Everyone knows Metropolis is the hometown of Superman. Some may think that Metropolis is a fictitious city, but I know it’s real. I’ve been there. And signs of Superman are everywhere. A 15-foot tall bronze statue of Superman stands in Superman Square. Read more
You may have seen the sculptures in Iowa or western Illinois gift shops, perhaps an angel or an animal, usually a solid color with white highlights, sometimes adorned with stones or jewels, but always with the Isabel Bloom signature on the bottom. You can see how the sculptures are created, too, when you tour the Isabel Bloom studio in Davenport, Iowa. Read more
I’m all for trying new adventures. Horseback riding isn’t new for me, but I’m still a greenhorn, having only been riding once before in my lifetime. So when the opportunity came up for me to ride the trails at the Natural Valley Ranch near Brownsburg, Indiana, of course I accepted. Read more
The Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. may be better known, but it isn’t the first. Theodore Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the First Lincoln Memorial in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace, on Lincoln’s birthday in 1909. William Howard Taft dedicated the completed memorial in November 1911, a few years before construction of the Washington D.C. memorial began. Read more
It had been years since I last visited Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History–decades actually. It was long before Sue came to Chicago. As a child, I went to the museum every couple of years. I remembered a hall full of dinosaur skeletons, a roomful of mummies and sore feet. Oh, and the huge building. My siblings and I used to wish we lived in that building, with its vast rooms, marble floors and sweeping staircases. Read more
A ring of horses colorfully trimmed and bejeweled, chase a flamingo, giraffe, tiger cub and a menagerie of other animals round and round but never catching them. On the backs of the animals kids and kids-at-heart wear looks of delight as they whir to the tune of bellowing calliope music. This is the Silver Beach Carousel in St. Joseph, Michigan. Read more
