Author: Ms. R.

Just south of Lake Isabella in Bodfish, California sits a collection of old mining buildings arranged around a large courtyard. These ramshackle structures date as far back as the 1850s. They all hail from an era when gold fever struck the region. The towns all quickly became abandoned as gold deposits dried up. The various buildings were collected by the Dave and Arvilla Mills family and were relocated to this site. The ghost town has been accessible to the……

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These 87 rocks, one from each of Minnesota’s counties, all carry an excerpt from a letter either to or from a deployed serviceman. The messages are a mix of sentimental and humorous, but all are a reminder of the importance of the family at home to those deployed on active service. The letters from which the excerpts are drawn are  from conflicts as far back as the Civil War and come up to date with communications from the Middle……

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Ziaulhaq Ahmadi sits on the floor of his small, one-story house, a brown, mud-walled compound at the end of a dusty alley in Aqa Saray. Surrounded by vineyards, fruit trees, and snow-capped mountains, the village is a half hour’s drive north of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital. With great gentleness, he taps on what looks like a sealed mud bowl until it cracks open. Ahmadi, 45, reveals a handful of grapes from inside the mud container. They have been there, he……

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Caesarea was one of the most important cities of the ancient Roman world and the capital of the province of Judaea. The ruins of Caesarea, sometimes referred to as Caesarea Maritima to distinguish it from Caesarea Philippi, lie on the Mediterranean coast of present-day Israel. The city was founded between 22 and 10 BCE by Herod the Great. When construction began, Caesarea had no reliable source of fresh water, so King Herod commissioned a raised aqueduct to deliver water from springs……

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Born as Harry Mills in 1840, Brusher Mills earned his nickname due to the fact that he was a frequent sight at local cricket matches where he would sweep, or brush, the pitch between innings. However, it was another community-spirited occupation that earned Brusher the status of a local celebrity in his home of the New Forest, where he lived a rustic lifestyle in the forest as a snake catcher and medicine man. Mills spent almost 30 years living……

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In the small village of Águas de Moura, in Portugal’s Alentejo region, stands the world’s largest Cork oak tree (Quercus suber). Well over 230-years-old, the tree was planted in 1783, the same year that the Treaty of Paris was signed ending the American Revolutionary War. Sobreiro Monumental is also affectionately known as “The Whistler Tree ,” attributed to the sounds made by dozens of songbirds when they land and shelter among its branches. The magnificent tree is over……

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