October 8, 2009
An hour-long steam train ride is only one of the highlights at Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad between Fish Camp and Oakhurst, California. Along with an on-site museum and bookstore, visitors get the chance to pan for gold and learn the difference between real gold and fool’s gold. Watch as Mike shows me how it’s done!—Erin Vorhies
September 3, 2009
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Resort at Squaw Creek by Erin Vorhies |
I’m about five months too early for the party. The grounds at Resort at Squaw Creek were pretty quiet, but the waving of all the national flags around the deck told me the calm wouldn’t last. A month before the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver commence in February, Lake Tahoe and Squaw Valley will honor 50 years since the event that put them on the map: the 1960 Olympics. The official Olympic Heritage Celebration is scheduled for Jan. 8-17, but locals say get out here: the party will last all season!— Erin Vorhies
September 2, 2009
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The Thunderbird, Thunderbird Lodge, Incline Village, Nevada. All photos by Erin Vorhies. |
Just as the Nevada part of my road trip was all things mining and railroad, Lake Tahoe is all things boats. I’ve seen boats older than my grandparents, boats worth millions of dollars, and boats dissected into motors, boards, and scraps of metal. These are a few of my favorite things—er, pics—of what the Tahoe region’s collection has to offer.— Erin Vorhies
Outboard motors and a 1915 sailboat at the Tahoe Maritime Museum in Homewood, California
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An old, beached orphan canoe, Camp Richardson, California |
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Tahoe Queen, South Lake Tahoe, California |
September 1, 2009
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photos by Erin Vorhies |
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Although Lake Tahoe is best known as a winter ski destination, August is its busiest tourism month, and it isn’t difficult to see why. With a sparkling blue lake, clear skies, and warm breezes, it’s the perfect place to close out summer. At the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort in Incline Village, Nevada, we embraced the summer sun at the only resort on the lake with its own private sandy beach. Be sure to walk at sunset; the position of Hyatt’s beach is just right to have Tahoe’s longest-lasting view of the sun dropping to the mountains. Once that cross-lake breeze gave too much of a chill, we joined fellow guests around a beachfront firepit for old-fashioned ghost stories and deep-lake legends—a perfect end to a legendary evening.— Erin Vorhies
August 31, 2009
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by Erin Vorhies |
Think stagecoach riding in the Old West was as calm as Hollywood’s romanticized depiction? Gary Teel will prove you wrong. He operates TnTstagelines as accurately to the way it was in the 1800s as possible, including speed (over 25 mph), wagon conditions, and bumpiness of the roads. After being tossed, thrown, and sent airborne, my group of three women agreed there’s no way women in the 1800s arrived with their hair in place and their dresses immaculate. We only rode for about 10 minutes, laughing and screaming the entire time. And none of us could believe people ever traveled via stagecoach for more than 2,500 miles.
Note: Virginia City is a living example of the way it was in the 19th century mining boom, complete with a The Way It Was Museum.— Erin Vorhies
August 28, 2009
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by Erin Vorhies |
After 12 straight hours of travel and travel food (14 if you factor traveling back in time to the PDT zone…), the cultural side of Reno came to my rescue. Reno locals informed me that Basque immigrants arrived in Nevada around the time of the Gold Rush to be sheepherders, attracted by the similarity to their land in the Pyrenees regions of France and Spain. On visits into town from the farm, the men stayed in Basque hotels and sought the company, language, and meals from their homeland; remnants of these establishments exist today. Traditional Basque cooking is family style, with long tables of intermingled groups and multiple courses of home-cooked food. At the Santa Fe Basque Hotel, we had soup, salad, beans, spaghetti, steak and pork, fries, and vanilla ice cream. Red wine was served in a nondescript, non-branded green bottle, alongside the carafe of ice water. On egin! — Erin Vorhies
September 2, 2008
Ethan Severance, 9, is the volunteer apprentice miller at Hagood Mill, an 1825 water-powered gristmill outside Pickens, S.C. Ethan has been working and learning the ins and outs of the mill since he was 2 years old; here he is grinding corn to be sold in the mill’s on-site gift shop. (A two-pound bag of white or yellow corn meal sells for $2.) — Erin Vorhies
September 2, 2008
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Fudge the Kid by Erin Vorhies |
Anderson, S.C.—I could not have picked a better hostess to show me around Split Creek Farm than the farm’s newest addition, baby goat Fudge. She hopped and danced and tried to catch the chickens, then bounded away, laughing at how easy it is to startle them. The farm houses eight breeds of dairy goat; you’ll also find dogs, chickens, and pigs roaming around. As consumers become more health-conscious, more might be inclined to turn to goat milk over cow milk. Per ounce, it contains almost a third of the calories but twice the protein and half the fat. One of the only farmsteads in the U.S. to produce milk and process cheese on site, Split Creek Farm sells a variety of goat milk products, including cheese, milk, fudge, yogurt, and soap, all priced between $3 and $8.50. Their fudge and cheese products have won national awards, and their feta was judged best in the country in 2005. I personally recommend the feta soaked in olive oil with sun-dried tomatoes (but I bet Fudge would’ve suggested … the fudge). — Erin Vorhies
August 29, 2008
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Kudzu and Kudzu Kabin Designs by Erin Vorhies |
Walhalla, S.C.—I’ve heard three different stories now about why kudzu was brought from Japan to the southern United States in the late 1800s: to stop erosion, to provide food for livestock, and to shade the porches from the scorching summer heat of the South. Apparently the climate of Japan is very similar to that of the South (I’ve never been to Japan so I’ll take their word for it), so the assumption was, anything that thrives there will thrive here. I guess what they didn’t consider is what would happen if something thrived a little too well here—as in the case with kudzu—and now we’re left with a purposeful plant that is taking over the entire region. Found mostly in North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, this plant of horror smothers trees, billboards, telephone poles, and anything else in its path. It grows twelve inches a day and cannot be killed, and livestock will not eat it. While most feel helpless in fighting this aggressive monster, one local artist managed to find use for each part of the plant. Native American Nancy Basket makes kudzu soap from the roots, jelly from the blossoms, and baskets and paper art from the vines. Visitors can stop at her gallery and home on Main Street to create their own baskets, learn the paper-making process, and choose from dozens of prints, art cards, baskets, soaps, and jellies in her shop. Ms. Basket also will show visitors around her studio, a 100-year-old barn with bales of kudzu serving as the walls and insulation. Kudos for that kudzu effort: it’s the only kudzu bale building in the world. — Erin Vorhies
August 28, 2008
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Table Rock State Park by Erin Vorhies |
Pickens, S.C.—(This is a non-blog post. I am not actually blogging because I am not anywhere where blogging is possible. I am in a beautiful, secluded cabin in the woods at Table Rock State Park, where there is no cellphone signal, no WiFi or modem Internet connection, no television, no radio, no land-line phone. I am writing this non-post in a plain text file to be put up when I return to civilization. I also am writing it quickly because I am fairly certain that even turning on a laptop is against the rules when you’re this immersed in Mother Nature. This park features trails ranging from 1.9 miles to 8.4 miles, so I will get up early, eat the breakfast I’ll prepare for myself in the cabin’s kitchen, and do some hiking up toward the peak of Table Rock Mountain (elevation: 3,124 feet). I will get up early with the sun rising up in the mountains. I just might need to keep my cellphone turned on as a backup alarm clock.) — Erin Vorhies
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