A graveyard at Brookgreen Gardens

Just 18 miles north of Myrtle Beach, Brookgreen Gardens stands as the country’s first public sculpture garden, with 50 acres of lush, landscaped gardens dotted with over 14,00 artworks spanning the early 1800s to the present.  Besides art, nature trails, a zoo and exhibits, Brookgreen Gardens also boasts ancient graveyards that give a peek into the history of the people that lived on the land centuries ago.

“Silent Cities” is a two-hour excursion that runs through March 1, 2011. Hop aboard the Trekker guide bus and roll through back roads and cemeteries for the four former rice plantations that compose Brookgreen Gardens.  You’ll get to walk through the graveyards of plantation owners and enslaved servants and learn about the burial customs of both groups. Glimpse the elaborate, marble and brick grave sites erected by British planters and hear tales about the West African Gullah traditions of burying the dead near the ocean so that the souls could quickly float back to Africa.

Tickets for Brookgreen admission is $14 for adults and $7 for children 12 and under and are good for seven consecutive days, since it takes several to see the entire complex/ Tickets for the “Silent Cities” excursion are $15 in addition to regular admission. Reservations are encouraged at (843)235-6042.

After checking out graveyards, journey to The Brentwood Restaurant, a noted haunted site and popular Low County/French eatery. Relax in the  restored Victorian building and don’t miss the shrimp & scallops chardonnay dish.

Photos courtesy of Rosalind Cummings-Yeates

kayaking in Huntington Beach State Park

If you’re a fan of kayaking like I am, you probably enjoy the sensation of  of gliding across the water and feeling the gentle waves below you. Well I discovered a different sensation while kayaking  through Huntington Beach Sate Park, near Myrtle Beach.  I felt it shortly after I started paddling and felt something stuck  on my paddle. It was smelly, greenish brown  and it’s called pluff mud.

A pelican posing

Out guides explained that pluff mud was part of the unique joys of paddling through salt marshes.  This thick mud has been known to pull off boots, shoes and paddles that have been stuck in it. Suffice it to say, I really built up my biceps between the pluff mud and spartina cord grass during the two hour tour. Black River Outdoors Center guides kayakers through  the marshes and salt water creeks of Huntington State Park and it’s a really unique tour.  We paddled through Drunken Jack Island, which is supposed to harbor Black Beard’s treasures and I spotted pelicans, ospreys and herons, though not the alligators that are supposed to hang around the marsh. I highly recommend waterproof pants for the tour because all that splashing doesn’t just land on the kayak.   All that paddling works up an appetite so make your way to Bliss Restaurant and Lounge for a relaxed and elegant lunch. Try the pan-seared flounder with prosciutto hash.

Photos courtesy of Rosalind Cummings-Yeates

Madera Canyon, Arizona

Madera Canyon is a lovely little tucked-away spot in southern Arizona. My husband and I discovered it one weekend while we were whiling away the day in the Tucson area. We followed a winding road that crossed over low desert, then started to climb until we suddenly found ourselves among tall trees and greenery. Madera Canyon and Madera Creek traverse four different “life zones” which supports a variety of flora and fauna in a relatively small area.

The area is considered to be the third-best birding destination in the United States – ornithology enthusiasts will be able to sight over 256 documented species of birds, including 15 different kinds of hummingbirds and 36 species of wood warblers. Patrons of the canyon’s parks and trails will frequently come across small herds of deer and flocks of wild turkeys – even black bears, mountain lions and bobcats have been spotted on occasion.

A Mexican Jay spotted in Madera Canyon.

Madera Canyon has close to 100 miles of hiking trails that vary from paved, handicap-accessible trails and gentle walking paths in the lower canyon (including the Bud Gode Interpretive Nature Trail), to steep, expert trails leading to the top of 9,453-foot Mt. Wrightson. As higher elevations are attained, hikers are presented with some spectacular views of the mountains and the Sonoran Desert.

Since the area is part of the Coronado National Forest and is designated a National Forest Recreation Area, the U.S. Forest Service charges a small fee for daily use which can be paid by cash or check. The Santa Rita Lodge is a favored place to stay for visitors of the area. Keep in mind there is no food service in Madera Canyon, so bring your own food! The cabins and apartments of the Santa Rita Lodge have kitchenettes for cooking. March, April and May are considered peak birding season so make your reservations in advance.

My husband and I passed the Chuparosa Inn along the drive and we are bound and determined to stay there. I’ve never seen a more picturesque little place in my life!

To get to Madera Canyon from the Phoenix area, take I-10 East towards Tucson. Merge onto I-19 towards Nogales, then take the Continental Road exit.

Photo credits (in order of appearance):
- Madera Canyon by Tiffany Joyce
- Mexican Jay by Alan Vernon on Flickr Creative Commons.

A farmer volunteer guide at the living history farm.

