Roadside America

When I was a kid I was lucky enough that my parents took my siblings and I on many family vacations. I learned history on many of these trips. We visited family in Toronto, Canada, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We also went to Niagara Falls, the Ontario Science Center, and Disneyworld. We were really lucky. A few of the other places we traveled to on our East Coast adventures were what you might call kitschy or roadside attractions. We never saw a great ball of twine or see Area 51 or even the Corn Palace, but we went to Amish Country, the Fountain of Youth, South of the Border and Zinn’s Diner (now closed). I remember the last two vividly. South of the Border was like entering into a fantasyland filled with neon lights and fireworks stands. The giant man in the sombrero was even more gigantic to small children, aged 4-8.

Photo Credit: Leonard J. DeFrancisci, July 2008

Photo Credit: Matthew Logan

Zinn's Diner Postcard

Public Domain

The Disney/Pixar movie Cars reminded us of those things found on the road trip of following Route 66, seeing things that couldn’t be seen anywhere else, and I thought about my childhood of road trips both north and south. Everyone should see at least one ridiculous roadside attraction in their lives, and if they’re lucky, they should see many more.

Here are a few suggestions and resources:

Budget Travel’s 25 Wackiest Roadside Attractions (Slideshow)

Budget Travel’s Ultimate Road Trip App

Things You Will See on a Road Trip Across America

South of the Border

Amos the Amish Man Giant Statue

Amos’ Current Location

Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park

Corn Palace

Great Ball of Twine

Route 66

Niagara Falls – not so much roadside attraction, but a can’t be missed world wonder

Visit Area 51

Area 51 Sightseeing

Don’t Panic: Visiting Area 51

America’s Car Museum

Saratoga Automobile Museum

Tech for Travel

From Left to Right: Flashlight, Car Adaptor, Wall Adaptor, USB charger cord, earbuds, flash drive, and MP3 player

It used to be that my list of travel tech was one line long – cell phone. Then it became two lines – cell phone and GPS. Now it’s a bit more. We usually travel to my mother-in-law’s, and her house is less than tech savvy. Not to mention that my husband always asks for the car charger or the house charger because he forgot his.

Tech needs vary individually. This is my indispensable list plus a few odds and ends that come in handy by one or more members of my family.

Mini Surge Protector – this has three outlets and two USB ports

Mini Surge Protector by Belkin

USB Car Charger Adaptor

USB extra long charger cord for reading in bed

Cell phone and charger. (Check your data plan before you travel. My mother-in-law doesn’t have wifi, and her brick house just eats our data like crazy.)

Kindle Fire and charger. (If you ‘re in a place without wifi, turn it off. If it’s on, it will continue to search for a wifi signal, and drain your battery.)

Kindle Keyboard and charger (the chargers are interchangeable so I may or may not bring all of them – two is the minimum in case my husband or kids need them)

Camera and charger

MP3 Player and charger

Earbuds or Headphones

Headphone splitter (this allows two headsets to be plugged into one device)

Flashlight (in my case it’s a Sonic Screwdriver flashlight)

Portable DVD player, electric cord, a variety of DVDs (our family rule of thumb is two per person)

Flash drive

Two Prong/Three Prong Adaptor

Plug Adaptor

In the comments, add your own must-haves for tech to travel with.

Food for Travel

Our family travels by car 99% of the time. With three kids, they either want to stop to eat or stop to use the bathroom. Anyone who has ever stopped on a highway area rest area will know that their prices are at least one third higher than the nearest exit. Unfortunately, the nearest exit is usually about five miles from the place with the food and/or the bathroom. When our kids were very young, we brought everything with us. It was certainly cheaper to bring a full box of Cheerios and a box of Pop-Tarts, buying a gallon of milk and a pound of cheese from the local supermarket. I also packed goodies for Mommy & Daddy like a 12 pack of soda so we don’t have to spend our money in the overpriced hotel vending machines.
In a hotel, we always ask for a room with a refrigerator. Many come with microwaves. Almost all have coffee makers, which is also perfect for boiling water for tea.

Most of our choices worked for both a weekend or week long vacation out of town as well as a visit out of town to Grandma’s.

Some of our favorites:
Non-Perishable:

Cheerios
Raisins/Dried Cranberries
Granola
Granola bars
Pretzels
Water
Juice boxes

Perishable items to Buy Locally:

Milk
Cheese
Cottage Cheese
Yogurt

Other Items to Think About:

Tea bags (the only place I didn’t bring my own tea was my trip to the UK)
Single serve instant Coffee

I try to avoid chocolate unless you’re going to eat it within the first couple of hours. No matter the season, the car gets very hot, and chocolate will melt, ruining whatever you’ve put it into.

