Travelrific® Travel Journal
Picture postcards in prose.™ Check out the blogroll on the front page for official merchandise and other resources!Archive for U.S. travel
Women’s Heritage Trail
By Linda Tancs
New Jersey history boasts its fair share of influential women, like Annis Boudinot Stockton, a Colonial poet; Clara Barton, a Civil War nurse and the founder of the first public school in New Jersey; suffragist leader Alice Paul; and aviator and writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Their contributions to society and those of many others are commemorated along the New Jersey Women’s Heritage Trail, a collection of nearly 100 sites across the state illustrating the role of women in American history. Women’s heritage sites are being developed across the United States. Check with your local historical society for a trail near you.
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Gates of the Arctic
By Linda Tancs
With no roads or trails, Alaska’s Gates of the Arctic ain’t your momma’s national park. But for those pioneering enough to brave nature’s elements, it offers spectacular opportunities to discover a premier wilderness. Four times the size of Yellowstone, the park and preserve lie entirely north of the Arctic Circle, straddling the crest of the Brooks Range (the northernmost extension of the Rocky Mountains). This land is home to the Athabascan and Nunamiut, who hunt the caribou herds that migrate through the park in the spring and autumn. The park was named by intrepid explorer Robert Marshall, citing two mountains paired opposite the North Fork. A lake named in his honor is about 33 miles from Anaktuvuk Pass, an Eskimo village within the park borders and a popular entry point into the preserve. Scheduled flights from Fairbanks serve the area.
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Old Wood in North America
By Linda Tancs
Located along Swedesboro Road in Gibbstown, New Jersey, the Nothnagle cabin is one of the oldest log cabins in the United States and the oldest standing wooden structure in North America. All but one of the cabin’s original logs are intact. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, it is believed to have been built in the 1600s by Finnish settlers. Privately owned, it is open for scheduled tours with the owners, Harry and Doris Rink. They reside in a newer part of the structure added in the 1900s.
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The Calendar Islands
By Linda Tancs
On the southern coast of Maine lies Casco Bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Maine. Blessed with a multitude of islands, the region is referred to as The Calendar Islands, suggesting you’ll need a calendar’s worth of time to see them all. Well, maybe not quite, but the slower pace of life will encourage you to take all the time you want. There’s something for everyone on the larger islands served by the year-round ferry. Cyclists will love the dirt roads on Cliff Island. Golfers will appreciate the ability to perfect their long drive on breezy Chebeague Island. Naturalists will enjoy hiking the trails along Long Island’s large conservation area. Historians can stroll around the former parade grounds of Fort McKinley on Great Diamond Island. Culture buffs will love the thriving artist community on Peaks Island. Need more inspiration? The Maine Island Trail Association offers a handy guide on places to explore.
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Books and Brew
By Linda Tancs
There’s certainly nothing special about brew on a college campus. But when the brew is an 18th century brewery unearthed at the second oldest college in the United States–well, that’s something special. The discovery was made at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. And what, you might wonder, comprised a brew of the 1700s? One concoction was a mix of water, persimmons, hops and yeast.
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Oklahoma City Remembers
By Linda Tancs
The Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum remembers those who were killed, those who survived and those whose lives were changed forever following the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The memorial comprises an outdoor symbolic garden featuring the gripping Field of Empty Chairs, one for each of the lives lost. Indoors, the highly interactive museum takes visitors on a chronological, self-guided tour through the events of the day and its aftermath. The 20th anniversary of this significant terrorist attack is on 19 April.
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Denver’s Oldest House
By Linda Tancs
Denver’s Four Mile House is the city’s oldest structure, a testament to Colorado’s frontier past. Operating as a stage stop in the 1860s, it was the last stop coming west to Denver along the Cherokee Trail. The house is the centerpiece of Four Mile Historic Park, a 12-acre park just miles from downtown Denver. The locale offers year round educational programming showcasing Colorado’s rich pioneer history. The house museum is open for tours Wednesday through Sunday.
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Great American Main Street
By Linda Tancs
What do New Jersey, Wyoming and Missouri have in common? For the current year, at least, the answer is that each state boasts a winning town in the 2015 Great American Main Street Award® contest. Each year the National Main Street Center (a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation) bestows honors on those communities it deems to be a shining example of commercial district revitalization. This year’s honorees are Cape Girardeau in Missouri, Montclair Center Business Improvement District in New Jersey and Rawlins, Wyoming. Thanks to the art of reinvention, you won’t find them rolling up the sidewalks at night.
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Plein Air on the Teche
By Linda Tancs
Picture this: a juried art exhibition amidst stately oak trees draped in Spanish moss framed by a classic antebellum historic house. If that doesn’t get paint brushes moving, then what will? This weekend marks the weeklong inaugural Plein Air Competition at Shadows-on-the-Teche, a 19th century southern Louisiana plantation. Located in New Iberia’s Main Street District on the banks of Bayou Teche, The Shadows was built in 1834 for sugar planter David Weeks and preserves 150 years of history through four generations.
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The United States of North America
By Linda Tancs
Named for its two private owners, the Pope-Leighey House represents renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision to create affordable housing for middle-class families. The architectural convention is often referred to as Usonian (thought to be an acronym for the United States of North America), characterized by a single-story, L-shaped home crafted with native materials. Situated in Alexandria, Virginia, the house is part of the Woodlawn estate, which was originally part of George Washington’s Mount Vernon.
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