Farming is the foundation of American history but sadly, farms are quickly disappearing from the daily landscape of  the typical American experience. Generations of kids are growing up without a clear understanding of where their food comes from and how it’s produced. The L.W. Paul Living History Farm provides an active example of how small, one-horse family farms operated generations ago.

cotton fields

Located a few miles outside of Myrtle Beach in Horry County, SC, the L.W. Paul Living History Museum offers opportunities to witness and participate in centuries -old farm activities like cotton picking, grinding sugarcane and grits and syrup making.  A popular weekend excursion, crowds of families were strolling the 17 acre farm when I visited.

Each season brings new activities so I observed fall activities like meat curing and grinding grits. The grits mill was a community machine that farmers would use together and give some of their corn as payment. Another area featured clothes dying, where women used plants to make dyes. Black walnut was used for brown, madderoot for red and acorn for a yellow shade. Mules plowed fields and tobacco was hung up in small shacks to dry.

The L.W. Paul Living History Museum  showcases such an authentic farming experience that it was featured in the movies “Cold Mountain” and “The Patriot”. Admission is free and hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 9-4PM. For a little more elegant relaxation after so rustic an experience, head to Tilghman Beach & Golf Resort and enjoy panoramic views of the beach in two or three bedroom luxury condos.

Photos courtesy of Rosalind Cummings-Yeates

Our Jeep at Sycamore Creek.

A couple of weekends ago we headed out to Lower Sycamore Creek, which is in the Tonto National Forest in the Mesa area. This is an extremely active and busy system of trails traversed by Jeeps, dirt bikes, ATV’s, and other off-road recreational vehicles. Normally my husband and I choose more remote and private areas, but Lower Sycamore’s proximity to our home (only about a half-hour away) drew us in its direction.

Some general advice about going off-roading:

- If you’re not sure of your route, DON’T GO ALONE.
- If it looks like the trail is too hard to traverse, TURN AROUND.
- Take plenty of water, extra gas, a spare tire, a basic tool kit, a first aid kit, a change of footwear and a couple of blankets.
- Take a ration of high-protein snacks that keep well – jerky, nuts, granola bars, and trail mix are great.
- Take an actual folding map or atlas as well as a GPS, so you’re not depending on a battery.
- Tell people where you’re going and when you expect to be back. If you change your plans, let them know.
- Lots of areas lose cell phone reception, so don’t depend on your cell. Better yet, if your vehicle has OnStar, which depends on satellites and not sketchy cell reception, you’re much better off.

View from a plateau on the Quartz Mine Trail.

Once we arrived, we played around for a while, popping up and down a hill called “Widowmaker” and exploring the high traffic trails. We quickly became sick of the dust and noise, so we headed to a more remote area of the trail system called the Quartz Mine Trail. This trail took us high up in the surrounding hills, past quartz deposits and through areas of the running creek. There was no way anything but a 4-wheel-drive vehicle with a decent amount of clearance could make that trip. The Jeep articulated nicely over shelves and rocks, and traversed through the running creek and over round river rocks with ease. Still, on a scale of 1-10 I’d rate the difficulty of this trail at a 6 or 7 (though if you’re a very experienced Jeep-er and have done stuff like rock crawling, you’d probably rate this a 4). The rest of the Sycamore Creek system seems to be anywhere from a 1-5 rating, depending on which hills you want to tackle.

To get to the Lower Sycamore Creek entrance, drive northeast out of Phoenix on the Bee Line Highway (Highway 87). Take the exit for Bush Highway. Immediately before the bridge is a gate that opens to a parking area. Proceed through the parking area and follow the road down to the base of the creek, where you will find a variety of trails, hills, and scrambles. This place is VERY busy on the weekend!

The Widowmaker at Sycamore Creek.

GPS of entrance point: Lat 33.37.42, Lon -111.33.35
Tonto National Forest Map
Arizona Road & Recreation Atlas: 41/75

Staying in Mesa? Check out the Courtyard by Marriott Mesa or the Hampton Inn Mesa. Tired of off-roading? Play a round of golf at Dobson Ranch, or check out the Mesa Southwest Museum. Starving? Don’t miss out on the Landmark Restaurant, home of the best salad bar in the state.

Photos copyright Tiffany Joyce

I wanna be a cowboy.

The 2012 lineup for Cheyenne Frontier Days will blow your mind. From July 20th through the 29th, there is an ENORMOUS schedule of events with everything you could possibly think of to entertain yourself and your family: concerts, rodeos, demonstrations, exhibitions, museums, rides, carnival games, and lots and LOTS of food. The FREE pancake breakfast comes highly recommended by the vast network of my husband’s cousins that live in Cheyenne and Laramie. They tell me it is the town of Cheyenne’s chance to practice their emergency response and disaster recovery skills, by feeding a vast amount of people in record time.

The concert lineup includes the Zac Brown Band, Journey, Hank Williams Jr., Blake Shelton, and Brad Paisley. Make sure you buy your tickets early!

If you’re coming in from out of town, I recommend the Little America Cheyenne or the Hampton Inn – they’re elegant yet reasonably priced. And if the whole frontier/western/cowboy thing isn’t for you… well, first visit during some other time – they’re ALL FRONTIER ALL THE TIME during this stretch of July. Second, check out the Historic Governor’s Mansion, the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, or the Wyoming State Museum.