Ziploc or other zipper plastic bags – they have dozens of uses.
Despite all of these snack choices, remember to have some money for a midnight snack and to avoid extra ATM fees.

Add you own must have snacks and/or travel food in the comments.

Tomorrow: Travel Tech

Saints of Travel

Even to those who are not religious it is common to pray for safe travel. Whether praying to a deity or the one true G-d or goddesses or anything in between, we all wish and hope for safe travels. We ask for good weather and no mechanical mishaps and no crying children or snoring neighbors leaning in our shoulders in each of our own ways. We beg the Almighty for an empty middle seat and no turbulence.

Here are a few of the Catholic patrons of traveling or travelers including my own patron, St. Elen.

I’ve read that St. Christopher is no longer a patron of travel. I know many thousands of people who would disagree so I’ve included him in this list.

St. Anthony of Padua
St. Christopher
St. Elen
St. Joseph, Husband of Mary
St. Nicholas

Please add your own travel companions in the comments.

Vintage Supernatural

One week ago, Supernatural (Episode 11.5) took the brothers to the site of the grisly 19th century murders of Andrew and Abby Borden, father and step-mother of Lizzie Borden. There is much controversy as to who murdered them in their home, the popular nursery rhyme sing-songing one theory:

Lizzie Borden took an axe
and gave her mother forty whacks,
when the job was finally done
gave her father forty one

Amazing what lurks in the childhood memories and recesses of our minds. It comes unbeckoned as if I were still jumping rope in the grassy courtyard where I grew up far, far away from the murder of her parents. Lizzie was put on trial and acquitted. She died of pneumonia in 1927. Her sister died nine days later. Despite having not seen each other in many years, they are buried side by side. There is a monument that marks Lizzie’s final resting place.

In her will, Lizzie left money to pay for the perpetual care of her father’s cemetery plot.

Lizzie Borden

In viewing the previews for this episode, titled Thin Lizzie, they mention the family home in Fall River, Massachusetts, not all that far from where I live. I thought the Bed & Breakfast mentioned was a joke – was there really a place? One Google search and there it was. And before anyone asks, no, I have no desire or intention of visiting, no matter how close it is.

Borden Family Home that is now a Bed & Breakfast & Tourist Attraction

Some things should be left, and this is one of them.

On the morning after the episode aired, the Washington Post had an article, Would you buy a murder house? I personally don’t know, and I hope I don’t find out. I certainly do believe that houses can have spiritual remnants of previous owners, not to mention other places where spirits dwell. I’ve had my own encounters, the most visceral being in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, both on the battlefield and in the Jennie Wade House, one of the places that is always on my to see list. I had gone as a child, and again while on vacation with my husband, and then went again while on vacation with my three children. There is something compelling about Jennie’s house and her story that calls to me. I’ve been searching for the last week to find the photos that I’ve taken at the house, both in the 70s with my family and again in 2008, I believe with my children. I have a memory in a darkened stone masoned cellar that you had to climb down into from the outside. I’m not sure why that flashed through my head as I’m writing this.

The house where Jennie Wade was killed

The Jennie Wade House is located on a major road in Gettysburg; one that is extremely busy with traffic. It is in a tourist area, and directly across from a Rita’s Italian Ices Shop. My kids sat on the benches eating ices, and I watched the house, seemingly waiting for something to happen. Her death created the name of the landmark, although it is not actually Jennie’s house; it is her sister’s. Her sister had just had a baby, and Jennie and their mother came to help her. Jennie was baking bread, kneading the dough in the kitchen that adjoined the street. A stray bullet came through the front door, lodging in Jennie’s back, severing her spine and killing her.

She is the only civilian casualty in the city during the Battle of Gettysburg.

Jennie Wade

Ever since I was a little girl, I have always felt a presence in this house. Despite the obvious, poor special effects in the kitchen that give the soldier mannequin his face as he narrates the story of that fateful day, there is still something powerful in the “talking walls”. His projected face scared me beyond belief as an adolescent, and I still had that creepy vibe when I went there as an adult. I know much of the sounds and creaks were theatrics, but you couldn’t help but feel something in this house and that some of those “theatrics” weren’t all faked.

