Maryland???

Chains were reasonably well represented when I lived there. It had the Starbucks, Chipotle, Chick-fil-A, Cracker Barrel, Five Guys, Olive Garden stuff you'd expect. Even had a Tilted Kilt and the outlet mall was nice to have close by.

The problem was even with really good places like the German restaurant Vombatus mentioned, nobody wants to go downtown after dark.

 

How would you rate the Fredericksburg breweries? Just looking at their webpages I'm inclined to check out Red Dragon and maybe Adventure (South)...if I can only hit a couple.

 

The renovated main library is right next door to the German restaurant. The immediate area (Antietam and Potomac Streets) has been cleaned up a lot.

The chains are along Route 40 closer to Interstate 70.

And, one of the oddest street signs I've ever seen is on the way out of downtown toward that area of Rt. 40 with the chains. The sign reads something like: "No cruising 7 PM-2 AM". There's a story behind that sign and I wish I knew it. Reminds me of American Graffiti.

 

And from the "Here, let me google that for you" file, I decided to look up the cruising signs and found this article:

Aiming to scuttle teen-age cruising

The law passed in 2000, and the article mentions American Graffiti.

 

Hagerstown was quite the destination for southern Pennsylvania teen-agers in the '70s and '80s before Maryland raised the drinking age from 18 to 21. They had some notable night clubs aimed at that crowd, and they were packed on weekends.

Down the road in Emmitsburg (think Mount St. Mary's), the town just allowed the Friday-Saturday night partying to spill out onto the main street.

 

I'll be honest, Fredvegas may be my one blind spot in the state when it comes to breweries. The only one I've really ever tried was Spencer Devon, and that was at the Virginia Craft Brewers Festival. Was decent. Didn't realize Strangeways had a location up there, though that's probably one of my least favorite Richmond breweries.

 

Probably spending much of our time at the historical/genealogy society, which is a couple blocks away if I am seeing things correctly. Have to piece together things past my 3rd GGF if possible.

 

If you are driving in through Rt. 68 downtown Cumberland is neat. They closed the main drag to traffic and its full of open air bars, restaurants and some neat shops. Its a stopover.




Harper's Ferry is nice.

 

I enjoyed my visit to Antietam but Gettysburg (50 minutes from Hagerstown) and Harpers Ferry (40 minutes) are better. Antietam is interesting but Gettysburg is so vast it is much more interesting (and if you have not read Killer's Angels do so immediately). My memory is Harpers Ferry museum is better than the one at Antietam. Harpers Ferry is also in a very pretty setting in a bowl besides the river. The Shenandoah and Potomac rivers also merge just upstream and it is a beautiful area. If you have an interest in the Civil War go to Gettysburg but otherwise go to Harpers Ferry as a first option.

 

I absolutely love that drive along Hwy. 7 and U.S. 340 from Winchester to Fredericksburg. It takes you right through that bowl, around the Potomac, and through some scenic areas of all three states. After a long interstate drive through Virginia, it was a nice little side trip.
Been a long time since I went through there, but IIRC there's some canoe/kayak/rafting type places along that route as well.

I never did stop at Antietam or Harpers Ferry, but Gettysburg was fascinating to me. It's so visual that if you're familiar at all with the battle you can see the major landmarks like the Orchard, the Sunken Road, and the huge open field Pickett's men had to cross. Poor bastards. That any of them made it across that alive, let alone mounted a fight at the end of it, is a testament to their courage. There's a cannon marked as "the high water mark of the Confederacy," which is supposedly as far as the Confederate army made it during Pickett's Charge. You can walk across that field and up that hill, with the cannons staring at you, and really get a sense of what they were walking into.

 

I don't disagree with you or @LanceyHoward re:Gettysburg. There's a chance we could take some time to head up but we're looking at Antietam for direct family reasons (nothing we've found show anyone in either family fought at Gettysburg or Harpers Ferry). And Hagerstown is going to be in play due to genealogy research since that's where my ancestors are planted. Certainly not for the glamorous nightlife and all-around fabulousness. Maybe it's a place I can get my ass kicked? Should be easy since I'm down to one arm now.

 

If you want your ass kicked, cross the border and go to Chamersburg instead.