Visit Pittsburgh. It’s a vibrant city with fantastic views and all kinds of easily accessible ways to see them, a sports legacy to envy, and vital American history. But more importantly, it is a tribute to what city government, public and private enterprise, and concerned citizens – what we, as human beings – can accomplish. In the last 50 years or so Pittsburgh has orchestrated a miraculous environmental transformation. Ride to the top of the … [Read more...]
Pittsburgh’s Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens: The Center for Sustainable Landscapes
Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, a great steel and glass Victorian greenhouse, once part of a dirty steel mill city has now been transformed into one of the world’s most energy-efficient structures. With the greenest public gardens of the world, it has put Pittsburgh on the map serving as a model of sustainability for the next century. Located in Schenley Park, one of Pittsburgh’s largest wide green areas, the Conservatory complex is … [Read more...]
Gliding to Confidence in Hocking Hills, Ohio
One of my favorite activities is hiking, yet I’m afraid of heights. I love trying different modes of transportation in my explorations, but I’ve been seasick on whale watching trips and catamaran booze cruises. While I’m a huge fan of beautiful views, driving in elevation, particularly if the roads wind and twist, tends to make me carsick. I generally feel colder than everyone else around me. To function at an optimal level, I need to eat more, … [Read more...]
Coming Home to Hocking Hills, Ohio
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. -- T.S. Eliot The press trip to Hocking Hills, Ohio, that I was invited to sounded like just my kind of quirky fun – visits to a washboard factory and the world’s only pencil sharpener museum, candle and pottery-making classes, off-road Segway and zipline rides, and hikes - including a haunted one … [Read more...]
Outback Beyond: 6 Months in Australia
PART I: QUEENSLAND I landed with a thump on a Quantus long-haul flight, back when smoking was allowed and drinking encouraged, like a character out of a Bruce Chatwin novel. I was ineffably in error while reading my Lonely Planet guidebook on the plane--thinking that “Cairns” was pronounced with an “r” in it, when to local “Aussie” cobbers (not “Ozzies,” a common mistake both of Septic Tank Yanks [Americans] and Bloody Pomes [Britishs]), it … [Read more...]
What’s New in South Dakota: Summer 2014
Celebrate South Dakota Milestones, Exciting New Events and Attractions PIERRE, SD (July 22, 2014) - Home to iconic monuments, stunning national and state parks teeming with wildlife, fun family attractions, world-famous roadside stops and endless outdoor adventures, South Dakota offers the perfect destination for a summer getaway or road trip. This year presents an exceptional time to visit, as South Dakota celebrates its 125th anniversary of … [Read more...]
The TV Farm Kings and Their Freedom Farms are What Reality TV should Really Be
We drove through a green rolling countryside as we made our way to Freedom Farms for the final meal of the day to end our tour of Butler County - an hour's drive north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I was looking forward to our last meal of the tour in the rural part of the state with its wholesome and hearty home-cooked farm food. The Freedom Farms family is led by their outstanding mother, Lisa, a divorced mother of ten. She is the … [Read more...]
Charles Addams Family Values
John M. Edwards, a paparazzo of the paranormal, stalks the The New Yorker’s most famous and fiendish poltergeist cartoonist back to his moody hometown: Westfield, New Jersey. “Give me a place to stand on, and I will have the earth.” --ARCHIMEDES In Westfield, New Jersey, I finally found the moody manse of cartoonist Charles Addams, probably The New Yorker’s most famous and fiendish cartoonist, and also the inspiration for the TV series … [Read more...]
Going Deutsch: The Pennsylvania Dutch Country is really German
John M. Edwards arrives like gangbusters in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country, a fundamentalist locavore dreamscape straight out of the Harrison Ford flick “Witness.” When my British friend Vicky Langdale arrived at my apartment above Tullio’s Hair Salon in Westfield, New Jersey, I began brainstorming for something different to do, and I decided on a car trip to the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Both of us had seen the Harrison Ford movie … [Read more...]
National Apple Harvest Festival returns in October
Adams County, Pennsylvania’s largest event celebrates the iconic fruit Gettysburg, Pennsylvania – September 20, 2013 Adams County, Pa., residents and visitors are eagerly anticipating the opening weekend of the 49th Annual National Apple Harvest Festival, to be held Oct. 5-6 and 12-13. The festival, which takes place at the South Mountain Fairgrounds near Arendtsville, traditionally combines vendors, crafts, antique farm equipment and … [Read more...]