Las Vegas’ Neon Museum is in the business of preserving the stories of those ill-fated ventures, collecting and displaying the neon signs of the ghosts of casinos past — and those of casinos present — making sure their memories live on. Located near the Fremont Street Experience in downtown Las Vegas, the museum invites you to travel back in time through the decades, learning about the twists and turns that helped make Vegas what it is today.
Read MoreVintage books are by no means a necessity, but if you’re in the market for some classic tomes — if, perhaps, you have a collection going, or are looking to begin one — there are a few spots around Chicago that need to be on your radar. Here are three of them.
Read MoreNestled up in the Hudson Valley, only an hour or so from the hubbub of New York City, is where you’ll find the small village that author Washington Irving once described as “one of the quietest places in the whole world”, where “the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity”. Sleepy Hollow, forever immortalized in Irving’s writing, is still a quaint little place to visit these days; whether or not Ichabod Crane would recognize it in its current state is another question.
Read MoreSporting some of the best fall foliage anywhere in the nation, New England is kind of the place to be when you start to feel that crisp, crisp air creep back in. The color-changing parade that falls across the region like a patchwork quilt every September and October is undoubtedly one of the biggest draws for anyone looking to put a fall getaway on the books, but let’s also remember that this is spooky season, and New England is hardly wanting in the arena of things that go bump in the night. From haunted houses and hotels to ghost-riddled cemeteries and ships, you can scare your pants off properly six ways to Sunday.
Read MoreI had never been to Arizona — now the 35th state I have checked off my race to all 50 — so you can imagine my excitement as I first laid eyes on the sign that read: “The Grand Canyon State Welcomes You”. My main objective was to visit that gargantuan hole in the earth that has entranced visitors for centuries. So, after finally making a stop at the damn dam and a nearby overlook of Lake Mead, I instructed the Google Maps machine to take me to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.
Read MoreWe’re here to talk shop, and by that, I mean volleyball. Specifically, the kind played on the sand in the summertime, which is the best kind in my opinion, and the preferred version of the sport for Chicagoans when the warm weather washes up on the shores of Lake Michigan. Visit any of the beaches mentioned below for yourself during the summer and you'll likely come to the same conclusion.
Read More“Is this Heaven?” No, and it isn’t Iowa either. It’s Washington, baby, and the view from up here is one of the most breathtaking ones you will find anywhere in North America. Where is “up here”, you ask? “Up here” would be the summit at Crystal Mountain Resort, where, after a brief ride on a gondola, you are afforded one of the most fantastic views of Mount Rainier that you may ever see.
Read MoreHave you ever wanted to sit down at the Double R Diner with a damn fine cup of coffee? Or maybe take in the view of the gushing falls next to the Great Northern Hotel? Perhaps get a glimpse of Sheriff Truman’s retro Ford Bronco? While the titular town of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s mind-bending murder mystery series “Twin Peaks” may not exist in real life, a handful of landmarks and landscapes seen and used in the show are out there — and only a short drive from downtown Seattle.
Read MoreThe events of May 25, 2020, when a former Minneapolis police officer put his knee on a man’s neck and kept it there until he could no longer breathe, and the summer that followed, when millions marched in the streets of cities not just across the United States but all around the globe — amid a worldwide pandemic the likes of which hadn’t been seen in a century, no less — created a chapter in our collective history that won’t soon be forgotten.
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