Travelrific® Travel Journal
Picture postcards in prose.™ Check out the blogroll on the front page for official merchandise and other resources!Archive for georgia
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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Savannah’s First School
By Linda Tancs
Located in the Historic Landmark District, Massie School was the first free public school in Savannah, Georgia. Opened in 1856, it continues an educational function today as Massie Heritage Center. The kid-friendly exhibits include a photo history of people who attended, visited or taught at Massie School. There’s also an authentic 19th-century classroom where students can engage in authentic grade-level appropriate reading, writing, arithmetic and geography lessons and practice penmanship with quill pens. The facility is named for Peter Massie, a Scottish immigrant to Georgia in the late 1700s, who bequeathed a portion of his fortune to the city for the establishment of a free school for the poor.
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Billed as the Great North American Eclipse, a total solar eclipse will cross North America on April 8, 2024, passing over Mexico, the United States and Canada. The path of the eclipse begins in Mexico, entering the United States in Texas, and traveling through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. The eclipse will enter Canada in Southern Ontario, and continue through Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton. This will be the last time any solar eclipse will be visible within the United States until 2045.
Be prepared! So long as supplies last, you can purchase eclipse glasses and other accessories, like a phone app and photo filter, from American Paper Optics, a NASA-approved manufacturer. The link in the preceding sentence is an affiliate link, which means that if you click on the link and purchase merchandise from the page, then I may receive a small commission.
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All About Puppets
By Linda Tancs
A museum for all ages, the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Georgia, explores the art form from ancient times to the present. It features a global gallery showing how puppetry has been used to communicate across different cultures as well as the Jim Henson Gallery. There you’ll find some of the inventor and puppeteer’s most beloved characters, including Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and Big Bird. Rotating special exhibitions also take place throughout the year.
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Billed as the Great North American Eclipse, a total solar eclipse will cross North America on April 8, 2024, passing over Mexico, the United States and Canada. The path of the eclipse begins in Mexico, entering the United States in Texas, and traveling through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. The eclipse will enter Canada in Southern Ontario, and continue through Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton. This will be the last time any solar eclipse will be visible within the United States until 2045.
Be prepared! So long as supplies last, you can purchase eclipse glasses and other accessories, like a phone app and photo filter, from American Paper Optics, a NASA-approved manufacturer. The link in the preceding sentence is an affiliate link, which means that if you click on the link and purchase merchandise from the page, then I may receive a small commission.
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Gallons of Fun in Atlanta
By Linda Tancs
One of the largest of its kind in the world, the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta houses over 120,000 marine animals from more than 200 species in over 11 million gallons of water. It’s the only aquarium in the U.S. to house whale sharks. In fact, the building was designed around their 6.3-million-gallon tank. You’ll also find beluga whales, manta rays, penguins, sea otters, dolphins and more spanning seven permanent galleries. Special experiences include sleepovers, face-to-face animal encounters and swims. The facility is located in downtown Atlanta across from Centennial Olympic Park.
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A Natural Wonder of Georgia
By Linda Tancs
Touted as one of Georgia’s “Seven Natural Wonders,” Okefenokee Swamp (the largest blackwater wetland ecosystem in North America) is protected by the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. A great way to tour the area is via the Auto Tour Route (also known as Swamp Island Drive). The 7-mile paved road provides access to several hiking trails as well as Chesser Island Boardwalk, where you’ll find the Owl’s Roost Tower and its unparalleled view of the swamp prairies and the Okefenokee Wilderness. There are three major entrances and two secondary entrances to the refuge, the main one being near Folkston, where the Richard S. Bolt Visitor Center will orient you to all that the site has to offer.
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Georgia’s Golden Isles
By Linda Tancs
The Golden Isles are a group of islands in Georgia between Savannah and Jacksonville, Florida. The area comprises the port city of Brunswick and the barrier islands St. Simons, Little St. Simons, Jekyll Island and Sea Island. They’re known for their marshes and beaches, a favorite not only with tourists but also with the area’s mascot, the sea turtle. You can learn all about them at Jekyll Island’s Georgia Sea Turtle Center. You can spot them from May through August, when bales of sea turtles flock to the shores of the Golden Isles for nesting season. During the day, it’s very common to see sea turtle tracks leading from the ocean to the dry patch of sand where their nest has been constructed. If you want to get close to their nests safely, then take a guided evening tour offered in June or July by sea turtle experts from the Turtle Center.
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The Canyon Lands of Georgia
By Linda Tancs
Water-carved canyons and caves are part of the rugged geology of the Cumberland Plateau found in Georgia’s Cloudland Canyon State Park. The canyons may not measure up in size to those in the West, but the park’s thousand-foot-deep canyons, sandstone cliffs, caves, waterfalls, creeks, dense woodland and abundant wildlife make it one of the most scenic state parks in the South. Enjoy the vistas from popular trails like the Overlook Trail, Waterfalls Trail and West Rim Loop Trail. Located on the western edge of Lookout Mountain, the park is about a two-hour drive from Atlanta.
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Where History is Written in Stone
By Linda Tancs
In Georgia’s Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests, history is written in stone. Literally. Tucked away in the gap between Thunderstruck Mountain and Buzzard Roost Ridge, Track Rock Gap is a petroglyph site created by Creek and Cherokee people beginning more than 1,000 years ago. Boasting more than 100 carvings on soapstone boulders, it’s one of the most significant rock art sites in the southeastern United States and the only such site located on public land in Georgia. The Forest Service offers a fact sheet with drawings of the rock art so that you can identify the figures. The best time to visit is early or late in the day when the light is at a low angle and the figures are more discernible.
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To limit the spread of COVID-19, attractions may be closed or have partial closures. Please keep those affected by the virus in your thoughts and be sure to follow the safety practices advocated by the Centers for Disease Control. Stay safe, and be well.
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Buggy Capital of the South
By Linda Tancs
Barnesville, Georgia, was once known as the “Buggy Capital of the South.” And, no, that has nothing to do with those pesky mosquitoes arriving around now. The buggy in this case refers to the horse and buggy, and Barnesville produced more buggies than any other location south of Cincinnati, Ohio. By 1900, nearly 9,000 were produced there annually. The locals celebrate their commercial heritage with a festival in September. The city is about 50 miles from Atlanta.
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To limit the spread of COVID-19, attractions may be closed or have partial closures. Please keep those affected by the virus in your thoughts and be sure to follow the safety practices advocated by the Centers for Disease Control. Stay safe, and be well.
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A Gem in Savannah
By Linda Tancs
Wormsloe Historic Site is a gem to behold in Savannah, Georgia. The site was once the colonial estate of carpenter Noble Jones, who came to Georgia with James Oglethorpe and the first group of settlers in 1733. The ruins of Jones’s tabby house (built in 1745) represent the oldest standing structure in Savannah, but even more breathtaking are the mile-long rows of oaks with sweeping branches lining the avenue to the estate, covering the driveway like a giant arch. Along with costumed interpretation on the nature trails, the locale offers a short film on the founding of Georgia and great views over the Skidaway Narrows, where the house was built to defend the strategic section of the Skidaway River from Spanish invasion.
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