Category: Event
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Great American Beer Festival (and More)
I hinted at ulterior motives in the last article about my long weekend in Denver. I didn’t travel all the way out there just to casually tour around. Indeed, I had a very specific purpose in mind — checking off a bucket list item in fact — attending the Great American Beer Festival. The Biggest…
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Inland Northwest, Day 1 (Staging)
Was there a name for that largely empty space beyond Washington’s Cascades Range and into the Idaho Panhandle? A little research suggested the Inland Northwest, or perhaps a now lesser-used designation, the Inland Empire (not to be confused with a similarly named area of California). Anyway, that’s where I traveled for a few days on…
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England, Day 7 (Tankfest)
Finally the single event that justified our entire trip to England arrived, the renowned Tankfest. It’s everything the name implies, a festival of military tanks, and it happens only once a year on the grounds of the Tank Museum in Bovington (map). This is what the younger kid wanted as a high school graduation present…
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Cicada Chase, Day 2
The first day of cicada chasing exceeded expectations and we hoped for similar results on the second. However the weather began to change overnight with downpours possible during daylight hours. Local meteorologists predicted a line of thunderstorms rolling through the Midwest, approaching from the west. It would hit Peoria, Illinois mid-morning and St. Louis, Missouri…
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Cicada Chase, Day 1
What would be a good present for someone who just graduated from college with a degree in entomology? Well, how about a quick trip to the Midwest to hunt for bugs? May 2024 marked a special occasion that was well-reported (maybe over-reported) by the mainstream media: the emergence of two distinct periodical cicada broods at…
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Graduated
It seemed like just yesterday that Twelve Mile Circle chronicled the kid who designed an imaginary town and counted various forms of transportation. Now my elementary aged student is all grown up, a newly-minted university graduate. Those interceding years passed much more quickly than I could have possibly imagined. Michigan State University is huge (~50,000…
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Le Tour De Shore
It seemed like a good idea last January when a friend mentioned Le Tour De Shore to me. He wanted to try a long distance bicycle ride and what better place to try that a place almost completely devoid of hills? There’s almost nothing but flat out on the Delmarva Peninsula. So he convinced me…
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Southern Hills, Day 4 (Serendipity)
We were well into the journey by the time we arrived at the second race in Macon, Georgia. Afterwards we drove nearly due-north until we crossed the South Carolina border. By-and-large the route avoided Interstate Highways except for a tiny stretch of I-85 near the end. We passed through rural backcountry and small town America…
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Bogue Banks Bound, Part 4 (Conflicts)
These areas near the coast were particularly valuable during a time when limited transportation options existed. Naturally new European arrivals settled there and built their towns. Even so, times were not always wonderful. Differing outlooks led to inevitable conflicts. Just as I’d discovered during my recent trip to South Carolina, military conflicts left their marks…
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Ohio River, Part 7 (Corydon Loop)
We used Louisville, Kentucky as our home base for the week and we took several day trips into the countryside. Because the drive to Louisville took a toll on us we decided to relax early in the week. Then our first foray focused on Corydon in nearby Indiana, barely a half-hour away. Something else figured…