You can almost spend a day at Luray Caverns — it’s not the tourist attraction of my childhood, that’s for sure! It’s better!
museums
Discovering the Adam Stephen House and an Almost Forgotten Piece of American History
Learn about a little-known Revolutionary War General through a visit to his former home in Martinsburg, WV.
The Belle Boyd House and Historical Society Museum
Belle Boyd was born in West Virginia in May 1844. Boyd became a Confederate spy before her 18th birthday and conveyed information and supplies to Southern military leaders. The 10-year-old Marie Isabelle Boyd moved into the Greek Revival-style house with her family that her father, Benjamin Reed Boyd built in 1853; two years later Boyd […]
Exploring the Art, History and Science of Glass at the Corning Museum of Glass
Still Life with Two Plums, 2000, Flora Mace and Joey Kirkpatrick The Corning Museum of Glass should be on your bucket list, if it’s not already. Carrona (Carrion), 2011, Javier Perez, blown glass chandelier, assembled, broken; taxidermied crows, wire, monofilament; this provocative sculpture evokes opportunistic birds eating carrion in a pool of blood by the side […]
Exploring Pennsylvania’s Main Street Across America and Lincoln Highway Experience
The Lincoln Highway is one of the earliest transcontinental highway routes for automobiles across the United States of America. Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, and formally dedicated October 31, 1913, the Lincoln Highway runs coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City west to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. The Lincoln […]
Doing Time at the Old Fauquier Jail
Over two centuries ago, a four-cell brick jail was constructed in Warrenton VA, in 1808 to house the county’s indigent and criminal residents. The four cells were multi-person cells, not an uncommon for that time. Also not uncommon, children often accompanied their mothers into the jail. The stairs in the kitchen up to the jailer’s […]
Art Omi — Fields Sculpture Park
Bernar Venet, “Arcs in Disorder: 4 Arcs x 5, and 83.5 Degree Diagonal Line” An art museum and hiking? Great idea! You can enjoy both at Art Omi, an 120-acre sculpture and arts park in upstate New York. Dan Colen, “Yellow M&M, Brown M&M, Red M&M, Orange M&M“ The scuptures frequently change, so what I enjoyed […]
Point of Honor Mansion
A lovely old house — mansion, really — sits overlooking Winchester on one of its seven hills. Dating back to 1806, Point of Honor was built by Dr. George Cabell and he and his family lived there until 1826. Now a house museum, the house depicts the lifestyle enjoyed by Cabell and his contemporaries in […]
Patriotic Daytrip at the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House
In 1813, the United States was at war with Great Britain. The British Royal Navy, by then, completely controlled the Chesapeake Bay, and Baltimore was preparing for an attack. Major George Armistead, commander of Fort McHenry, wanted a flag so large that the British would have no difficulty seeing it from a great distance, so […]
Johnstown Flood — A Disaster Still Relevant Today
The Johnstown Flood Museum Johnstown PA was a bustling city in the late 1800s, nestled in the Laurel Mountains, with a population higher than it enjoys today. By 1860, the Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown was the leading steel producer in the United States, outproducing steel plants in Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Through the latter half […]
Strolling Lynchburg’s Old City Cemetery
The Old City Cemetery is a historic cemetery in Lynchburg, Virginia. It is the oldest municipal cemetery still in use today in the state of Virginia, and one of the oldest such burial grounds in the United States. Between 15 and 20 thousand individuals are thought to be interred in Old City Cemetery. Unusual for […]
Gadsby’s Tavern, a Gathering Place for our Nation’s Rich and Famous
Gadsby’s Tavern was a central part of the social, economic, political and educational life of Alexandria between 1785 and the mid-1800s. Here, the likes of George Washington, the Lee family, Dolly Madison, and Thomas Jefferson conversed, dined, and danced. Founded in 1785, Gadsby’s Tavern consisted of two buildings — the older tavern building and the […]
Discovering the Beauty of Nature at the Ward Museum of Wildfowl
Red-Breasted Merganser Pair, date unknown, A. Elmer Crowell, East Harwich, MA The story of how the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art got started is really cool, actually, and started with two brothers, who began carving in their childhood in the early 1900s. Flying Canvasback Pair, 1963, Lem Ward, Crisfield, MD Lemuel T. Ward (1897–1984) and […]
Missing Soldiers Office: Clara Barton’s Mission in Washington DC
The Clara Barton Missing Soldier Office Museum all started with a ghostly tap on the shoulder in 1996. Clara Barton was an amazing woman, and the more I learn about her, the more impressed I am. She is most well known for founding the America Red Cross, but she devoted most of her adult life […]
Lynchburg’s Link to the Harlem Renaissance: The Anne Spencer House
There is a house on Pierce Street in Lynchburg. A two-story modified Queen Anne style shingle residence, it’s cute, but like most middle-class homes, not a home you’d look at more than once, if passing along the street. What makes this house so cool, and worth your second and third glance, is that Anne Bethel […]