Coffee Cup Stain

Seattle is the Best City in the Entire World

Seattle is my favorite US city. As a matter of fact, it’s one of my favorite in the entire world. It has outstanding food, great shopping, great music, it’s walkable, and there is sunshine believe it or not. I especially like the city because I can wear almost anything in your wardrobe and fit in anywhere. I do recommend though, to bring an umbrella and a good pair of walking shoes.

I like to stay at one of the luxury hotels in Seattle, because most are close to good restaurants and convenient to walk to any of the major tourist attractions. When I arrive here, I always take a car from the airport, but once in town, I walk almost everywhere, or use Seattle’s free downtown bus service. A car really isn’t necessary here, almost a burden, but if I want to explore the outer areas of Seattle, I like to know I can take my car.

My first stop is usually to Jack’s Fish Spot, which is near Pike’s Market. At Jacks, they sell fresh seafood and fish and serve up a mean platter of scallops and chips. They have the usual fare of chowder soups, oysters, seafood cocktails, but I recommend the crab or salmon. Both are very delicious. My next stop is to a very fine shoe store called J. Gilbert, which is located on 1st Ave in Belltown. I always get John to help me out. The shoe collection is outstanding, and they also have a unique collection of purses, women’s fashions and bags. Then, I stop of at Kuhlman’s for a pair of custom denims, it is expensive, but my jeans always bring a complement or two.

I’ve been to the Experience Music Project located at the Seattle Center, that’s where the Space Needle is located. I highly recommend visiting the EMP more than once. I found I missed some exhibits because I was focused on some other exhibit. For anyone new to Seattle, take The Duck, it’s a WW2 amphibious vehicle that will give you a tour of the city and of Lake Union.

I never have enough time to do all the things I’d like to do here, because I’ve also had made many friends here during my visits, so I need to see them also. There are only two more things I can tell you about Seattle: bring your appetite and lots of cash.

When you consider the location of were Annapolis Maryland is in relationship to the nations capital, you can more than likely get how much history there is to learn. Find your way out of that luxurious Annapolis hotel and see what you can discover. As you learn about the major historical figures who lived and worked here you may even get excited enough to wonder into Washington DC. You can see the historical homes of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Samuel Chase, William Paca and Thomas Stone among the exquisite collection of 18Th century buildings in the area. It is truly a quaint colonial town.

This is also the home of the famous US Navel Academy which is set long the Severn River. This makes sense because the seaport in Chesapeake Bay has been an instrumental part of the security of this country from the very beginning. It has always been a town of the notable and wealthy and was a temporary capital of the U.S.. The Annapolis State House was the home of the the first workings of congress. It is the oldest state capitol that has stayed in continual use for legislative matters which started in 1772. It has the largest wooden dome built with out the use of nails in the country and the topping rod was made and placed on the specific instructions of Benjamin Franklin. It is in the Old Senate Chamber of the State House that George Washington resigned as commander in chief in 1783.

Visitors can see the home of Clara Barton the founder of the Red Cross which was built in 1891 and is filled with disaster relief supplies collected over the many years. It gives visitors a chance to see into her determination and life. There is also the Historic London Town and Gardens, Banneker-Douglass Museum and the Hammond-Harwood House. With this much history there are a few ghost stories to be heard on the Ghosts of Annapolis Tour. One should never leave this town without visiting the impressive Naval Academy.

I have had more than a few experiences of the BBQ to be found in Austin.  The first time I visited the city it was on a whim, I knew no one and really had no idea as to what my week would entail.  It is a city that is well known the world over, for the live music that happens in various venues, and many times just happens right there on the street corners.  That first trip was incredible.  I was lucky enough to have found one of the best Austin hotels, and with the information the front desk guy gave me, I found some of the best live music I had ever experienced, but I did not find the best BBQ.

I am in love with real BBQ, and I found a great place in Amarillo during my many road trips back and forth between Phoenix and Chicago, I was not really sure of where to go in Austin.  My second trip to Austin, was all about that.  About the BBQ.  I had met a touring musician who lived in Austin and visited him last summer.  Visiting a musician in Austin, well I knew that my live music needs for the week would be met, so I asked him to find me the best of the best, in the world of BBQ.  He’s a Texan and he was ready to take on the quest.

Our first stop was a place called Artz’s, where not only do they serve up slow roasted ribs, coleslaw and black beans, but a good dose of live Bluegrass music every night of the week.  The next night, we headed over to Cooper’s Old Time Pit, where you order your meals off the menu, by the pound.  The next day was a Wednesday and we headed to a place called Driftwood, just about 30 minutes outside of Austin.  We headed to Salt Lick, one of the most famous BBQ joints in Texas.  We BYOB-ed it, bringing with us a six pack of Shinerbock, and had some of the most delicious slow roasted brisket –topping it off with a homemade piece of cobbler.