In the preview and then last week’s episode, Supernatural showed some artifacts from the house. I don’t know if they were really artifacts of the Borden murders or props made to look like the actual items, but the photo of Lizzie reminded me both of Jennie Wade and Laura Ingalls; possibly because of the camera techniques of the 19th century, the black and white, head and shoulders, the pose, the lace collars and pinned hair. It led me down a rabbit hole of googling and reading various accounts from both times of both of their lives, Lizzie and Jennie. They couldn’t have been more different, and I wondered at what point childhood me decided to devote so much of my time to Jennie rather than the nursery rhyme. Maybe I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of killing my parents. For a variety of reasons, I would never, but still why was I compelled to ignore her? I almost skipped the episode because the subject matter bothered me. I still wonder why I was never interested in Lizzie’s story – did I think she was guilty? I don’t know. I was much more compelled to the story of poor Jennie, baking bread for the soldiers. Her fiance was killed hours before she was. Neither of them knew the fate of the other.

I do love a good mystery, but I think I might need to not only have compelling characters, but also ones that are easier to feel compassion for, to put myself in their shoes, and I suppose, no, as I’ve said, I know that I could much more easily do that with Jennie Wade.

Masada

Photo credit: Andrew Shiva

When I was a young person, I was lucky enough to go to a religious school that focused on the wonderful, rich Bible stories and Jewish history from the beginning of time. It was a special time, and it was more sacred for me than attending Saturday services. We learned the songs and the traditions of of all of our holidays, some better well known than others. Between that school and my parents, I learned everything I would teach my own children: how to light a menorah, how to stop and relish in the quiet of Yom KIppur, what counted as bread in this American Jewish family. I adored my teacher, and looked forward to my after-school and weekend classes with joy. I can still picture the classroom where we learned Hebrew in my final year, and the basement rec room where we had our celebrations with songs and food. Prior to that year of Hebrew, we learned Yiddish. I still have the first book that we all had memorized. It was the Jewish version of See Spot Run:

Der kinder.
Der kinder geyn.
Der kinder geyn in shul.

The children.
The children learn.
The children learn in school.

In 1981 there was a miniseries called Masada about the mountain siege of the Israeli Zealots by the Romans. They were led by Eleazar Ben Yair, and there was no surrender. When the Romans were finally able to enter the fortress, they found what was left of their provisions, their mass suicide the statement that they would not return to slavery. There were survivors; two women and five children left to tell the story. I collected newspaper articles and previews of the 1981 series; in fact, I probably still have those clippings in my basement somewhere. Of course, there were some changes for dramatic effect, but it was our story on primetime television.

On my recent visit to my Florida family, my cousin’s son was looking at my aunt’s pictures from their visit to Masada. He recalled his own visit. In our talking, I was reminded of the Peter Strauss miniseries, and he recommended a book that he thought I would like that was about the Israeli fortress.

The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman.

I filed it away in the back of my brain, and came home, forgetting once again about something that had commanded my young life for what seemed like a very long time. Fast forward to one of my library visits. I sat and wrote for about an hour and a half, not including being bothered, and in turn, bothering a random ladybug, and before I knew it, it was time to go.

They’ve been redoing the layout of the library and in order to continue their renovations, they’ve moved shelves and spinny racks. I had to dodge a table, a spinny rack, and found myself in front of a rack of recommended reading. Exactly at eye level was the book my cousin, something removed, recommended. The Dovekeepers. I picked it up, turned it over, and read the synopsis. I didn’t have my library card, so I thought that I would wait and get it next time. As I went to return it to its shelf, there, staring me in the face, directly behind the book in my hand, was the same copy of The Dovekeepers.

I guess I was supposed to take this book home that day!

It was a wonderful journey through the lives of four women, how they each arrived at Masada, and how they found each other, their lives crisscrossing and mirroring the others. There is tradition and magic, and family and love and forgiveness. Knowing the outcome made their stories more poignant. These were strong, powerful women that spoke to me and would speak to anyone interested in history, women and life.

It reminded me of life growing up, the simplicity that we remember wrapped in the real life that was. It’s good to remember the past, and put it into perspective. Now, I have a longer list, but in those moments of high school, Masada was the one place I wanted to see; to stand where choices were made and where so much mattered.

AMC Orders Norman Reedus Biker Reality Series | Deadline

Ride with Norman Reedus

Really excited for this for a lot of reasons, two being my vicarious love of motorcycles; they’re one of the things I would love to do if I weren’t me! Second reason is my huge respect for Norman and his eye for art. I went out yesterday taking photographs and I unintentionally had him in my mind as inspiration.

After seeing his interview about his book, I really have a new eye on some of my scene setting – that’s not the right phrase but I can’t think of the word; I just know the feeling came from his interview on Capture alongside Al Wertheimer.

I took two yesterday in particular that I’m really proud of, just trying to figure out how to post them here.