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
Confectionery Bliss in New York City
By Linda Tancs
Now appearing in New York City, the pop-up exhibition Candytopia is a bit of confectionery bliss in The Big Apple, featuring interactive art installations in over a dozen environments, from flying unicorn pigs to a marshmallow tsunami. Think of it as Pablo Picasso meets Willy Wonka, courtesy of Hollywood “candy queen” Jackie Sorkin and design expert Zac Hartog. Reservations are required; get your tickets before the show moves on after November 15.
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Caves and Cowboys in Missouri
By Linda Tancs
Where can you find rides and attractions, dining and shows, festivals, crafts and a show cave? That would be at Silver Dollar City, an 1880s-style theme park in Branson, Missouri, set upon the foundations of a genuine 1800s mining town. The popular Ozarks tourist attraction was built around Marvel Cave, a wet limestone cave boasting the largest entrance room in the United States. A cave tour is included with theme park admission. Today through October 27 the National Crafts & Cowboy Festival takes place, featuring visiting craftsmen and a salute to the American cowboy that includes wild mustangs, an old-fashioned barn dance, chuck wagon cooking and more. This year’s event coincides with the final run of the Wild West Show, inspired by the legendary Buffalo Bill.
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Hudson River Valley Heritage
By Linda Tancs
The Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area stretches from New York City to Albany, New York. One of the gems along that route is Wilderstein Historic Site in Rhinebeck. Sporting an exquisite Queen Anne mansion and Calvert Vaux-designed landscape, it’s widely regarded as one of the Hudson Valley’s most important examples of Victorian architecture. Home to three generations of the Suckley family, it was Thomas Suckley who named the site Wilderstein (wild man’s stone) in reference to a nearby Indian petroglyph. The regular season for guided tours of the elaborate mansion is May through October, featuring the 1888 interiors of the first floor of the mansion, the exterior architecture and the landscape. The grounds and trails, located on a wooded bluff overlooking the Hudson River, are open year round and offer spectacular views.
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Along the Atlantic Flyway
By Linda Tancs
Just outside Cambridge, Maryland, Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1933 as a waterfowl sanctuary for birds migrating along the Atlantic Flyway. And what better time to visit than this year, the Year of the Bird, which marks the centennial of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the most powerful and important bird-protection law ever passed. Every month at the refuge marks its own milestones. In September, ospreys migrate to South and Central America, and songbird migration peaks as well in late September and early October. Waterfowl numbers also gradually increase, like egrets and herons (until cold weather pushes them south). Of particular note year round are the bald eagles; Blackwater is the center of the greatest density of breeding bald eagles on the east coast north of Florida. You can take in the sights via Wildlife Drive, four land trails and three water trails.
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A Castle in the Hudson
By Linda Tancs
Pollepel Island (popularly known as Bannerman Island) is a nearly seven-acre island in the Hudson River in New York. The island’s original name derives from a romantic legend involving a girl named Polly Pell who was rescued from breaking river ice by her sweetheart and delivered to the island, where they married. The site’s contemporary name derives from one of its owners, Francis Bannerman, a Scotland-born munitions dealer who built the island’s signature castle in 1901. Tours of the island (May through October) are conducted from nearby Beacon, New York, on weekends with meetups at the dock opposite the train station.
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From Radio to Radar
By Linda Tancs
The history of electronics in the United States, from radio to radar, is on display at the National Electronics Museum in Linthicum, Maryland. Located within minutes of Baltimore’s airport and rail station, the museum offers a wide variety of both static and interactive displays as well as a research library that is open to the general public. Galleries include exhibits on early radar, Cold War radar, modern radar, communications, underwater sound transmission, countermeasures, electro-optics and space sensors. You can even operate K3NEM, the ham station at the museum, provided that you show your operator’s license and are accompanied by a member of the museum’s radio club.
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Canoeing in Indiana
By Linda Tancs
Sugar Creek is one of Indiana’s most popular canoe streams. It runs right through Turkey Run State Park, Indiana’s second state park. The first parcel of the park’s 2,382 acres was purchased during the state’s centennial in 1916 when the state park system was first established. Historic accounts suggest that large numbers of wild turkeys congregated in the canyon bottoms (runs) to avoid cold weather, lending the park its name. You’ll find some of the state’s best hiking (especially moderate to rugged) among the canyons.
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Inspiration in Saratoga Springs
By Linda Tancs
Yaddo was the country estate of financier Spencer Trask and his wife Katrina, a writer. Located in Saratoga Springs, New York, the 400-acre estate boasts tranquil rose and rock gardens and a Queen Anne Revival mansion. A haven of inspiration for artists, Yaddo offers residencies to about 200 professional artists each year in categories such as choreography, film, literature, musical composition, painting, performance art, photography, printmaking, sculpture and video. Notable visitors have included James Baldwin, Leonard Bernstein, Truman Capote, Aaron Copland, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Katherine Anne Porter, Amy Sillman, Clyfford Still and David Foster Wallace. Admission to the gardens is free year round, and guided tours are available (for a nominal fee) during the summer months. The roses are peaking again, and the rock garden remains in bloom until September.
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Rodeo Capital of the World
By Linda Tancs
Cody, Wyoming, is an archetypal Western town founded by Buffalo Bill Cody. Rodeo is a way of life, which is why it’s widely recognized as the Rodeo Capital of the World. It hosts the Cody Nite Rodeo, an amateur rodeo taking place every night from the beginning of June until the end of August, and the Buffalo Bill Cody Stampede. Beyond the ropin,’ racin,’ and bull ridin,’ the town is home to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, a complex of five museums and a research library featuring art and artifacts of the American West.
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The Spirit of Things in Pennsylvania
By Linda Tancs
Ephrata began in 1732 as a monastic settlement in Pennsylvania labeled a cloister, a retreat from worldly distractions where devoted members followed a disciplined life designed to prepare them for a heavenly existence. Their labors included farming, papermaking, carpentry, milling and textile production. The site became known for the development of the German calligraphic art of Frakturscriften (considered the first of this folk art produced in America), hundreds of compositions of a cappella music and the translation and publication of the 1,500-page Martyrs Mirror for the Mennonites, the largest book printed in colonial America. It also served as a hospital for nearly 260 American soldiers during the Revolutionary War. Administered today by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Historic Ephrata Cloister boasts historic buildings, collections and programming exhibiting the community’s spiritual, creative and intellectual accomplishments.