A Texas wedding happened the next night, atop a hill in what seemed to be the outskirts of town.  My friend played music, while the grandfather of the bride tended the ribs he’s been slow cooking since last Tuesday.  I had been to the most famous BBQ joints in Texas that week, but nothing could beat the food cooked on the hill that night, nor the music that was playing, nor the vibe created by a simple night of Texas true love

These are the things I come to New York to learn about.  I spend way too much time in libraries and online, trying to look up obscure things about the things I’m terribly interested in, and every time I get deep enough, I start to feel like I’m going crazy and need to meet people.  Even if those people happen to be ghosts, like investigating the life of Katherine Dunham has opened up a treasure chest filled with spirits.  These spirits, however, are not buried peacefully in the ground and resigned to the afterlife, but are a rather rowdy bunch of ancestral spirits that like to be engaged in great conversations.  Dancing and drinking, too, are not optional, but necessary.

Katherine Dunham was into some very interesting things.  I didn’t book Manhattan accommodation and make all the necessary arrangements, to find out she was interesting.  But being here does help me to understand the magnitude of her work, and the reason it was groundbreaking when she did it, and is still groundbreaking.  She studied with Herskovitz and Redfield, and they opened up the idea that would change her life, and also change African diasporic scholarship as we know it.  They posed that to understand anything about African and African-derived culture, you would need to know the rituals.

This lead her to a lifelong devotion to travel and work in the Caribbean, and eventual move to Haiti.  This is where she found her real spiritual home, and the principles she was integrating into her art were suddenly infused with an energy and a force that they had not had access to before.  She is one of the great pioneers in modern dance in the U.S., and her work and life helped to shed light on the multiple signs and significances behind the polyrhythms.  She passed just a few years ago, having lived almost a hundred years, but there are times when the sense of loss gets replaced by that unmistakable sensation that the dead are dancing.

Each of the five boroughs of New York offers great cultural attractions and diverse atmospheres as well as unique aspects. Frequently the tourists who stay in one of the New York City hotels of five star status visit more than one of these individual boroughs as part of their trip. Brooklyn offers a great variety of cultural and entertainment options and it is also home of the world popular Brooklyn Botanic Garden. This amazing home to over 10,000 taxa of plants is located near the Park Slope, Crown Heights and Prospect Heights neighborhoods and receives over 900,000 visiters from around the world every year.

This beautiful botanical establishment houses numerous additional specialty exhibits and museum spaces and these include three climate themed plant pavilions as well as the C.V. Starr Bonsai Museum. In addition there is a glass aquatic house as well as an art gallery and the Steinhardt Conservatory. One of the most attractive features of the garden is its diverse and substantial collection of cherry trees. The Cherry Esplanade provides an enchanting stroll through over forty-two Asian species of cherry tree. It is one of the most popular elements featured in the garden.

The Shakespeare Garden is one of the specific theme oriented gardens and was established based on a donation from Henry C. Folger, who is the founder of the acclaimed academic oriented Folger Shakespeare Library. This English cottage styled garden features more than 80 plants that were referenced by Shakespeare in one or more of his plays and or poems. The Cranford Rose Garden is was established by a generous donation from Walter V. Cranford, whose engineering firm constricted many of Brooklyn’s subway tunnels. This beautiful and aromatic garden features over 5,000 bushes, which represent almost 1,400 types of roses. Tourists from across the globe are attracted to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for various and sometimes specific reasons though they end up enjoying the diverse exhibits displayed there.

You might be surprised to find many luxury hotels in the Alaskan frontier, but they are definitely there, so that travel to the largest and most Northern state in the union is easier than one might imagine, despite its rugged climate and landscape, but you’ll find places to stay in Fairbanks and Anchorage and, even Wasilla, the home of Sarah Palin.  Wasilla is a town of about ten thousand people, and the fourth largest town in the state (Alaska has a total population of about seven hundred thousand people, most of whom reside in Anchorage).  Before it became famous and made history as the home of the first Republican woman to run for the office of Vice President of the United States, it was also the home of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Headquarters, where the memories of two life-saving sled dogs, Balto and Togo, are preserved. 
 
In the winter of 1925, two dogs helped pull a sled carrying serum to stop Nome, Alaska’s diphtheria epidemic.  Balto the Wonder Dog received the majority of acclaim because he was the dog who completed the journey, carrying the needed medicine to the sick.  However, it was Togo that led the team of sled dogs, along with Leonhard Seppala, a famous musher in Alaska, over the longest and roughest miles in the relay across a stretch of land known as the Norton Sound.  This Siberian Husky can still be seen today, as his taxidermied body is on display at the Iditarod Headquarters.  Togo and a team of dogs traveled hundreds of miles, and would be as famous as Balto the Wonder Dog is today in Alaska, but the then governor of Alaska gave an order at the last minute to speed up the delivery, adding extra relay teams, and thus obscuring Togo’s role in the drive to get the needed drugs to Nome, and thus diminishing his role in the history of dogs. 
 
If you wish to pay your respects to Togo now, the only way to do so is to drop by the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Headquarters.  For those who don’t know, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is an annual tradition in Alaska, where sixteen dogs pull along their musher or driver, across a trail over one thousand one hundred and sixty-one miles, over eight to fifteen days.  While the race used to start out from Wasilla, it now goes from Willow, near Anchorage, to Nome.  The race started in 1973 in order to test out the finest sled dog mushers and teams around.  Currently, the fastest record was set by Martin Buser in 2002 of eight days, twenty-two hours, forty-six minutes and two seconds.  You can watch the race itself on the first Saturday in March; this year, the race will begin March 6th.

