More than 200 years ago, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set off on their fabled exploration of the wilds beyond the Mississippi. If you feel history looming large over the long weekend, here are three Illinois destinations for contemplating the duo’s epic westward journey…
For more than a century, the self-made billionaire scions of the SC Johnson company, made their home in Racine, Wisconsin. The Johnson family’s Racine association started with Samuel Johnson, who moved to Racine in 1882 and, six years later, began mixing up batches of floor wax in his bathtub…
Credit singer/songwriter pat mAcdonald (yes, that’s how the artist known for “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades” spells his name) for creating the all-volunteer Sturgeon Bay’s Steel Bridge Songfest. Founded in 2005 to preserve the tiny town’s 80-year-old Michigan Street Bridge, the four-day weekend of concerts this year will feature more than 150 pickers, strummers, songwriters, and singers from New Zealand to Chicago…
PARADISE CITY: An insider’s guide to the island’s best beaches, hidden hikes, and the beautiful hamlet of Hana
Back in the day (way back, as in less than 50 years after the Revolutionary War), one William Conner and his Native-American wife built a homestead above a flood plain about six miles north of Indianapolis. A century later in 1934, Eli Lilly (yes, of the pharmaceutical giant) bought the place; in the 1970s, the property evolved into a museum and would soon begin hosting Civil War reenactments on the property…
A loaf of bread and a jug of wine? Why go small? Memorial Day weekend means 12 wineries, 20 artists, four bands, and a restaurant row’s worth of food vendors gathered over two days in Jackson County for the annual Shawnee Hills Wine Trail Art & Wine Festival. Bonus: This wine festival features a vintage baseball competition. Here, how to lift a glass to the boys of summer in downstate Illinois…
Empire, Michigan—population 400—may be tiny, but, when its residents join forces each year to honor the humble asparagus, the result is impressive. This weekend, the picturesque burg on the Leelanau peninsula celebrates the fiber-rich stalks with a party that MSN ranked in its top 10 list of the World’s Weirdest Festivals, sandwiched between South Korea’s Boryeong Mud Festival and the Monkey Buffet Festival in Lopburi, Thailand. Here are three ways to explore Empire’s annual vegetable-based bacchanal…
According to the classic song from The Music Man, they’ve got trouble, right there in River City. But you can’t say the same for Mason City, River City’s real-life counterpart. The Iowa hometown of Music Man composer Meredith Willson—and the model for the River City setting of his enduring hit about a traveling salesman/con artist—opens a new architectural museum this week…
April 22nd, or Earth Day, is as good a time as any to go off the grid, even momentarily. Can’t bring yourself to completely power down the PDA on the nationwide celebration of the environment and natural living? Try these three ideas for a green weekend in and around Monroe, Wisconsin…
Spring is coming; this weekend, celebrate the season in Wausau, Wisconsin. A bit of geographical trivia: Just west of Wausau, the exact center of the Northwest Hemisphere—which is the spot that’s halfway between the equator and the North Pole and the International Date Line and the Greenwich Meridian—is in Marathon County at the Reitbrock Geographical Marker…
