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
Congregating in Salem
By Linda Tancs
The Town of Salem in North Carolina was founded in 1766 by the Moravians, a Protestant religious group that first organized in the 15th century in what is now known as the Czech Republic. It served as an administrative center for the Moravian missionaries who settled in the area, surrounded by five outlying congregations. Throughout the year, the old town offers a variety of historic workshops highlighting skills from hearthside cooking to pottery. Ongoing research continues to unearth the practices of the area’s earliest settlers. In particular, Old Salem Museums & Gardens is dedicated to continual learning and ongoing research in the areas of decorative arts, material culture, Moravian and Southern history, archaeology and architecture.
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America’s Oldest Restaurant
By Linda Tancs
Along Boston’s Freedom Trail you’ll find America’s oldest restaurant, Union Oyster House. Housed in a building dating back to pre-Revolutionary days (1716), its stalls and oyster bars remain in their original positions since the opening in 1826. The brick structure was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2003 and is a rare surviving example of the city’s Georgian architecture. A favorite of statesmen, artists, travelers, inventors, athletes and theatre figures, it’s notable as the home of Isaiah Thomas (publisher of The Massachusetts Spy from 1771 to 1775) and the place where Louis Philippe, later King of France, taught French to prominent Bostonians. The toothpick (invented by a Maine family in the timber industry) also made its debut there. Not only is the Massachusetts eatery America’s oldest restaurant, but it’s also one of the world’s oldest establishments (the oldest being Botín in Madrid, founded in 1725).
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A Treasure Chest of Science
By Linda Tancs
Located 1,000 miles south of Hawai’i, Palmyra Atoll is one of the most spectacular marine wilderness areas on Earth. Declared a national marine monument, its pristine and unoccupied environs are jointly managed by The Nature Conservancy and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. As a center for scientific study, research there helps inform island conservation efforts around the world. Imagine a place where sharks still dominate the reef ecosystem, a place where over a million nesting seabirds and the rare coconut crab find refuge. Although it has never been settled, its history is nonetheless interesting. Named after an American shipwreck, it was claimed by the sovereign Kingdom of Hawai’i in 1862 and came under United States jurisdiction following the annexation of Hawai’i in 1898 (Hawai’i later entered statehood in 1959). Nonetheless, it was privately owned and even used by the U.S. Navy as an air refueling station during World War II. The Nature Conservancy acquired Palmyra from the Fullard-Leo family for $30 million in 2000. Because the atoll is specifically excluded from the State of Hawai’i, it was the only privately owned territory in the United States. These days its inclusion as part of a new national Pacific marine monument increases the amount of protected ocean wilderness surrounding Palmyra from half a million acres to 13 million acres, including nearby Kingman Reef.
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A Nut in New Mexico
By Linda Tancs
Travelers along U.S. 54 between Alamogordo and Tularosa in New Mexico have an oddity to tickle their fancy. That’s where you’ll find the world’s largest pistachio. Appropriately enough, the giant-sized attraction is located at PistachioLand, a family farm featuring every take on the nut imaginable, like habanero lemon, BBQ, bacon ranch and garlic. The motorized tour of their orchards will show you how pistachios (and grapes in the vineyard) grow in their desert climate. The pistachio is one of the oldest edible nuts on the planet and is very nutritious. They’ll have some grafts for sale at the farm next February.
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Art, History and Anthropology
By Linda Tancs
The Grace Hudson Museum and Sun House in Ukiah, California, is an art, history and anthropology museum focusing on the life and works of artist Grace Carpenter Hudson and her ethnologist husband, Dr. John W. Hudson. The result is a treasure trove of cultural and educational resources on Western American art, California Indian cultures and the history of California’s North Coast region. Their legacy is further highlighted by their Craftsman-style home, the Sun House. In addition to their personal touches, the home sports such classic Craftsman elements as a sloping gabled roof with overhang, the sleeping porch, the use of natural redwood and stone, board-and-batten walls, burlap and monks cloth wall coverings and exposed timbers.
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Art Under Glass
By Linda Tancs
Chihuly Garden and Glass is a sculptural oasis in Seattle, Washington. Its centerpiece is the Glasshouse, a 40-foot-tall, glass and steel conservatory hosting a 100-foot-long suspended floral sculpture in eye-popping hues of red, orange, yellow and amber. You can learn more about the artist, Dale Chihuly, at the eight galleries and three drawing walls that offer a comprehensive collection of his work. Outdoors, the lush landscape is equally matched by floral installations. The facility is located next to the Space Needle (spectacularly visible inside the Glasshouse) at Seattle Center.
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A Step Into the Past in Texas
By Linda Tancs
Padre Island National Seashore in Texas is the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world, a time capsule of sorts with dunes and other natural formations that look the same today as they would have to the Native Americans and European settlers who inhabited the area hundreds of years ago. Owned at different times by Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas and later the United States, it comprises mostly prairie/grasslands with ephemeral marshes and ponds bordered on the east by the Gulf of Mexico and on the west by the Laguna Madre, one of only six lagoons in the world that is hypersaline (saltier than the ocean). The park protects 70 miles of coastline, dunes, prairies and wind tidal flats teeming with life, including the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle and 380 bird species.
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A Hotbed for Machine and Mammal
By Linda Tancs
In the 1800s, Florida’s Blue Spring Landing was a hotbed of activity for steamboat owners. It was owned by gold prospector-turned-orange grower Louis Thursby, who purchased Blue Spring (a first magnitude spring on the St. John’s River) in 1856. In the 20th century, the site even hosted an episode of the Underwater World of Jacques Cousteau. The documentary highlighted Blue Spring as a winter refuge for the manatee, Florida’s state marine mammal. As a result, the state ultimately purchased the land, creating Blue Spring State Park in Orange City. Manatee season runs from mid-November throughout March, and the park fills to capacity quickly. A self-guided tour of the Thursby house is also available.
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New Jersey’s Industrial Age
By Linda Tancs
Just over one square mile in the heart of Florence Township, New Jersey, historic Roebling is a symbol of the state’s industrial coming of age. Unchanged for more than 100 years, the locale was built in the early 1900s as a planned community for hundreds of workers at the John A. Roebling’s Sons Co. steel plant. Once the plant closed for good in 1982 and the site was remediated, the main gatehouse to the plant was rehabilitated and now houses a museum about the community. Scheduled trolley tours of the steel town itself, which has evolved into an international tourist attraction, take visitors beyond the gates of the museum. Roebling is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
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The History of Coffee
By Linda Tancs
Hawaii’s Kona Coffee Living History Farm tells the story of Kona’s coffee pioneers during the years 1926–1945. America’s only living history coffee farm, it tells the story behind Kona’s gourmet crop. A self-guided experience, take a walk among the coffee trees or learn how farmers milled and dried their world-famous coffee. At the end of your visit, be sure to sample the farm’s 100% Kona coffee. No doubt you’ll pack a little extra for the trip home.
