San Juan Marriott Resort in Puerto Rico is saying Merry Christmas with a Twitter scavenger hunt that will provide a free three-day stay at the resort for five lucky winners.

Condado Beach, home to the San Juan Marriott

Beginning tomorrow morning and continuing for each of the five days leading up to Christmas, the hotel will tweet a holiday item at 10:00 a.m. EST.  The first Twitter follower who replies to @SanJuanMarriott each day with a picture of the item (via TwitPic, Tweetphoto or otherwise) will receive a complimentary three-day, two-night stay.

Additionally, anyone who tweets all five pictures of the requested scavenger hunt items (one per day) will Read the rest of this entry »

Metal angel sculptures line pathways in wildflower choked Northerly Island, previous home of Meigs Field. The old runway, now a mowed grassy strip, is still visible in the background.

During my recent trip to Chicago, I took an afternoon stroll around Northerly Island, located just behind the downtown Museum Campus on the lakefront. This narrow peninsula was once home to Meigs Field, a tiny airport that opened on December 10, 1948 and by 1955 was the busiest single-strip airfield in the country. In its latter years, the airfield served mostly private planes, but I have a vivid recollection of landing at Meigs in a prop engine puddle-jumper many years ago, so commercial airlines must have used the field at one time. Landing and taking off from Meigs Field was a scary proposition. The runway was short and dead-ended into Lake Michigan; my first landing was my last – purposely. I was certain my plane was going into the drink.

In 1994, Chicago’s Mayor Daley announced plans to close the airport and build a park in its place. Nine years of legal battles ensued until, in a controversial move on March 30, 2003, the Mayor ordered private crews to destroy the runway in the middle of the night, bulldozing large X-shaped gouges into the runway surface. Daley subsequently excused his actions, insisting that post-9/11 risks of terrorist-controlled aircraft attacking the downtown waterfront necessitated the closing of Meigs Field.

Closeup of sculpture on Northerly Island

These days, Northerly Island is strewn with wildflowers. Metallic angel sculptures rise amidst blossoms, pointing the way down narrow asphalt paths winding between the Adler Planetarium and the old air tower. Butterflies drift from bloom to bloom and songbirds warble melodies from nests secreted in tall grasses. Eerily, concrete runway markers – the only remnant of the once busy airfield – poke their heads above thick vegetation growing on the old landing strip. Walking through this idyllic park, it is hard to imagine that it may soon undergo yet another radical transformation. Read the rest of this entry »

Plunging an amazing 411 feet, Upper Whitewater Falls in southwest North Carolina is the highest waterfall west of the Rockies. Located in a fairly rugged, little-visited area, the upper falls are easily accessible via a short paved path bordered by wildflowers, moss-covered boulders, and dense forest.

Upper Whitewater Falls in Sapphire, North Carolina

Tiny wildflowers border the path through dense forest

More wildflowers

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After five weeks on the road it was time to head home, but not before one last day of hiking. From the North Carolina mountain town of Cashiers, I mapped a route past Gorges State Park, which opened to the public this past May. Located atop the Blue Ridge Escarpment, this newest North Carolina park is the source of five mountain streams that gradually descend toward the South Carolina border, where they suddenly plunge over spectacular falls and rush through steep-walled gorges.

With only one afternoon at my disposal I decided on a duo of one-mile round-trip hikes. The first, marked “strenuous,” descended sharply to a wooden platform overhanging Bearwalow Creek, where Upper Bearwallow Falls dropped 200 feet into the gorge. Pretty – but a bit anticlimactic after others I have seen around Transylvania County. And almost not worth the straight-up, half-mile ascent that had me gasping for air.

Upper Bearwallow Falls in North Carolina's new Gorges State Park

After catching my breath I crossed the parking lot to access the “moderate” Bearwallow Valley Overlook trail. I eyeballed the spongy, leaf-littered path Read the rest of this entry »

The meaning of the term “skyscraper” has changed dramatically over the centuries. Originally a nautical term referring to a tall mast or main sail on a sailing ship, the word was first used to describe buildings when the ten-story steel-framed Home Insurance Building was constructed in Chicago in 1885. Although later demolished, the structure forever marked Chicago as the birthplace of the skyscraper. Chicago today has an unrivaled collection of skyscrapers that makes the city a premiere destination in the world for the study of architecture.

Chicago Model City display in the lobby of the Architecture Foundation documents the history of architecture in the city

Chief among the city’s spectacular skyscrapers is the Chicago Board of Trade Building, which anchors the southern end of the downtown financial district on LaSalle Street and is the world’s oldest futures and options exchange. Built to provide a centralized location where buyers and sellers could meet, negotiate, and enter into contracts to buy and sell commodities produced in the Midwest, farmers flocked to the CBOT with samples of their wheat, corn, and soybean crops. Over time, the function of the exchange evolved into one of buying and selling forward contracts for commodities. Today, more than 50 different options and futures contracts are traded by over 3,600 CBOT members through open outcry and eTrading from the floor of the open exchange.

