There are a lot of places along Route 66 that claim a special connection to the Mother Road, but Springfield has one of the strongest: it’s widely known as the birthplace of Route 66. In 1926, a telegram sent from the Colonial Hotel in downtown Springfield confirmed the highway’s now-famous…
Our Route 66 trip officially began from our home base in the Chicago suburbs, but we intentionally skipped Illinois (for now). After exploring much of Illinois Route 66 over the years, we’re planning a separate summer road trip (without the RV) to properly revisit and document those stops. We also…
The Weldon Spring Site is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management–controlled nuclear waste disposal site with a public interpretive center. That combination alone makes it memorable. During our Route 66 Centennial road trip, we were staying at Dr. Edmund A. Babler Memorial State Park just outside of…
During our three months at home base for winter, we squeezed in a few smaller trips without the RV. In January, we flew out to visit my dad in Oregon and spent a weekend at a conference in southern Illinois. Then in February, we headed out for a long weekend…
I visited the L.R. Ingersoll Wonders of Physics Museum with two of my good friends, and we spent the entire day happily geeking out over science. After working in higher education for most of my career, I’ve never quite lost my love for wandering college campuses. They’re such hidden treasure…
Washington, DC is packed with incredible museums, and while everyone knows the big-name federal stops like the White House, U.S. Capitol, Supreme Court, National Archives, and Library of Congress, there’s a whole world of lesser-known federal museums and visitor experiences hiding in plain sight across DC, Northern Virginia, and nearby…
Charleston, South Carolina is one of those cities that completely pulls you in, where centuries of history meet coastal charm, Spanish moss hangs over quiet streets, and every corner seems to tell a different story. From Revolutionary War sites and Civil War landmarks to quirky museums, historic cemeteries, nature preserves,…
Tucked right across from Union Station, the Smithsonian National Postal Museum is one of DC’s most underrated gems, a place dedicated to telling America’s story through the mail we send, the stamps we collect, and the journeys letters make along the way. As the museum describes it, “through the preservation…
If there’s one place in Deadwood that stopped us in our track, it was the Deadwood Brothel Museum. Tucked upstairs where you half expect to find dusty offices or forgotten storage closets, this museum instead opens the door to one of the town’s most enduring, complicated, and honestly fascinating chapters:…
Planning a trip to Philly can be a lot. Between historic sites, museums, all the amazing food (so much food), and trying to decide which neighborhood to start in, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed fast. So! I did what any Type-A traveler would do- I made a Google MyMap loaded…