Travelrific® Travel Journal
Picture postcards in prose.™ Check out the blogroll on the front page for official merchandise and other resources!Archive for road travel
Kanc Turns 50
By Linda Tancs
Frequent spring rains promise a spectacular fall foliage season in the U.S. this year. What better place to celebrate the impending color works than at the Kanc–that’s local speak for the Kancamagus Highway, over 30 miles of natural beauty ringed by the White Mountains between Lincoln and Conway in New Hampshire. Named for Kancamagus, an early Indian chief of the Penacook Confederacy, the byway naturally includes old Indian hunting trails. Romanticists are sure to love the covered bridge in Albany. You can learn more at the information center housed in The Russell-Colbath House, the only remaining 19th century homestead in the area.
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Slow Down, Move Over
By Linda Tancs
In an effort to boost the safety of first responders, over 40 states offer some version of a Slow Down/Move Over law. In a nutshell, drivers are expected to yield the right-of-way or reduce speed when approaching stationary emergency vehicles on highways. Penalties for noncompliance can be pretty stiff, ranging from a misdemeanor to a license suspension if injuries should result. All but New York, Nebraska, Maryland, Hawaii and Connecticut have some form of the law on the books. Check out the testimonial of a Virginia trooper explaining the basis for the law. Save the racing for the speedway.
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Of Nooks and Crooks
By Linda Tancs
Of all the little nooks in the world, the Guinness Book has it that Scotland’s Ebenezer Street in Wick takes top honors as the world’s shortest street. Situated in the Northern Highlands, Wick owes its origin to the Vikings, who named it Vik (meaning “bay”). Measuring just two yards and nine inches, the tiny thoroughfare sports one front door. For a long and winding road, you’ll need to visit Lombard Street in San Francisco, California, where the world’s most crooked street at its crest gives visitors the most stunning views of Fisherman’s Wharf, Alcatraz and the rest of San Francisco Bay. Those with nerves of steel can drive their way through the switchbacks. The rest can get there via the city’s storied cable cars on the Powell-Hyde line.
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Road Rage
By Linda Tancs
Of the world’s economic superpowers (to the extent we have any these days), the award for worst traffic goes to (drumroll, please) Russia. Funny that a country producing over 15 Nobel Prize winners has accomplished so little to unblock the box–gridlock, that is. Moscow stands on the brink of traffic collapse as drivers idle along at 8 to 11 miles per hour through major arteries that were never designed for the influx of over 3 million vehicles pounding the pavement daily. Add to that reports of the underground suffering under the weight of nine million commuters; it’s only been designed to handle seven million. So what’s an anxious motorist to do? Might want to try the helicopter taxi–at a mere 2000 euros per hour. As the writer Jim Herron observed, “All they have to do is look down at the traffic and suddenly they don’t feel like [flying is] that expensive a way to travel after all.”
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Germans Ace Driving Survey
By Linda Tancs
Volkswagen called it Fahrvergnügen (driving pleasure). That is, the experience of handling one of its vehicles on the open road. No doubt that sentiment extends to any driver on the miles of connected highway in Germany known as the Autobahn, particularly if light traffic means you can ignore the “recommended” speed limit of 80 mph, as many often do. It should come as no surprise, then, that the German specialty of white-knuckle driving ranks them #1 amongst Europeans as the best drivers in a poll conducted by Ipsos. Best doesn’t mean safest, of course. Another survey bestows that appellation on the British, who perhaps observe the adage, “Never drive faster than your guardian angel can fly.” That’s one rule we should all do well to remember.
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Philly’s Christmas Spirit
By Linda Tancs
Manayunk means “where we go to drink” in the Lenape Indian language, but this classic town in the northwestern reaches of Philadelphia is more than just a watering hole. Named a National Historic District in 1983, this bustling little hamlet of 60 shops and almost as many restaurants is a holiday favorite with shoppers looking to ditch the malls for a taste of Main Street, USA. Visit the arts and crafts tents every weekend through 21 December for contemporary homespun treats and check out the demonstrations of 19th century candle making, glass blowing, and weaving at Ye Olde Craft Shoppe. Best of all, admission is free.
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Christkindlmarkt, Chicago Style
By Linda Tancs
Tomorrow marks Thanksgiving, but it’s also the start of another (adopted) American tradition in the Midwest. From 27 November to 24 December, the heart of Chicago will once again host a Christmas market. Celebrating its 13th anniversary, the market is the largest of its kind outside of Germany and welcomes more than 1 million visitors each year. Modeled after a traditional outdoor European holiday market, the festivities will include German baked goods, clothing, wooden toys, nutcrackers and cuckoo clocks.
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Oktoberfest at the Taj
By Linda Tancs
Get your oom-pah on this weekend at the Taj Mahal. No, not the one in India–the one in Atlantic City, New Jersey. From noon till 8 on Saturday and noon till 6 on Sunday there’ll be non-stop entertainment direct from Germany, along with traditional eats and a shopping marketplace filled with imported gifts, clothes and tableware. The festival is 15 years’ strong and a big draw in the area. Be there or be square.
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Days in Rodanthe
By Linda Tancs
So the movie Nights in Rodanthe got me thinking–what’s on in Rodanthe? Rodanthe, along Highway 12 at the northern reach of Hatteras Island, North Carolina, is a beach goer’s delight. The movie highlights Mirlo Beach (named for a tanker sunk during World War I) and the beach rental, Serendipity. Water sports abound here. There isn’t much else to do, really. Leave the laptop home as internet access is a bit spotty. With all the kayaking, fishing, surfing, and sailboarding that awaits, perhaps that’s by design.
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Swiss Heirs
By Linda Tancs
In 1845 two Swiss residents from the canton of Glarus were sent to the U.S. to purchase land for a Swiss settlement. The prosperous homestead that followed became New Glarus, Wisconsin, a rural slice of the homeland just a hop, skip and jump away from Madison. And for those yearning for the alphorns, yodelers and folk dancers of the old country but unable to afford the real McCoy, this might be the perfect staycation for you. New Glarus is boastful of its observation of the traditional holidays and Swiss-German dialect. And the chalet-laden downtown offers up enough cuckoo clocks, lace, cheese and chocolate that you might even forget there’s no duty-free allowance–or international baggage restrictions–to worry about. For every time there is a season. Yours may be just a hilly, hairpin curve away.
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