Author: Ms. R.

The world outside your window—or the world you once knew—may be starting to feel distant after so much time indoors. Seeing images of cultural heritage sites getting sanitized was a jarring capstone on what has been months of rapid change, as meetings have moved online and masked faces have made walks in the park look like depressed superhero conventions. The wondrous world can feel like it’s a world away—even if you live down the street from, say, the little-known……

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Dark cast iron pans of various shapes and sizes surround a jambless fireplace, a Dutch-style hearth in Kinderhook, New York’s Van Alen House. In the restored 18th-century kitchen, bright orange flames blaze behind Lavada Nahon, calm and collected as she slices onions. Two large pots with smoldering embers heaped on top contain beef à la mode, a popular 18th-century dish of chuck roast, stuffed with parsley, bacon, and spices, slowly braised with port wine. Another pot holds chowder fish,……

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This beautiful place is much more than your usual scenic overlook. Perched high above the beautiful Gasconade River, also known as “the crookedest river in the world”, this hidden gem is only a five minute walk off an easily accessible two lane highway. This almost perfectly flat slab of Gasconade Dolomite offers a perfect view of the river below. It also sits above several caves that were used for centuries by Native Americans for shelter near the river….

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To cull the dead trees, Lin Spicer had to drive his tree cutter onto a treacherous stretch. Some of the pines he could almost have pushed over with his hands, there was that little holding them to the marshy flat of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Needles long fallen, bark sloughed off, these stands of trees resemble fleets of ship masts slanted along the water’s edge. Spicer was riding among them on his tractor-sized machine,……

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A structure of steel tubes and blades towers 52 meters (170 feet) over the Parc de la Boverie in Liège, Belgium. Known as Tour Cybernétique (the Cybernetic Tower), the monumental structure was designed by the artist Nicolas Schöffer and assembled in 1961. Nicolas Schöffer is known as the father of cybernetic art, which priotizes feedback over traditional aesthetics. Cybernetic art uses audio and visual feedback, computer-generated compositions, and other technological elements to create pieces of striking modernist art. Tour Cybernétique……

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The World’s first industrial Van de Graaff Generator is lying on its side, abandoned but still intact, in Forest Hills, Pennsylvania. Built by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1937, “the atom smasher was the centerpiece of the first large-scale program in nuclear physics established in industry,” according to Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).  It remained in use until 1958. In 2015, the bulb was taken off of its pedestal and laid on its side in hopes that someone will……

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Winderbourne Mansion is a Victorian-era house built in 1884 by Enoch and Mary Totten. Enoch Totten was a Civil War veteran and Washington lawyer. Mary Totten was extremely wealthy as her father was Timothy Howe, a senator of Wisconsin who was the cousin and heir of Elias Howe, known for perfecting the sewing machine.  Elias Howe also created the Bobbin-Winder, which inspired the namesake of the house. Originally, Winderbourne was painted pink complementing by dark rose trimming. The Tottens had……

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The long history of the Biblioteca Capitolare of Verona begins around the year 380 as a storage area for religious manuscripts and then a library workshop operated by local priests. The oldest dated document, known as Urcisinus Codex, reports the date of August 1, 517. The presence of a date is itself a rare feature for the time, but it allows to give the scriptorium a minimum certain age of at least 1500 years, making it the oldest library……

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Get ready for stairs… a lot of them. Reaching the top of Stawamus Chief requires a 600-meter elevation gain woven through the beautiful British Columbia forest. But luckily, the air is cool, crisp and fresh. There are three peaks you can choose from, each one more extraordinary then the last. Doing this hike in the early morning will reward you with a stunning sunrise overlooking the Howe Sound and the town of Squamish. The Stawamus Chief, often referred to……

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