The Explore All 50 States Project
Let's Go!
Leaving Iowa behind, all my kids could talk about was the Mall of America. How big was so big, that it's the biggest in the country is what we all wanted to know. As we drove up, it looked pretty huge, but not bigger than some of the other humongous malls we've seen. By the grace of G-d we found an unbelievably close parking space and made our way to the doors right under the big red white and blue … [Read more...]
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is a wonderful and moving museum that explains the path runaway slaves would take to escape to the North to freedom. It is located here on the banks of the river on the Kentucky-Ohio border, which at one point was the dividing line between slavery and freedom. Many former slaves crossed right here to freedom after a long and arduous journey. What I loved about this … [Read more...]
If you don't know already, The Explore All 50 crew loves Perkins. It's just all around, no frills good food with something to satisfy every taste. Wherever we are and we're at a loss about the local fare, and everyone is too tired and hungry to be experimental, we see if there is a local Perkins. Such was the case in Minneapolis. After a long day of driving and some sketchy food in Iowa, we needed a place we … [Read more...]
We would never have discovered the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden also known as the Walker Art Center, had it not been for my youngest son Joel's curiosity. As we were driving up to Minneapolis, Joel my front seat co-pilot was holding my guidebook staring intently at a photo of the sculpture of the spoon with the cherry that you see here. Joel insisted that we find it and after a little bit of creative sleuthing … [Read more...]
The Minnesota State Capitol Building is a stately structure with the requisite dome columns and other ornamentation like so many others. What is unique is the gold leafed 'quadriga" (a four horse chariot) up on the roof. Supposedly the four horses represent the power of nature: earth, wind, fire and water. The women leading the horses symbolize civilization, and the man on the chariot represents prosperity. We … [Read more...]
The Michigan Historical Center is an outstanding museum, but what we liked about it most is that it shows you that Michigan is more than just cars—and yes, there are plenty of those here too (which is nice because Michigan was home to more than just Ford…how about Cadillac, GM, Oldsmobile, to name just a few). Some of the more interesting things we discovered were how the brands of cars got their names. … [Read more...]
The Michigan State Capitol Building was by far one of everyone’s favorites. Walking into the stately domed building we were immediately struck by the wonderful use of color from the faux marble finishes to the checkerboard floors to the displays of the flags in the glass cases. As we were walking around and commenting, one of the artisans who oversaw much of the renovations overheard our conversation and … [Read more...]
On the road, sometimes things just don't go the way you planned. In our grand loop we had planned to head up to Pt. Huron because for some reason I was obsessed about seeing Lake Huron, and because we wanted to see the Thomas Edison Depot Museum which tells the story of one history's greatest inventors of all time, Thomas Edison grew up in Pt. Huron working at this very railroad depot in his early years while he … [Read more...]
Apparently if you really want to sample the flavor of Cincinnati, you've got to try Gold Star Chili. I like chili but I am not a huge fan, however,since this IS the flavor of Cincinnati I figured we just had to try it. We got the 411 on this place because my boyfriend Jordan's college roommate is the son of one of the Daoud brothers, the founders of what has become a Cincinnati institution. The Daoud family, … [Read more...]
In doing my research, I happened upon this most unusual activity that I thought the kids (now in their teens and tweens) would get a huge kick out of and boy was I right. Wakeboarding on the man made lake at Wake Nation is definitely one of the stranger things we’ve ever done, but everyone agreed was definitely a good time. Similar to water skiing, wakeboarding is what snowboarding is to snow skiing. But at Wake … [Read more...]
