Not all road trips need to be epic journeys through the corners of the world. Sometimes they are a simple micro-adventure over the course of a long weekend.

We jumped in the car and headed south to visit my baby sister in Frederick, Maryland. She had lived there for a few years and I was the only member of my family who had yet to visit her (a fact that my family loved to nag me about).

After last summer's road trip, I have no problem driving long distances. Plus, when you schedule a stop half way there to have lunch with old college buddies over locally made subs, it isn't a bad drive.

Frederick is a cute little town filled with new stores, cute little yards and the typical mish mash of people you find wherever you go in our country these days.

While we didn't bring Nadia with us, it was great to see how dog friendly of a town it is. Signs in many stores welcomed dogs into them and there were water dishes everywhere.

Downtown has a beautiful canal to walk along, several parks to play in and independent stores of all sorts to shop in.

We spent time looking through hipster clothing stores, falling in love with upcycled industrial furniture and browsing the shelves in one of the best named bookstores I've ever found.

We were delighted to discover a variety of public street art. I truly wished more cities would allow, encourage and commission more of this.

It wouldn't be Chapman trip without it being filled with amazing food and we certainly found that with frozen custard at Rita's, mounds of all you can eat crab at May's, hot fresh donuts from The Fractured Prune and some of the best barbecue I've ever had outside of Texas at Black Hog BBQ.

If you in town and craving pie, be sure to swing by Barbara Fritchie's for a slice of homemade goodness, but don't order breakfast because they don't seem to know how to make anything edible except for pie.

Sadly, it was one of the worst meals I've ever had anywhere in the world.

We even snuck in a quick geocaching lesson for my sister and introduced her beagle to the woods for the first time.

Bad weather kept us from seeing more of Frederick, but I'm excited to return and see more of it. It is a family friendly town with plenty of activities to keep any family busy. We can't wait to come back!