As is true for every major city and minor township, there is a fascination with ghost stories and haunted buildings. Of course many places are reputed to be much more haunted than others, which I guess can be attributed to the fact that ghosts like the same geographical elements and cultural attractions as the living. Or perhaps certain medium philosophies are correct and they tend to remain stuck to the place where they passed on, particularly when this occurred against their will or was caused by a natural catastrophe. Whatever the reason, the city of Atlanta, Georgia has its fair share, or maybe even a few more, of ghosts and many of the tourists who visit the hotels Atlanta are aware of this and are eager to take part in one of the ghost tours.

One of the popular haunted excursions for tourists, and of course locals, in Atlanta is an old house in the Atlanta suburb of Dunwoody. It is known locally as the Donaldson house and was built in 1870. Many strange sensations and sightings have occurred here including a levitating bible and sightings of a young girl who looks out of one of the windows. The New American Shakespeare Tavern offers more than Shakespearean play productions. According to some it also includes the standard cast member known as a theatre ghost. Unexplained voices and images have appeared to actors, guests and staff and a strange figure is frequently seen walking along the stage catwalk in the night.

The Netherworld Haunted House is a seasonal and theme specific entertainment venue that is open annual as a Halloween attraction. It may not belong in a discussion of alleged haunted locations in the city, save for its celebration of Atlanta’s haunted history and It was rated as the number two haunted house in the country by Haunt Magazine and was rated by AOL Digital City as the nation’s number four haunted attraction. It’s important to keep in mind that venues and reenactments of this nature contribute to the fascination and continued interest in “true” haunted locations.

Chicago, Illinois has an incredible selection of cultural attractions and major city landmarks and icons that are incorporated into the daily lives of its citizens and continually fascinate, entertain and intrigue the numerous tourists who visit the city and stay in one of the luxury hotels Chicago. It also has in incredibly interesting and often complex history, which is fundamental to the social, political and industrial development of this country. Among the interesting landmarks, some of the architecture found in the city is ranked high with tourist appeal.

The Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower, is not only one of Chicago’s most famous and impressive buildings it is also one of the most easily spotted and recognized. This is because it is the tallest building in the city. In addition to that impressive fact, it is the tallest building in the United States, which is even more incredible. In fact, at the time of its completion, which occurred in 1973, the Willis Tower was the tallest building in the world. Currently this 108-story building is the fifth tallest building in the world as well as the world’s fifth tallest freestanding structure. It was even taller than the former Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center.

The building has an interesting and also practical history. Its plan was established in 1969 when Sears, Roebuck and Co. decided to consolidate its numerous employees in the Chicago area to one building. Considering that at the time Sears was the largest retailer in the world and had over 350,000 employees, not all of them in Chicago mind you, this project takes on a much greater importance and state of ambition. Sears commissioned the architects Skidmore, Owings and Merrill to design a structure that would be not only one of the largest office buildings in the world but would accommodate the needs of the continually growing company. This incredible building was officially called the Sears Tower until the naming rights expired in 2003. It continued to be referred to as its original name, however in July of last year it was officially changed to the Willis Tower.

As an art admirer, I admit I’m often stuck in European impressionism with the likes of Van Gogh, Seurat and Monet, and after living in the Southwest for many years I had my fill of paintings and tiny sculptures of horsese and cowboys that used to be fairly prevalent in Arizona galleries; but, I also lived in the Northwest, too, and I can’t tell you why that — if I considered Southwest Art as a form — I rarely considered Northwest Art.  However, if you find yourself in the Seattle-Tacoma area of Washington, you’ll be able to investigate this particular form at the Tacoma Art Museum through May 23rd of 2010.

Fiction writers often draw from the land in which they live to create their stories; the same must be true of artists, drawing from the regions in which they create their art.  In “A Concise History of Northwest Art,” you’ll find examples of work from the museum’s permanent collection and ranging from the middle of the 19th Century to modern day, culled froms tates such as Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington, and even outside the states, with art from British Columbia.  You’ll find also examples of Northwest impressionism, a category new to me, but ties in with the art I truly appreciate.  Until October of 2010, you may see at the Tacoma Art Museum, exhibits of Degas, Renoir, and Pissarro.  Even Whistler and Cassatt will be on display as the museum traces the influence of impressionism into the Northwest itself.

It’s enough to make me consider traveling back to my old home state, check into a luxury hotel Washington state provides its visitors and take a tour of this museum.  Certainly, there’s some amazing hotels in the city, such as the 1908 Sorrento Hotel or The Edgewater, the only hotel in Seattle to be located on a pier in Elliott Bay.  It seems like a perfect day to go take a look at some fine art and then retire to the pier and watch the sunset over the bay and Puget Sound, watching the light play over the snow on the Olympic Mountains.