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
Big Trees Abound in New Jersey
By Linda Tancs
The New Jersey Forest Service has been keeping a record of the largest trees in the state since the 1950s. Consider the silver maple off Route 179 in Ringoes, measuring 27 feet in circumference. That tree also happens to be 208 years old. And there’s the 175-year-old slippery elm (named for its sticky inner bark) in Wantage and the largest red oak (the State Tree) in Wyckoff. These and other trees are part of the Champion Big Tree Register. In 1884, New Jersey celebrated its first official Arbor Day celebration. Tomorrow is National Arbor Day, a special day for tree planting celebrated nationwide. Plant a tree. Who knows, it just might grow up to be a champ.
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A Shrine to Innovation
By Linda Tancs
If you think the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan is just a shrine for car enthusiasts, then think again. Sure, you’ll find the first Mustang and the last Model T among its collection, but you’ll also discover a world of innovation through amazing exhibits like Made in America, featuring a Newcomen engine, gothic steam engine and McCoy lubricator. The sprawling museum compound also celebrates pioneering in aviation, including a replica of the Wright Flyer. And don’t miss Greenfield Village. Founded in 1929 as an educational and historic landmark, it comprises seven districts chronicling 300 years of American industrialism in railroading, farming, handiworks, patentable inventions and, of course, automotive engineering.
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Tales From the Crypt
By Linda Tancs
New Haven, Connecticut was settled in 1638 by a group of Puritans. In 1812, a church was built on the Green to house their remains and those of Revolutionary War veterans. Built over part of the burying ground, Center Church on the Green sports a basement crypt with a who’s who of eternal occupants. In peaceful repose lie Benedict Arnold’s first wife, President Rutherford Hayes’ family, Reverend James Pierpont (a founder of Yale College) and Sarah Rutherford Trowbridge (marked with a stone dated 1687, the oldest one in The Crypt). Overall, The Crypt contains the identified remains of about 137 people and the unidentified remains of over 1,000 souls and marks the last remaining evidence of the city’s early settlers. Crypt tours take place April through October on Thursdays and Saturdays.
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Crown of the Continent
By Linda Tancs
Its crowning achievement is the preservation of more than a million acres of forests, alpine meadows, lakes, peaks and glacial-carved valleys, 70 species of mammals and over 270 species of birds. That’s reason enough why Montana’s Glacier National Park is aptly dubbed the Crown of the Continent. Named for its prominent glacier-carved terrain and remnant glaciers descended from the ice ages, it’s nearly four times the size of rival Rocky Mountain National Park. Take a ride on Going-to-the-Sun Road, a 50-mile drive through the park’s interior offering some of the best sights in northwest Montana. Glacier is also a hiker’s paradise, offering 700 miles of trails, like the shutterbug-friendly Logan Pass. Better act soon; some scientists predict that by the year 2030, Glacier National Park will not contain any glaciers. In fact, the park has only 25 glaciers now, down from 150 in the 1800s.
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The First Veterans’ Monument
By Linda Tancs
The traumatic fate of nine colonists in 1676 is commemorated in a wooded area near the public library in Cumberland, Rhode Island. Known as Nine Men’s Misery, the stone memorial there is reportedly the first veterans’ monument in the United States, a tribute to nine colonial militiamen slaughtered at the site by the Narragansett tribe during King Philip’s War. The conflict, named for its Native American leader Metacomet (referred to as King Philip by the British), pitted tribes in New England against the British colonists and their allies as the Puritans increasingly encroached upon Native American settlements. Despite the colonists’ eventual victory, the war ravaged the population and economy of the region.
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All in the Family
By Linda Tancs
In Little Silver, New Jersey there’s an old house that predates the founding of the United States. Known as the Parker Homestead, the unassuming white Colonial with green shutters dates to 1725 or so. Descended from the earliest English settlers in New Jersey, the Parker family retained ownership of the home for over 300 years. This National Historic Site also boasts a horse barn, livestock barn and wagon barn. Together with the house, all four structures sit on land acquired by Joseph and Peter Parker under a land grant in 1665.
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Like No Place Else on Earth
By Linda Tancs
According to the National Park Service, Crater Lake National Park, Oregon’s only national park, is like no place else on Earth. Maybe it’s the lake at the heart of it all, one of the world’s deepest. Its majestic blue color can be viewed by driving the 33-mile path around the rim or getting up close and personal on a boat tour. Along the way, maybe you’ll see the Old Man, a mountain hemlock log that has been floating upright in the lake for more than 100 years!
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The Mob Mentality in Las Vegas
By Linda Tancs
In the heart of downtown Las Vegas is a former federal courthouse and U.S. Post Office included on both the Nevada and National Registers of Historic Places. Hearings on organized crime were conducted in this building at a time when legendary mobsters ruled The Strip. Nowadays it’s better known as the Mob Museum, where theater presentations, artifacts, and interactive exhibits capture the struggle between organized crime and law enforcement. Nothing but the truth prevails here, if you can handle it.
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Aligning with the Heavens in Ohio
By Linda Tancs
The largest surviving prehistoric effigy mound is Serpent Mound, located in Peebles, Ohio. The undulating serpent-shaped earthwork stretches for almost 1350 feet, evoking over the years interpretations related to mysticisms and heavenly alignments. No wonder, then, that the park grounds are open for extended hours today–the spring equinox–marking Earth’s balance between day and night, a time of many rituals and traditions. Be prepared for an astronomically good time.
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Home of the Original Cuban Sandwich
By Linda Tancs
Plenty of American cities and states have staked their gastronomic claim to fame–Philly has its cheesesteak, Maryland boasts crab cakes, lobsters reign in Maine, etc. So who lays claim to the original Cuban sandwich? Answer: Tampa, Florida. In particular, it’s Ybor City’s signature sandwich that has local hearts all aflutter. Tampa’s National Historic Landmark District, Ybor City (the Latin Quarter) exudes old world charm with its wrought iron balconies and narrow brick streets. Founded by Vicente Martinez-Ybor as a cigar manufacturing center, Ybor City welcomed a melting pot of immigrants from Spain, Cuba, Germany and Italy. Florida’s first industrial town, it is one of only two National Historic Landmark Districts in the state.
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