Articles
I'll always have a soft spot for slightly tacky Lake George Village because my dad took the family there every July 4th for fireworks. He'd yell, over and over, "Thank you, Thomas Jefferson! Thank you, Benjamin Franklin!" However, far greener and atmospheric, Lake Placid feels genuine and provides a real sense of community.
The 1970s television series The Waltons bridged generations in my family. The story was set in my grandparents’ youth, and my parents were teenagers when it premiered. Reruns were the reason I decided at an early age to become a writer, like the character John Boy. The summer I turned sixteen, Dad and I watched The Waltons on TV Land together every morning. One day, as John Boy took his Model AA Ford pickup to Richmond and Charlottesville, Virginia, Dad asked, “I wonder if any of those places still exist?” After all, the fictional stories were based on real events in author Earl Hammner’s life.
Saying the mainsail on the 100-year-old schooner Zodiac is big is like saying Babe Ruth knew how to play ball. A massive understatement, at 4,000 square feet, the Zodiac's mainsail is not just the largest working sail on the West Coast — it's larger than the average American house.
“There is never a traditional way of foraging. You develop your own approach over time.” Jyrki Tsutsunen explained when asked about Finnish foraging traditions. His approach combines careful identification with creative experimentation, without ever compromising the balance of nature.
Bourbon and Baptist rarely mix. However, in Georgetown and neighboring Shelbyville, Kentucky, they blended and created a distinct bourbon culture. Elijah Craig, a Baptist minister, began distilling bourbon in Georgetown and is often credited as the father of bourbon.
A vast trail system, for hiking or biking, is not the first thing that comes to a person’s mind when the topic of discussion is the state of Alabama. The “Heart of Dixie” is more likely to evoke thoughts of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II, or the University of Alabama's Crimson Tide football team.
The muddy waters of the Li River churn in the erratic wind that blows in. The weather is unusually inclement for a summer evening. Dark clouds hover above the pointed ridges of the Karst mountains to our north. Hwang stops rowing and points downstream towards a bend of the river. A couple of bamboo rafts have suddenly popped into view, bobbing in the water, slowly moving towards us.
The small Thiokol Memorial Museum in Kingsland, Georgia, tells a big story about one of the worst industrial tragedies in US history. The tragedy struck Camden County on February 3, 1971, when a plant explosion killed 29 and injured another 50 people. Thiokol Chemical was a complex of 36 buildings between Kingsland and Woodbine, another small town about 12 miles to the north, which manufactured trip flares for the Vietnam War. The victims were primarily women of color who did not know the dangerous nature of the material they were using.
Unlike in most parts of Europe, the alpine frontier in Bhutan begins at around 4,000 meters above sea level. These windswept plateaus, made up of vast rugged terrain, are not only home to the highlanders but also a treasure trove of biodiversity — stunted firs and dwarf rhododendrons, blue sheep, marmots, takins, snow leopards, and, most notably, yaks and the highly sought-after golden fungus (Cordyceps sinensis), which are the pulse and lifeblood of the highland economy.
Like all fretwork by Frank Lloyd Wright, the stylized cedar cutouts over the upper windows of the Gordon House are unique. Some people think the pattern looks like upside-down saw blades in a nod to Oregon's lumber industry. Others believe it resembles fallen trees or branches, tour guide and assistant manager Mairee MacInnes remarked.
