Road Trip Through History

Road Trip Through History: The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum

May 23, 2013

Recently My Own True Love and I took a week-long road trip that looped down the Mississippi, across to Little Rock, through northwest Arkansas, up to Kansas City and back to Chicago.  For much of the trip, historical sightseeing was out of the question. All we could do was make lists of sites and museums [...]

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Road Trip Through History: The Vandalia Statehouse State Historical Site

May 7, 2013

The first thing you need to remember about the old state capitol building in Vandalia, Illinois, is that it is NOT called the Old Capitol.* The Old Capitol, which is not as old as the state capitol building in Vandalia, is in Springfield. What can I say? Stuff doesn’t always make sense. Vandalia became the [...]

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Road Trip Through History: America’s First Interstate

April 11, 2013

George Washington was a road builder long before he was a nation-builder. As a young officer under the ill-fated General Braddock, he helped construct a military road from western Maryland to Pennsylvania.* As president of the new United States, he dreamed of a trans-Appalachian road that would unify the new nation and aid westward expansion. [...]

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Road Trip Through History: Cahokia Mounds

March 2, 2013

  My Own True Love and I have put in thousands of miles over the years on I-55, the highway that leads from Chicago to Saint Louis. We’ve stopped at many historical sites–along the way and off the path. One of my all time favorites is Cahokia Mounds–the site of North America’s first city. Our [...]

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Road Trip Through History: Thinking About the Bucket List

January 4, 2013

My Own True Love and I recently sat down to synchronize our calendars for the coming year–a terrifying process. (We already have things scheduled well into September? Really?) As always, it gave me the travel itch and made me think about the places I really, really want to see. Some of them have been on [...]

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Road Trip Through History: Bath

January 1, 2013

Having spent many hours enthralled by the novels of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer, I was excited to arrive in Bath, our last stop in England. It was thrilling to have lunch in the Pump Room, to stroll through the Assembly Rooms where some of my favorite heroines danced the quadrille, and to see the [...]

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Road Trip Through History: Stonehenge

December 18, 2012

We caught our first glimpse of Stonehenge from the highway–the familiar stone circle silhouetted against the sky. I felt a flutter of excitement. After all, Stonehenge is a major Bronze Age site, built at roughly the same time as the Great Pyramid at Giza. Like the pyramids, it’s built from monolithic stones, some brought from [...]

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Road Trip Through History: Portsmouth

December 11, 2012

My Own True Love and I went to Portsmouth primarily to visit the Historic Dockyards. Restored historic ships, the story of the Tudor warship the Mary Rose, the history of the dockyards themselves–it sounded right up our alley. And in fact it was. The quality of the exhibits ranged from the fabulous to the dated [...]

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Road Trip Through History: The Royal Pavilion at Brighton

December 3, 2012

Visiting the Royal Pavilion at Brighton was a sentimental journey for me. As some of you may know, I did my PhD on the 20 year plan–in part because I kept wandering down odd and fascinating side roads that didn’t end up in the final dissertation.* Two of those academic dead ends were chinoiserie and [...]

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Road Trip Through History: The Battle of Hastings

November 8, 2012

On October 13, thousands of history enthusiasts from around the world arrived at the British town of Battle to re-enact the Battle of Hastings. (You know, William the Conqueror, 1066, and all that.) My Own True Love and I weren’t there.* Just as well. The weather was cold and wet. The battlefield conditions were so [...]

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