Art deco designed Chicago Board of Trade Building anchors the south end of the LaSalle Street financial district

Growing up in Chicago, I had always wanted to tour the Board of Trade building and watch the commodity traders in the “pit” but, like most locals who never visit the attractions in their own back yard, I just never got around to it. I moved away and forgot about CBOT until recently, when I returned to the city for a conference scheduled to be held in the Loop. In years past, anyone could visit the Chicago Board of Trade, but since 9/11, security concerns have necessitated limiting access to the facility. Fortunately, tours are still available through the Chicago Architecture Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing public interest and education in architecture and design. The CBOT is one of 16 “Lunchtime Tours” of historic buildings available through the Foundation. In this instance, the timing was perfect; not only would I learn the history of the skyscraper and see its unique architectural details up close, at the conclusion of the tour I would have an opportunity to witness live commodities trading in the pit from an overhead observation gallery.

I arrived early and strolled around the massive granite tower to kill time. Courtyards on two sides of the building provided seating for harried traders clad in the bright blue, red, or gold jackets of their particular brokerage houses. They rushed in and out of revolving doors for quick breaks, gulping coffee while talking on cell phones and puffing furiously on cigarettes, generating a billowing cloud of smoke. Wading through the billowing smoke, I was reminded that not so long ago I was living the same kind of harried and stressed-out life and I gave silent thanks that this part of my life is over. Read the rest of this entry »

Phony teepees, gold panning operations, and stores overflowing with “Indian” souvenirs stamped “Made in Taiwan” dominate the main street in Cherokee, North Carolina. On the sidewalks, performers with not a whit of Indian blood don garish costumes and perform steps bearing little resemblance to actual Cherokee ceremonial dance. In a shopping center parking lot, kids line up to ride a mechanical bull, while down the street, giant arrows direct tourists to a live bear display. Although located within the Reservation lands of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians, it would be easy to dismiss the town of Cherokee as just another tourist trap and drive right on through. But don’t. Instead, turn at the Cherokee Museum and drive to the top of hill to Oconaluftee Indian Village, where an authentic Cherokee experience awaits.

Main highway running through Cherokee, North Carolina is strewn with touristy attractions and gift stores

The Cherokees in Western North Carolina today descend from those who those who hid in the hills, defying removal during the infamous Trail of Tears mandated by President Andrew Jackson, and others who returned, many on foot. Gradually they created a sovereign nation of 100 square miles and, in 1948, established the Cherokee Historical Association to carry out their mission of preserving the history and culture of the Cherokee People. Oconaluftee Indian Village and its sister operation, the Unto These Hills Outdoor Drama are central to those efforts. Read the rest of this entry »

Tucked into the northwest corner of Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Cades Cove is one of very few places in the entire national park system where nature and human history mingle. Cherokees were the first to discover this relatively flat valley between mountains; they camped in the Cove for weeks or months at a time, hunting deer, elk, bison and bears. By 1821 white settlers had discovered the idyllic site. They cleared the land, building log homes, barns, corncribs, smokehouses, and grist mills. The bottom land was rich and fertile and produced abundant crops, while the surrounding forest provided plentiful game; life was hard but good. Although the occasional Cherokee was spotted, aside from one reported incident of a hunter being killed by an Indian, the settlers and Cherokees co-existed peacefully, perhaps because the Cherokee had never built permanent villages in Cades Cove.

Cades Cove is an idyllic valley between mountain ridges in the northwest corner of Great Smoky Mountain National Park

My intended route between Gatlinburg, Tennessee and Cherokee, North Carolina took me up and over the Smokies and past the road leading to Cades Cove. I was on no specific schedule and had never investigated the Tennessee side of the park, so I detoured twenty-some miles on a serpentine road, following a sparkling creek tripping its way over stone ledges and giant boulders as it rushed down the mountainside. At the end of the road, cars, hikers, and cyclists shared a narrow one-way eleven-mile road that loops around the valley. Read the rest of this entry »

Lil stood with eyes lowered and hands demurely clasped as spectators filed into the Meeting House. When everyone was seated on the simple wooden benches running down either side of the hall, she looked up and began to sing: “Welcome, welcome, one and all.”

Lil regales visitors with Shaker songs and dances

One of several interpretive guides at Shaker Village in Pleasant Hill, Lil has made a study of the music of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing. Clad in a dull blue, ankle-length dress, her hair covered in a net cap, Lil sang hymns that had reverberated through the Meeting House when this was still an active Shaker community. Words became undecipherable tongues as she raised her hands in the air, shaking her widespread palms in jubilation, demonstrating the charismatic trembling that earned members the nickname of “Shakers.” Read the rest of this entry »

If I wanted to stuff my face with Karamel Korn and funnel cakes, have my photo taken while sitting in the Dukes of Hazard General Lee car, play a round of putt putt golf in the world’s most interactive black light golf course, or attend any one of a dozen honky-tonk song and dance shows, Gatlinburg would be my perfect vacation destination. A veritable carnival midway designed to empty pockets and fill stomachs, this Tennessee city is definitely not my cup of tea.

Gatlinburg caters to the tourist with a carnival-like atmosphere

Yet standing in stark contrast to Gatlinburg’s crass commercialism, the surrounding countryside overflows with natural beauty. Just a few miles east, the Middle Prong of the Little Pigeon River flows beneath a verdant green canopy, creating miniature white-water rapids as it deftly dodges protruding Read the rest of this entry »