Tag: Travel & Visitor’s Guide
By Catey Sullivan
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... Read more
By Catey Sullivan
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... Read more
By Catey Sullivan
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... Read more
By Catey Sullivan
VROOM WITH A VIEW: The world’s largest single-day sporting event turns 100 in May, so it will be bigger than ever—all the more reason to go Read more
By Catey Sullivan
Since 1929, the Tulip Time Festival in Holland, Michigan has celebrated its Dutch roots with an annual citywide garden of six million flowers, give or take. The massive tulip display is the showpiece of the two-week fest, but there are also concerts, art exhibits, and—after a thorough street scrubbing by a volunteer corps of authentically costumed Dutch cleansers—three parades showcasing Netherlander culture... Read more
By Catey Sullivan
There’s car-free celebration in Iowa on Saturday, April 30th, as five towns in the Des Moines area— Ankeny, Sheldahl, Slater, Madrid, and Woodward—host a daylong celebration in honor of the opening of the High Trestle Trail, a 25-mile, $15-million route that connects them... Read more
By Catey Sullivan
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... Read more
By Catey Sullivan
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... Read more
By Catey Sullivan
We all know about this month’s alleged showers and the consequential flowers. But the cruelest month brings something else: Butterflies—thousands of them, fluttering by in April swarms... Read more