I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. I’ll admit a few things here. Boise, Idaho has never been on my travel radar. I doubt I’d have been able to point to where the city was on a map of Idaho before coming. And prior to this trip to visit friends who…
If you poll Americans who don’t live there about the state of Idaho, chances are the answers will be comically simplistic. “Potatoes, right?” Some who recall their fifth grade educations could tell you that the capital was Boise. But beyond that? I’m guessing you wouldn’t get much. I pride myself in my knowledge of history,…
As the saying goes, “Before God was God and boulders were boulders, Basques were already Basques.” The Basque people, from an area along the border between France and Spain, have been around a long time, with a language that predates basically anything else in Europe. So it is a bit weird to find a large…
There are lots of ways to explore and celebrate American diversity on a visit to Washington, DC. One can dedicate a day - or several - to Americans of every background who have influenced the history of this country via the museums and monuments all over the city. You can certainly eat your way through…
The Ohio Statehouse is a beautiful building. The crown jewel of downtown Columbus - itself a reasonably pretty place, although mostly empty on the day of my visit - it gleams white behind carefully planted flowers and trees. Its rotunda, built without a full dome, is iconic atop the columned facade. Inside, the building is…
Last year, I learned and wrote about William Henry Harrison, the shortest-serving US President, from his memorial outside of Cincinnati. (Click here to read that piece.) So when planning my trip to Cleveland this year, it came as a pleasant surprise to me that America’s second shortest-serving President, James Garfield, had his memorial there, along…
Sometimes, a day just seems to work out. Here I was, armed with a Toronto VIP Pass from Destination Toronto, with a free day downtown before meeting family to attend the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. (As a total aside, the concert and venue were both wonderful.) What to do? I gazed through the list of activities…
Sometimes my only plan for a day in a cool city is a nice walk in the sun. I might have a building or two in mind that I’d like to see and to photograph, a restaurant I want to try, or something else that draws me to a particular walk in a particular area,…
At the turn of the 20th century, Toronto was booming. Mining in northern Ontario, shipping on the Great Lakes, and a huge new financial sector led to rapid growth both in the city and in the money found there. With that came a new elite class, one that could make its money locally in addition…
The smell is unmistakable, although its source is a bit confusing. I approach the entrance of the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles’ Hancock Park neighborhood, and the scent of fresh asphalt wafts through the air. It smells of construction, something that could easily be coming from behind me, where Wilshire Boulevard has been…