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
Ranch of the Little Cottonwoods
By Linda Tancs
Rancho Los Alamitos (Ranch of the Little Cottonwoods) in Long Beach, California, traces its history from the time of ancestral Povuu’ngna (the sacred birthplace of the native Tongva people of the Los Angeles Basin) through the Spanish-Mexican era of land concessions and grants to generations of the Bixby family, the ranch’s last private owners. Along with the ranch, the still sacred and historic land includes stunning gardens created by Florence Bixby between 1920 and 1936 with the assistance of such notable designers as the Olmsted brothers, Florence Yoch and Paul Howard. Admission is free, and educational programs and events for all ages throughout the year feature topics as diverse as agricultural and domestic skills, Native American, Japanese and Hispanic culture, the history of landscape design and an annual ranch-style Christmas program.
Share this:
The Ancient Heart of Phoenix
By Linda Tancs
Just minutes from downtown Phoenix, Arizona, is a 1,500-year-old archaeological site left by the Hohokam, a prehistoric Indian culture. Today it’s the location of Pueblo Grande Museum. A National Historic Landmark, it’s the largest preserved archaeological site within Phoenix. The museum displays Hohokam artifacts and showcases topics from archaeology, southwest cultures and Arizona history. A fully accessible trail brings history alive through a prehistoric Hohokam archaeological village site with a partially excavated platform mound, ballcourt and replicated prehistoric houses.
Share this:
The Space Walk of Fame
By Linda Tancs
The Space Walk of Fame Museum in Titusville, Florida, pays tribute to the U.S. space program, honoring the men and women who made the space program possible and the astronauts who flew the missions. The Space View Walk monument area features actual hand prints of the Mercury astronauts as well as edifices dedicated to Apollo, Gemini and shuttle missions and to those who died in the line of duty serving the space program. Inside the museum you’ll find exhibits such as photos, old launch consoles and even Soviet cosmonaut mementos.
Share this:
Hooray for Hollywood
By Linda Tancs
At the Hollywood Museum, you’ll find 100 years of entertainment history under one roof. Boasting the largest collection of Hollywood memorabilia in the world, its sprawling four floors are a treasure trove of one-of-a-kind costumes, props, photographs, scripts, stars’ car collections and personal artifacts, posters and vintage memorabilia from favorite films and TV shows. The museum is housed in the historic Max Factor Building, named for makeup king Max Factor. You won’t want to miss his world famous makeup rooms where Hollywood’s biggest stars got ready for their close-ups.
Share this:
Unfinished Business in Natchez
By Linda Tancs
Located in Natchez, Mississippi, Longwood is an antebellum mansion built for wealthy planter Haller Nutt for himself, his wife and their eight children. As it was nearing completion, the Civil War began and the unfinished home was abandoned by its workmen, leaving the family to reside among the completed rooms in the basement. Now a popular tourist attraction, it is America’s largest octagonal house (at 30,000 square feet) and boasts a distinctive Byzantine onion-shaped dome. This listed home and national landmark is sometimes referred to as Nutt’s Folly, a reference to the mansion’s unfinished state because the fields and land owned by Nutt had been burned by Union soldiers during the Civil War.
Share this:
A Fisherman’s Paradise
By Linda Tancs
With 34 lakes and reservoirs and more than 680 miles of rivers and streams, the administratively combined Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests are a veritable paradise for fishermen. Encompassing two million acres of mountain country, it’s particularly prized for the vistas afforded by the Mogollon Rim extending two hundred miles from Flagstaff into western New Mexico. The Sitgreaves is named for Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves, a government topographical engineer who conducted the first scientific expedition across Arizona in the early 1850s. The Apache National Forest is named for the tribes that settled in the area and boasts the White Mountains, where skiing, tubing and sledding reign this time of year.
Share this:
A Pan-Pacific Centennial
By Linda Tancs
There’s a celebration afoot as San Francisco’s Conservatory of Flowers remembers the centennial of the city’s 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition. The exhibition depicts the old fairgrounds, graced with model trains wending their way through graceful garden landscapes dotted with the fair’s most prized monuments such as the Tower of Jewels and Palace of Fine Arts. The historic world’s fair signaled the triumphant recovery of the city from the devastating 1906 earthquake. The special exhibit runs through April 10.
Share this:
North Carolina’s First Capitol
By Linda Tancs
North Carolina’s first permanent state capitol, Tryon Palace in New Bern is a complex of seven major buildings, three galleries and 14 acres of gardens. Home to Royal Governor William Tryon and his family, the Governor’s Palace was a Georgian-style structure completed in 1770. It was the site of the first sessions of the general assembly for the State of North Carolina following the revolution and housed the state governors until 1794. Destroyed by fire in 1798, today’s reproduction opened in 1959. Tours in the Governor’s Palace and historic houses are guided. Catch a free tour this Saturday, which is Free Day.
Share this:
Old Florida
By Linda Tancs
The winter estates of inventor Thomas Edison and auto magnate Henry Ford are representative of a bygone era, tropical “old Florida.” Their historic homes are located in Fort Myers at Edison & Ford Winter Estates. Henry Ford purchased his home, The Mangoes, in 1916, providing him the opportunity to vacation with his good friend Thomas Edison. The porch, adjacent to the vintage garage, offers a spectacular riverfront view of the Caloosahatchee River. Edison’s Seminole Lodge contains the oldest structure at the Edison Ford complex, the caretaker’s cottage. Over the years Edison renovated and expanded his getaway to include more family bedroom suites in the main house, a guest house and pool complex. Besides their beautiful homes, the estate features over 20 acres of botanical gardens, nine historic buildings (including Edison’s botanic research laboratory) and the Edison Ford Museum, which contains an impressive collection of inventions, artifacts and special exhibit galleries sure to stir innovation and creativity among its visitors.
Share this:
Spoonbridge and Cherry
By Linda Tancs
A beloved icon of Minneapolis-St.Paul, Minnesota, the Spoonbridge and Cherry is a giant sculpture of a spoon topped off with a cherry. It’s located in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, one of the nation’s largest urban sculpture parks. Designed by husband and wife Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, the giant 5,800 pound spoon stretches 52 feet across a small pond shaped like a linden tree seed. A fine stream of water, just enough to make the aluminum 1,200 pound cherry gleam, flows over the cherry from the base of the stem. A second stream of water sprays from the top of the stem over the cherry, down into the spoon and the pool below. See it now; a major renovation of the park is scheduled for the spring, and its garden artworks will be placed in storage during construction.
Travelrific® Travel Journal 