The day started and ended unconventionally. A little blurb in the guidebook perked my curiosity to seek out Ireland’s very own Woodstock. Out of my way, I headed southeast from Kilkenny to the village of Inistioge. I meandered up Mt. Alto until I reach the pearly gates of the Woodstock Gardens. Pausing for a moment, I wondered just how a vehicle is supposed to travel through here. With a deep breath and a spirit for seeking out the weird on this day, I put the pedal to the metal. Once you pass through the gates of Woodstock Gardens, you have exactly 2 kilometers worth of utter panic that a car Continue Reading
Nashville, Tennessee Wishes You Were Here
I begin my trip to Nashville not with a lesson in country music, but a lesson in one of this Tennessee city’s other traditions, pancakes. Opened in 1961, the Pancake Pantry has become a Nashville staple, a pancake stronghold of the South. You wouldn’t know it by the down-to-earth atmosphere of the place. Not overly stuffy or pretentious about pancakes, I order up a stack of blueberry pancakes and fill up on Nashville in perhaps its sweetest form. Music City might be the ultimate pilgrimage for country music fans but with one bite of these pancakes, it could easily be Flapjack City. Being Continue Reading
On the Rocks on Kentucky’s Bourbon Trail
It’s roughly just after noon as I take a sip of bourbon. I don’t have a problem. I can wait until 5 o’clock somewhere but when in Kentucky, bourbon consumption and education starts early. I am following the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. Needless to say this isn’t a path that follows the straight and narrow. It is a trail past honest Abe’s log cabins and over rolling Kentucky bluegrass. In between the history is a culture for bourbon, a path that never did run smooth but a course of bourbon finishes that might be. Formed in 1999, the Kentucky Bourbon Trail is the work of the Kentucky Distillers’ Continue Reading
From Woodshop to Homerun Hero, Exploring The Louisville Slugger Museum
I can hear peanut shells snapping and the bellowed out drawl of the umpire. I listen for the sound of the pitch and the crack of the bat. I can hear all of the elements for America’s pastime. Baseball is after all a game for the senses. My ears are burning for baseball and I’m not even in a stadium. I stand in the Louisville Slugger Museum in downtown Louisville, Kentucky surrounded by game winners, and losers, in the making. To some, the Louisville Slugger is merely a type of baseball bat. To others like me, it is the game of baseball. In Major League baseball, the Louisville Slugger Continue Reading
The Sicilian Love Story
“These were my conversations in Sicily, over three days and their respective nights. They finished as they had begun. But I must note that something else happened after the end.” –Elio Vittorini, Conversations in Sicily All across Sicily, from dinner plates to the flag, you will see the Sicilian Trinacria. The ancient symbol features a less frightful head of Medusa surrounded by three legs. Its meaning is somewhat muddied. Some say the symbol represents the shape of Sicily, used by the ancients to distinguish the island. Others say it refers to the Phoenician god of Baal, god of time. The Continue Reading
Lucerne, Switzerland Wishes You Were Here
I could hear Lucerne long before strolling its streets. I heard it splash my face with drizzling rain the minute that I stepped out of the train station. While waiting for the bus to my hotel, I could hear Lucerne grumble. The skies suggested more than just a light rainfall for the day. I could hear Lucerne as I boarded the shortest funicular railway in Europe at the Art Hotel Montana. When you try to load 7 people and their luggage into said mode of transport, you can hear the most depressing of thuds. And I could hear Lucerne perhaps most serenely from my balcony, listening to snow sprinkled Continue Reading
Fort Smith, Arkansas Wishes You Were Here
I am standing with one boot in Arkansas and the other in Indian Territory. Such a positioning back in the 1800s wouldn’t have been the safest of perches, especially for the traveler just passing through town. Fort Smith, Arkansas has long found its identity destined to its positioning in the world. This small settlement sets up on the Arkansas-Oklahoma border. It grew up as the area’s first frontier fort and served as a key point where Federal marshals rode out of the United States and into Indian Territory. The Wild West was just over the Arkansas River. Standing where I am in Fort Smith Continue Reading