Even though you can find me on a barstool around town most nights of the week, I occasionally step off that stool and travel. This past weekend, I headed to Washington, D.C., for a conference, and I would have done my readers a major disservice if I hadn’t headed out to D.C.’s very own gay-district, Dupont Circle, to check out the nightlife.

I was lucky to find my fabulous hotel within distance of D.C.’s gay mecca, so naturally my hotel mates and I headed on over.

We were told that we had to check out a club called Apex. According to D.C.’s local GLBT publication, MetroWeekly, the club caters to mostly men, with the occasional ladies night. The club was formerly called Badlands. Apex was a mix of Rich’s, Flicks, and Numbers. The club was full of energy, and packed from wall-to-wall on the Friday night that we visited. There was a lower-level bar, an upper-level main dance floor, with a plush, raised seating area, another room behind the dance floor with restrooms and another bar and a back room. The back room was down a long dark hallway, and when my D.C. friend suggested we head back, I was a little hesitant. He didn’t tell me what was back there, so I pictured the “Cruising Corridors” at Club Extasis in Tijuana. But it was just a nice video-bar, playing a mix of top-40 videos. The main room was playing high-energy dance music, and the dance floor was packed. The club had a very diverse mix of visitors, and everyone seemed to be having a great time, partying it up D.C. style! Next time you are in our nation’s capitol, I recommend checking out Apex, which is located at 1415 22nd St., NW, in the Dupont area. Check it out online at www.apex-dc.com.

My other recommendation is Club Chaos. This certainly was an interesting club, but I had a great time there, and do encourage you to check it out. The venue is a restaurant in the daytime and a club in the evening. Chaos caters primarily to a Latino/Latina clientele, but on the Saturday night I visited, the crowd was fairly diverse, including men, women, transgender people, and drag queens. The club hosts a drag show almost every night of the week, and the show I saw was pretty wild! At one point, the drag-queen emcee even came out on stage baring her “man-chest.” I guess she forgot to pop-in her breast pads. I must say, this particular drag queen did have quite the hot upper body! The crowd was really energetic, and quite into the drag entertainment, which lasted until about 1 a.m. (most of the clubs in D.C. stay open until 4 a.m.) The drag queens even hosted a “walk the runway competition,” where some hot boys (and a lesbian) strutted their stuff across the dance floor. It was a really fun show, and I had a great time. The club is a cross between The Brass Rail and Bacchus House, with both San Diego venues having more class, with interiors that put Chaos to shame. Chaos had a mish-mash of random décor throughout the club, including some Christmas garlands still wrapped around the perimeter. I suppose the owners forgot to take them down (and I guess they might as well just leave them up, since the holidays are just two months away).

Also, over the dance floor, there were a number of random decorations still hanging from the roof, including icicle lights, giant playing cards, and cowboy decorations. I suppose when they host a theme night, they just leave up the decorations as a tribute or commemoration of the night. The tables in the club looked like card tables from my grandma’s bridge game (complete with folding chairs). Aside from the not-so-hot décor, the club was a lot of fun, full of energy, and the drag show and dancing were amazing! I even met a really hot D.C. boy, whom I “thoroughly enjoyed” my evening with. Club Chaos is located at 1603 17th St, NW, in the Dupont area (a few blocks from the actual circle). Check it out online at www.chaosdc.com.

My next set of travel plans will take me to San Antonio, Texas! So look out for my top picks from that town in a future column – remember “everything is bigger in Texas!”