The state capital of Washington is a sleepy city called Olympia. It was known as Cheetwood to the indigenous peoples before being renamed by the Europeans. Washington became American territory in 1853 and a wood capitol was built. The current legislative building wasn’t completed until 1928. The Capitol Building has Read more…
Admission to the OMSI in Portland is pretty steep at $13 excluding special exhibitions. The main level has a gift shop, auditorium, and a kid-friendly science hall with interactive exhibits in a former power station. The natural sciences gallery upstairs has an excellent display of preserved human embryos from one Read more…
Salem may be Oregon’s state capital but Portland is the city everyone knows. It’s got that fresh forest air mixed in with salty sea winds. Gulls squawk over progressive neighbourhoods with slogans that wouldn’t be out of place in Southern California. I visited the Oregon Historical Society and the Oregon Read more…
Boise wasn’t the first state capital, that honor went to Lewiston in the north with the border of Washington. Back then, Idaho was grouped together in a territory with Wyoming and Montana, but the southern part of the state grew rapidly with the Oregon Trail, logging, and mining. When people Read more…
There’s a city on the shore of a salty lake. Thanks for reading. Just kidding. Salt Lake City was founded long before Utah became an American territory. It’s most well known for being the beating heart of the Mormon church with two conjoined city blocks dedicated to its temples and Read more…
Bububububububububub. That’s what the museum parking lot sounded like on a good day. Single-cylinder, two-stroke engines still sound the best, there’s no contest. The famous motorcycle manufacturer in Milwaukee began as four dudes building bikes for fun. As the company grew, it became an American icon and a way of Read more…
Beer, motorcycles, and cheese. What more would a man need than the basics Milwaukee boasts? Both Miller’s and Pabst grew out from the Best family and Harley-Davidson motorcycles are made in the city. Outside of Chicago, Milwaukee is the largest city on Lake Michigan – the only Great Lake that’s Read more…
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. According to the Internet, it’s a grammatically correct English sentence. It means something like buffalo bullying other buffalo something something something in Buffalo. You can look it up yourself. The waterfront area has two retired naval ships and a submarine open for Read more…
About an hour west of Detroit, Ann Arbor is most well-known for being a college town to the famous University of Michigan’s main campus. But it was also known to be an automotive industrial town in the 20th century. The red brick buildings along the former Ann Arbor Railroad tell Read more…
Corning is famed for being the home of the glassware giant that spawned Pyrex, Corelle, and the space shuttle’s windshield. It began life as a settlement by Erastus Corning in 1835 before becoming a village 13 years later. Today, Corning is the town’s largest employer with its headquarters here. Cultural Read more…