Kentucky
If you've ever wondered how your backyard bugs actually taste, go to Bernheim Forest in Clermont during BugFest (June 12 to 13). The "Bring Your Ant to Dinner" program features insects-as-food workshops, and guests can visit an insect-tasting booth.
Other events include an Irene Moon performance in which the intricately costumed artist and entomologist mimics bug movements through interpretive dance; a lecture by biologist Keith Clay; and a presentation with butterflies, caterpillars, chrysalises, and moths. Local artist Amy Berry will also host four-hour "Art With a Sting" ceramic workshops.
Washington, D.C.
Through the end of the summer, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History offers the "Treetop Opera" exhibit, which features a 51-track CD of sweet cicada sounds. Visitors will also find a detailed model of a cicada, cicada specimens, and a tribute to the late Richard Froeschner. Froeschner was once an entomologist for the museum and became known as Dr. Cicada, for his expert lectures on the insects.
To cure their cicada blues, visitors can sip a Brood X-inspired "They're Back Tini," in the Fairmont Washington's newly renovated Lobby Lounge through the end of June. The cocktail—Grey Goose vodka, sour apple pucker, pineapple juice, and Cointreau—is garnished with earplugs to drown out the transparent-winged critters. (The chirping of one cicada alone can be as loud as a blender operating at full speed, reportedly.)
For a unique overnight, head to the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown. The "Cicada A-Buzz" package, offered through June 30, also features a cicada cocktail—Grey Goose L'Orange vodka, fresh pineapple juice, and blue curaçao—as well as a night in a suite, a box of cicada-shaped chocolates, and a pair of cicada-watching binoculars. Prices start at $600 for two.
Maryland
By July, Brood X will be gone but not forgotten at Strathmore in Bethesda. Opening July 1, the "Beasts and Bugs" exhibition in the Invitational Gallery will feature 4-foot-tall (1.2-meter) animals made of burlap, wire, and other materials; and mixed media depictions of cicadas and other bugs, all by local artists.
On July 29, classical musicians will pay their final respects (until 2021, that is) to Brood X's signature sounds by performing a free outdoor concert, "The Cicada Serenade," on the green.
National Geographic Traveler will be updating this list from time to time during cicada season. If you would like to submit an event or activity for the editor to consider adding to the list please send an e-mail to Heather Morgan Shott.
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