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
The Sunsphere
By Linda Tancs
Held in Knoxville, Tennessee, the 1982 World’s Fair was the first one in the South. Hosting 22 nations, it was located in an abandoned railroad yard next to downtown Knoxville. Its symbol was the Sunsphere, which featured a restaurant and an observation deck. Largely vacant and underutilized for most of its post-fair life, the Sunsphere is enjoying a resurgence with the reopening of the fourth level observation deck. It offers a 360-degree view of the original 1982 World’s Fair site (now World’s Fair Park), downtown Knoxville, the Tennessee River, the University of Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains.
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America’s First National Lakeshore
By Linda Tancs
America’s first National Lakeshore, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore hugs the south shore of Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Its name hails from the sandstone cliffs painted in shades of red, pink, black, green and other colors due to minerals leaching out of the rocks from groundwater. Water seeping out of the porous sandstone cliffs in winter freezes into curtains and columns of blue, white or yellow ice. Viewing the various ice formations has become a popular winter activity that can be enjoyed from mid-December until early April.
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The History of Computers
By Linda Tancs
As its name implies, the Computer History Museum recounts the history of computers. Located in Mountain View, California, the facility presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age. In addition to oral histories provided by computer pioneers, the museum’s vast collection, from calculators to the internet, explores artifacts like analog computers, mainframes, supercomputers and robotics.
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Folk Art in Los Angeles
By Linda Tancs
Around 1894 Italian immigrant Sabato Rodia arrived in the community of Watts in South Central Los Angeles, California. He distinguished himself there by building a series of 17 major sculptures out of steel covered with mortar and embellished with mosaic tiles, glass, clay, shells and rock. Completed in 1954, the so-called Watts Towers are an icon of the community, the world’s largest single construction created by one individual and a paramount work of folk art. Designated a Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Monument, the works are also listed on the National Register of Historic Places, are a National Historic Landmark, a State of California Historic Monument and a State of California Historic Park. Public guided tours are available on weekends.
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An Iron Will in Connecticut
By Linda Tancs
The Berlin Iron Bridge Company was a Connecticut company that built iron bridges and buildings, many of which are now listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. One of the last bridges built by the company was the 1895 wrought-iron lenticular truss bridge over the Housatonic River located in Lovers Leap State Park in New Milford, Connecticut. It’s one of five remaining iron bridges in the state. Cross the bridge to Lovers Leap Trail, where a rock formation gives the park its name. According to tradition, it was there that the daughter of a Native American chief and her lover plunged to their deaths.
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The History of Rutherfurd Hall
By Linda Tancs
The design and occupancy of New Jersey’s Rutherfurd Hall is quite the pedigreed affair. One of the last extant country estates in the state, it was designed between 1903 and 1905 by famed New York architect Whitney Warren, whose firm won the contract to design New York City’s Grand Central Station. The original landscape design was created by the Olmsted brothers, sons of Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of New York City’s Central Park. The property takes its name from the Rutherfurd family, who owned large tracts of land in New York and New Jersey, beginning with Walter Rutherfurd in the 18th century. He married the wealthy sister of Lord Stirling, a Scottish-American major general during the American Revolutionary War. The New Jersey property was ultimately built for descendant Winthrop Rutherfurd. Registered on both the national and state registers of historic places, the Tudor-style mansion in Allamuchy is open to tours by appointment only.
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Florida Art
By Linda Tancs
The Museum of Arts & Sciences in Daytona Beach, Florida, includes the standalone Cici and Hyatt Brown Museum of Art, a distinctive venue showcasing only Florida art. In fact, it’s home to the largest collection of Florida art in the world and features a rotating collection of 2,600 state-themed oil and watercolor paintings. The facility is named for billionaire Hyatt Brown and his wife Cici, two of Florida’s most generous philanthropists. The museum’s grand central gallery features its signature pieces, comprising the most significant paintings from the Brown’s own collection. Throughout the year the smaller galleries showcase rotating collections with Florida themes.
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Memorial to a Freedom Fighter
By Linda Tancs
Within walking distance of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell Center is Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial. Located on Pine Street, the national monument is the house where Kosciuszko, a Polish freedom fighter, lived. A military engineer, he fought in the Revolutionary War and designed fortifications that earned him the rank of colonel. Among his successes, his structures and use of topography are credited as contributions to the American victory at Saratoga. In addition to exhibits highlighting his military career in Poland and America you’ll see the room where he received notable visitors such as Chief Little Turtle and Thomas Jefferson.
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Arkansas’s First State Park
By Linda Tancs
Rising 1,120 feet above the Arkansas River Valley, it’s easy to understand why Petit Jean Mountain would provide the inspiration for creation of Arkansas’s first state park, Petit Jean. It hosts one of the largest bluff shelters in the state, a place that Native Americans called home over 1,000 years ago. The park is also a certified Trail of Tears National Historic Trail Site because tribes passed by Petit Jean Mountain in the 1800s during their forced migration to present-day Oklahoma. Don’t miss the park’s centerpiece, Mather Lodge, providing lodging, a meeting and function space and a restaurant for park visitors.
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The Rain Shadow
By Linda Tancs
The Olympic Rain Shadow is a small region northwest of the city of Seattle, Washington, which experiences significantly dryer and brighter weather than surrounding locations. That region includes the San Juan Islands, the gateway to which is the charming town of Friday Harbor. If you’re eager to avoid winter’s chill, then you won’t be disappointed in the off-season, especially at Christmastime. The shops and galleries are open late for holiday shopping. Other festive activities are Santa’s boat parade, the festival of lights and an old-fashioned Christmas celebration at the San Juan Historical Museum. Best of all, everything is within walking distance from the ferry landing, so you won’t need a car. The direct ferry ride from Anacortes to Friday Harbor is just over an hour long.
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