back, and say yes to one more glass of wine.

Your BFFs (although a few weren't in this picture.)