Travelrific® Travel Journal
Picture postcards in prose.™ Check out the blogroll on the front page for official merchandise and other resources!Author Archive
The Atlantic Wall
By Linda Tancs
The Atlantic Wall was a system of fortifications built by the Germans during World War II, running along the Atlantic coast from northern Norway to southern France. In Ouistreham, Normandy, a museum established inside a former Atlantic Wall firing command post is dedicated entirely to the Atlantic Wall. Known as The Grand Bunker Atlantic Wall Museum, the five-story facility has reconstructed the command bunker down to the smallest detail, including engine rooms, an infirmary, armory, a radio transmission room and an observation post. The area is well posted both in English and in French.
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The Mighty Mac
By Linda Tancs
Michigan’s Mackinac Bridge, affectionately known as The Mighty Mac, is a suspension bridge with a shoreline-to-shoreline length just 28 feet short of 5 miles. It spans the Straits of Mackinac, basically becoming the dividing line between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. It’s currently the fifth largest suspension bridge in the world and the longest suspension bridge between anchorages in the Western Hemisphere. Enjoy scenic bridge views and walking paths at Bridge View Park.
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Early Television in Ohio
By Linda Tancs
Located in Hilliard, Ohio, the Early Television Museum houses an enviable collection of over 150 TV sets from yesteryear, many of them still operational. Displays include mechanical TVs from the 1920s and 30s; early electronic British sets from 1936-39; early electronic American sets from 1939-41; postwar sets from1945-58; and early color sets from 1953-57. The museum also has a library of books and other documents relating to early television as well as a collection of early picture tubes and studio equipment.
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Auburn in Atlanta
By Linda Tancs
Auburn Avenue is one of Atlanta, Georgia’s most famous streets. Loaded with history and iconic landmarks, a mile-and-a-half stretch of it is known as the Sweet Auburn Historic District. The phrase “Sweet Auburn” was coined by businessman and civil rights activist John Wesley Dobbs, the maternal grandfather of Atlanta’s first Black mayor, Maynard Jackson. The area’s Black history goes back to the 1920s, when Auburn Avenue became the commercial center of Black Atlanta. You can learn more about that history at the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History and the APEX Museum next door. The street’s iconic landmarks include the building sign for the Atlanta Daily World, the first Black daily newspaper in the country, which operated in the building from 1928 to 2008 before relocating. Across the street is the marker for The Royal Peacock. In its heyday, the Black-owned nightclub hosted such entertainers as James Brown, Little Richard, Gladys Knight, B.B. King, Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. No visit would be complete without experiencing the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, where the Visitor Center houses the original farm wagon that held King’s casket during his funeral procession. The Atlanta Streetcar runs the length of the avenue for only one dollar.
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Big Boots in Texas
By Linda Tancs
In San Antonio, Texas, there’s a pair of boots decidedly not made for walkin’. That’s because they’re 35 feet tall and 33 feet long. Touted as the world’s largest cowboy boots, the fake ostrich-and-calf-skin boots are located outside North Star Mall.
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Art, Culture and Nature
By Linda Tancs
The Royal Ontario Museum is Canada’s largest and most comprehensive museum. Located in the heart of Toronto, it boasts a collection of 13 million artworks, cultural objects and natural history specimens, featured in 40 gallery and exhibition spaces. Art and cultural objects from around the world date from pre-historic civilizations to present day contemporary artworks. Recognized internationally, the natural history collection features fossilized plants and animals from all over the world as well as the best examples of minerals, gems, meteorites and rocks from our planet and solar system. Founded in 1914, the museum is among the top 10 cultural institutions in North America.
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National Aviation Heritage
By Linda Tancs
The National Aviation Heritage Area encompasses an eight-county area in Ohio (Montgomery, Greene, Miami, Clark, Warren, Champaign, Shelby and Auglaize counties). Managed by the Aviation Heritage Alliance, the assets of the region include the National Museum of the United States Air Force (which celebrated its 100th anniversary last year), historic Grimes Field (the legacy of Warren Grimes, “Father of the Aircraft Lighting Industry”) and the Airstream Heritage Center, celebrating over 90 years of airstream history.
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Remembering the Gold Rush
By Linda Tancs
The promise of gold brought thousands of people to Alaska and the Yukon Territory in 1897-98. Their search for riches is commemorated at Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park in Skagway, Alaska. The park is made up of three units in Alaska and one unit in Seattle, Washington, each playing an integral role in the stampede to the Klondike. The three units in Alaska are the Skagway Historic District, the White Pass Trail and the Chilkoot Trail (which began at Dyea, once a booming town as a route to the gold fields). The Chilkoot pass is one of only three passes that can be used all winter in the northern Lynn Canal area. If you visit this time of year you’ll avoid the hustle and bustle of the cruise ships that dominate Skagway during the summer season.
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Tea Burners in New Jersey
By Linda Tancs
A precursor to the American Revolution, the Boston Tea Party was a protest that occurred in 1773 when a cadre of colonists threw over 300 chests of tea into Boston Harbor to protest what they viewed as taxation without representation. A lesser-known event is the protest that took place one year later in Greenwich, New Jersey, when a group of revolutionaries burned a haul of tea headed for Philadelphia. The occasion is marked by the Tea Burners Monument, erected in 1908 on Ye Greate Street.
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America’s First Art School
By Linda Tancs
Founded in 1805, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia is the first art school and art museum in the United States. Its Historic Landmark Building, considered one of the finest surviving examples of Victorian Gothic architecture in America, houses exhibition space as well as classroom space for the school, which is primarily located at the Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building. Between those two buildings is Lenfest Plaza, a year-round gathering space featuring a three-part serpentine bench, mosaic pavers, plantings and rotating works of emerging and established artists.
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