Photo by Tiffany Joyce.

This year I have made plenty of resolutions. There’s the typical diet, the much needed time with the family, and building upon that, a strong desire to start camping again. Somehow we stopped doing it, and then years passed.

Regular readers of Uptake’s Vacation Blog (thank you!) will soon be able to follow the (mis)adventures of my family as we start camping (the kids have never been) and we leave the video games behind. Hilarity should ensue.

I hope you’ll join us (here, not camping, my car only seats four and the dogs)!

This post is part of Uptake’s Tuesday Roadside Attractions Series. If you have a photo of an odd, funny or interesting roadside attraction that you would like to see featured here please submit it via the link in the sidebar with subject line: Roadside.

Biking along Lake Michigan

So you thought the biking craze was regulated to balmy climates and hippie-focused cities? Think again. Despite bone chilling temperatures for most of the year, Chicago hosts a sizable biking community that cycles year round, wind chill and snow be damned.  That means today’s “Critical Mass Bikers Parade” through downtown is just business as usual for  fleece-covered bike fans.

Kicking off a Daley Plaza at 5:30 PM, this monthly event celebrates the joy of riding bicycles en mass.  Bikers gather under the Picasso and determine routes. Typically, the route runs along Michigan Avenue and  other popular (and crowded) shopping streets for 10-15 miles.  The event also includes freebies like the latest issue of Derailleur, which displays 2012 bike events, and fleece scarves and gaiters handed out by the biking organization, Bike Winter, to fight the mighty Chicago Hawk (Editor’s note — that’s local talk for “wind”) that’s sure to smack riders in the face.

Watching the parade of thousands of bikers can be almost as much fan as riding along, “Happy Friday” is the cheery greeting they award perturbed drivers and they hand out fliers promoting mutual respect between riders and motorists. The highlight is witnessing a “Chicago Holdup,” when a group of bikers lift their bikes in the air at an intersection as a sort of bike salute.  After the ride, head to the Handlebar, a popular biker hangout in Wicker Park for an after party.  The bike decor will  amuse you but the seared tuna steak or buffalo chicken wrap is sure to warm you.

Photo courtesy of The Chainlink

Wonderland Express

Chicago beckons with holiday events galore, from ice skating in Millennium Park to Navy Pier’s Winter Wonderland. But no tradition excites kids (and the young at heart) more than the miniature trains that chug through the Chicago Botanic Garden during the annual Wonderland Express event.

Located just outside Chicago in Glencoe, Illinois, the Chicago Botanic Garden offers free displays of gardens and exhibits every day of the year. The Wonderland Express rolls out every year on November 25 and continues through January 1 with a glittering spectacle of lights, trains and holiday activities.

The garden comes alive with 750.000 lights sparkling from trees, branches and trails. Inside the Regenstein Center, an exhibit of  10,000 square feet of miniature trains glide through replicas of Chicago landmarks — spot Soldier Field, the Art Institute, Navy Pier and more as the tiny trains wind past.  All the buildings are constructed from natural materials like moss and leaves and most of the lights are energy conserving (LED) certified.  A wreath display, a gingerbread village and decorated trees offer more dazzling views.

Family drop in activities provide arts & crafts, and live carolers are featured on select days. Top off the festivities with hot chocolate at the Caboose Cafe.

Admission to Chicago Botanic Gardens is free but tickets for Wonderland Express are $8 for adults and $6 for children.   Enjoy a fun-filled holiday weekend and stay at the nearby Renaissance Chicago North Shore Hotel and sample an American Bistro meal at the hotel’s  Rooks Corner Lounge.

Photo courtesy of Chicago Botanic Garden

The McCormick Tribune Ice Rink

Chicago supplies icy fun for most of the year but it’s only the holiday time that offers festive activities to celebrate the season.  Annual rituals like ice skating at the McCormick Tribune Rink in Millennium Park and visiting the holiday-themed Thorne Miniature Rooms in the Art Institute make the season bright indeed.

Layer on the sweaters and coats and kick off the holiday fun by heading to the McCormick Tribune Ice Rink. It’s an outdoor rink with lots of skaters so snuggle up with scarves and mittens in case you tumble on the ice. The rink attracts 100,000 skaters annually, most of them during the holidays so you can avoid long lines by bringing your own skates. Skate rentals are $10 but admission to the rink is free. Hours are Monday-Thursday, 12-8PM and Saturday 10-8PM, Sunday 10-9PM. The rink is open on Christmas Day, 10-4PM.  Warm up from ice skating by visiting the nearby Art Institute of Chicago.  Stroll past the wreath topped lions and enjoy the Home for the Holidays activities at the museum. Visit the Thorne Rooms to view the miniature rooms decked out in holiday finery, midday holiday music concerts at 1:30PM through December 31 and holiday desserts at the Garden Cafe.  Step across the street and sample a warming meal at the Gage restaurant. Try the potato soup and the chili rubbed pork belly for a filling and satisfying lunch.

Photo courtesy of Millennium Park