Author: Ms. R.

Constructed in the 1860s, the Woodchuck Lodge was the summer retreat for naturalist and famed essayist John Burroughs. This rustic building in New York‘s Catskill Mountains served as Burroughs’s dwelling for much of his literary career and played host to many celebrities of the time, including Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, and Henry Ford. Burroughs was born and raised on his family’s homestead in Roxbury, New York. He was a fast learner, and by age 17, he was a schoolteacher……

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In the winter of 1979, 22-year-old dairy farmer Juha Taskinen went ice fishing with his friend, Mikko Sairanen, on southeastern Finland’s sprawling, serpentine Lake Saimaa. Between nibbles, Sairanen told Taskinen of his chance sighting the previous summer of a rare Saimaa ringed seal, sunning itself on a rock. Taskinen asked to be taken to the same location, when the weather warmed, to see the norppa, one of the world’s few freshwater seals, at the time seldom seen and rarely……

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Don Featherstone graduated from Worcester Art Museum’s art school in 1957 and began working for Union Products, Inc. in Leominster, Massachusetts designing 3D plastic animals. Over his 43-year career, Featherstone created over 750 different plastic lawn ornaments—but none were as popular as the pink flamingo. The pink flamingo was first released in 1957, and immediately caught on due to the popularity of the color pink and the flamingo’s promise of an endless summer. As live flamingos were not readily……

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As befits the city where the first movies were projected, the Cinémathèque Française is one of Paris’ several film-focused destinations. Established in 1936, the organization dedicates itself to the conservation of film reels, cameras, props, costumes, and memorabilia. But visitors don’t have to be film buffs to appreciate its Frank Gehry-designed headquarters. Although it seems to have been designed with movies in mind, the building was originally created for the American Center in Paris, a now-defunct hub dedicated to……

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Measuring 30 feet tall, this statue of the First Duke of Wellington stands out in the Hampshire town of Aldershot. If its size makes it seem out of place, that’s because it is. The massive statue originally stood upon a large arch in London, but public disapproval led it to be moved to a new location. Erected in the 19th century to honor the First Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, this sculpture was intended to stand upon the Wellington……

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