With cheaper airline fares rivaling those of 2009, more people are flying this summer. It is projected that there will be over 700 million passengers departing from U.S. airports by the end of the year. (And it may seem that they are all at the terminal the same day as you!)
The meals are interchangeable between breakfast, lunch, and dinner. These are usually small places (10 to 15 chairs) specializing in one or two dishes. Often no menu is provided. Expect low tables, plastic chairs, and elbow to elbow eating. If it’s busy (a good sign), have patience, they’ll find room for you. Only the Nem Nuong restaurants tend to be larger in size.
At the bottom of a short, steep, switch-backing trail was no dry-as-dust canyon bottom, but rather a thick grove of palm trees and a quiet blue pond that looked like a tropical island that had been somehow misplaced in the surrounding desolation. With each step down, the air seemed to lose a degree or two until, when we’d finally reached the bottom, it must have been 15 degrees cooler than where we’d been just three minutes before!
The spirit of Christmas in Strasbourg begins as you leave the railway station and cross the road on the way to the city center. The smells of hot mulled wine (vin chaud) and hot chocolate drift into the air from a small number of decorated cabins selling gifts and food.
With or without the help of Hollywood, Savannah still spins the kind of ambiance you can’t buy; it has to have been earned through centuries of historic realities. Cobblestone streets and walkways lead past elegant mansions and streets cloaked in Spanish moss. The waterfront commercial district is accessed by steep concrete steps amid ancient walls that must surely have echoed the cannon fire of both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.
Alighting from the little train — originally in use when the mines were being worked — you are on the level of the middle tier. The trampoline above is accessed via a netting tunnel through which, by small footholds, rope handles, and sheer physical strength and determination, you haul yourself up to the next level. Getting down to the lower levels is far easier. You simply throw yourself into a hole and slide down a chute, the longest of which is about 60 feet.
The historic building now serves as a free museum showcasing presses, type set cases, printing equipment, and furnishings from an era dating back more than 125 years. Visitors can watch a free video on printing in the 1880s. Numerous exhibits and photographs chronicle the fascinating life of John Clum, the founder and original publisher of The Tombstone Epitaph.
Who would have thought that right behind the Smart and Final and parallel to a major city street (Ventura Boulevard) a beautiful state park would be tucked away in the midst of all the traffic and shopping? That’s exactly what you find when you discover Los Encinos State Historic Park. The park is dedicated to preserving the buildings of Rancho Los Encinos. The entrance is nestled nondescriptly on a residential street. If you are not sure what you are looking for, you can easily miss it. The park is located at 16756 Moorpark Street, Encino, California.
Hays is located in the heart of Kansas’s German farm country. It is filled with limestone buildings and historical sites, all a testimony to the amazing craftsmanship of the time. This craftsmanship comes through loud and clear where Union Station Coffee & Roasterie is concerned. The small coffee shop boasts a wide variety of coffees, as well as a scientific take on making their cold brew coffee.
The town’s heyday as a crossroad for gunfighters, gamblers, and prostitutes lasted for less than a decade. That’s it. That’s what the legends, myths, and movies have been all about.
