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
A Star in the East
By Linda Tancs
There’s a star in the East–no, not the biblical kind: the Hollywood kind. A 26-foot-tall sculpture of Marilyn Monroe is a featured attraction at New Jersey’s Grounds for Sculpture. Created by renowned sculptor and philanthropist Seward Johnson, the piece returns “home” from Palm Springs as part of the Hamilton museum’s retrospective on Johnson’s career. Taking place through September, the months-long festivities will include hands-on art-making workshops, tours of the park and artwork, screenings of archival footage, and an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour with Johnson.
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New Jersey’s Largest Rose Garden
By Linda Tancs
This time of year, New Jersey’s Rudolf van der Goot Rose Garden is at its peak. The state’s largest public rose garden is awash in color and aroma–hardly surprising, with 325 varieties abounding. A popular locale for wedding photography, the one-acre site is located in Colonial Park in Somerset. Don’t expect to find too many wilts; only roses that thrive in central New Jersey are kept in the garden. Let’s give that a green thumbs-up!
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A Symbol of Resilience in Manhattan
By Linda Tancs
Today marks the official opening of New York City’s National September 11 Museum to the general public. The complex includes an outdoor memorial plaza with reflecting pools (already accessible to visitors from around the world) and a museum of 10,000 artifacts and exhibits, including personal effects, wreckage and videos. The twin reflecting pools sit within the footprints where the World Trade Center’s twin towers once stood. The name of every person who died during the 1993 attack as well as those who died on September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon are inscribed into bronze panels edging the pools. Inside, the museum’s Last Column (an imposing hulk of steel that helped support the inner core of the south tower and was last to be salvaged) serves as a somber backdrop in a cavernous hall that recounts the heroism and courage displayed on that fateful day. Purchase advance museum tickets for access at your preferred time and date. The site is within easy reach of public transportation.
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Gone With the Wind
By Linda Tancs
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Gone With the Wind spawned one of the highest-grossing motion pictures of all time, not to mention classic quotes. Fans may love to talk the talk, but now they can walk the walk via the Gone With the Wind Trail. Winding its way in and around Atlanta, the journey takes in sites such as Margaret Mitchell’s house (an apartment in the 1930s, which she famously referred to as “the dump”), her grave at Oakland Cemetery and the Gone With the Wind Museum, where Scarlett’s honeymoon gown (one of only eight originals known to exist) is a popular attraction. Springtime is a great time for a visit, when the state is awash in color thanks to plentiful azaleas, wisteria and magnolias. Don’t expect to complete the entire circuit (taking in Atlanta, Marietta and Jonesboro) in a single day. Why should you? As Scarlett so aptly put it, “Tomorrow is another day.”
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Dramatic Scenery in Alaska
By Linda Tancs
Alaska’s Misty Fjords National Monument is where Nature’s drama unfolds. An area of unfathomable beauty, its two million breathtaking acres feature cascading waterfalls, glistening lakes, lingering mists and goliath walls of granite amidst forests of spruce, hemlock and cedar. Located 22 miles east of Ketchican, it’s the largest wilderness in Alaska’s national forests and the second largest in the nation. Kayaking is a popular way to experience the mighty fjords, but by seaplane you can fully experience its charms, taking in the Tongass Narrows and volcanic Revillagigedo Island on your way.
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Not Your Usual Science Museum
By Linda Tancs
At the historical Camp Evans military base in Wall, New Jersey, you’ll find the nation’s only fallout shelter theatre at InfoAge, a museum featuring the best of wartime technology. There’s a fascinating display of intelligence systems, jamming equipment and rooms devoted to the development of radar. This vital complex is where top-secret innovation took place to protect the United States against German and Japanese forces. Not just for techies, the grounds also include a shipwreck museum, a World War II miniatures room with toy soldiers, a collection of helmets, rifles and early jeeps and an airborne motor scooter. The museum is open on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday.
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Where Nature Speaks
By Linda Tancs
The Chihuahuan Desert region covers over 220,000 square miles, the third largest desert of the Western Hemisphere. It includes parts of the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas in the United States, as well as parts of the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Durango, Zacatecas, and San Luis Potosi in Mexico. Here you’ll find more cacti than any other region in the world, including the prickly pears, hedgehogs, living rocks, nipple cacti, and cory cacti. So how do you go about exploring such a vast expanse? Why not start at the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center in Fort Davis, Texas. Beginning hikers will love the Hummingbird and Butterfly Trail, a short, easy trail with spectacular views of Mitre Peak. The more difficult Outside Loop Trail will take you up to Clayton’s Overlook, the highest point on the property. Plant and bird lovers should flock to Modesta Canyon Trail. If hiking is too strenuous, be sure to visit the botanical gardens, where they say it’s quiet enough to hear nature speak.
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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.
