PODCASTS

Tag: #staycation

Staycation at Watkins Glen – Racing Research Center – 08/14/23

Staycation at Watkins Glen – Racing Research Center – 08/14/23

Tens of thousands of stock car racing fans decend on Watkins Glen in New York’s Twin Tiers each August. That happens this weekend (August 18-20, 2023).

Whether you are going to be among that throng, or if you live in or plan to visit the area other times of the year, the International Motor Racing Research Center can be a tourist site for you. Director Mark Steigerwald tells about the Center’s history and purpose. Visitors can see a classic race car, model cars, racing art and photography collections, and enjoy a video tribute to racing at “The Glen”.

The Center’s website is racingarchives.org/

 

Staycation Destinations – Buffalo Pierce Arrow Museum – 08/11/23

Staycation Destinations – Buffalo Pierce Arrow Museum – 08/11/23

Family Life’s “Staycation Destinations”

The Buffalo Transportation Pierce-Arrow Museum owns one million pieces of memorabilia, from small automotive mementos to classic cars, carriages, motorcycles and bicycles.

Co-founder Jim Sandoro talks not only about the current exhibits at the museum, but also how a prosperous city became home to the manufacturers of — and consumers for — the top of the line Pierce-Arrow vehicles built in Buffalo. In this Family Life news feature, you also will hear how Sandoro’s love of Pierce-Arrows took him from childhood to become an expert collector of transportation memorabilia. (There is also an overlap between Sandoro, the company that makes Jello gelatin, and Robbie and Mike Wolfe of the American Pickers TV show.)

 

The museum in downtown Buffalo, New York, is open Thursdays through Sundays.

 

– – – –

“Staycation Destinations” is our weekly summer series, broadcast each Friday at noon on the radio and online, then posted to our News Podcasts page. Each episode offers a radio tour of a unique site in New York or Pennsylvania, close to home, relatively inexpensive, and good for a potential day trip or longer visit.

Each weekend, we also give you a “Sidetrip Suggestion” another place in our two states which stands out in a unique, quirky, or enlivening way.

Just 43 miles northeast of Buffalo, it’s a transportation museum which includes exhibits on a different “scale”. The Orleans County village of Medina is where you will find the Medina Railroad Museum. It hosts one of the largest model train layouts in the nation. The expansive display features miniatures showing the many railroad companies which fostered travel and transportation for the businesses and the people of the region.

Staycation – Buhl Park – America’s Only Free Golf Course – 08/04/23

Staycation – Buhl Park – America’s Only Free Golf Course – 08/04/23

Family Life’s “Staycation Destinations”

A western Pennsylvania golf course has been open for 110 years, but in all that time, it hasn’t brought in a dime in green fees. The founder of Buhl Park in the Sharon/Hermitage area thought that the sport of golf taught so many life lessons, he wanted a place where the entire community could learn, play, and become better citizens. This is the only free nine-hole golf course in the nation.

The park’s executive director Tom Roskos gives us a tour through the genesis of Frank Buhl’s dream, how many golfers arrive to shoot a round, and the other recreational and nature opportunities at Buhl Park.

 

– – – –

“Staycation Destinations” is our weekly summer series, broadcast each Friday at noon on the radio and online, then posted to our News Podcasts page. Each offers a radio tour of a unique site in Pennsylvania or New York, close to home, relatively inexpensive, and good for a potential day trip or longer visit.

Each weekend, we also give you a “Sidetrip Suggestion” another place in our two states which stands out in a unique, quirky, or enlivening way.

“The largest living sign” in the world is in New York State’s Southern Tier. That is what Robert Ripley (of “Believe It or Not!” fame) called the arrangement of 260 Scotch Pine trees on a hillside behind the Canisteo-Greenwood School at Canisteo, NY. The name of the community first was spelled out in this way by students and their teachers as a school project in 1933.

 

 

Staycation – Ska-Nonh “Great Law of Peace” Center – Liverpool NY – 07/28/23

Staycation – Ska-Nonh “Great Law of Peace” Center – Liverpool NY – 07/28/23

Family Life’s “Staycation Destinations” for Summer 2023

“Ska-Nonh” translates into English, roughly, as “peace and wellness” or “I am glad it is well with you.”

That Native American vocabulary — and philosophy — gave the name to the Ska-nonh Great Law of Peace Center along the shore of Onandaga Lake in central New York. The Skanonh Center is a living museum which celebrates the culture, history and contributions of multiple nations which found unity they share as the Haudenosaunee People.

The Center is a project of the Onandaga Historical Association. Executive Director Lisa Moore offers us an overview of the Haudenosaunee stories, and she provides details of what visitors can experience.

  • “The things we have a tendency to overlook take on a new level of importance. In Haudenosaunee tradition, being grateful and giving thanks is a regular practice in both everyday life and at special occasions. The Thanksgiving Address, or “The Words that Come Before All Else,” is delivered in Native Haudenosaunee languages at both the beginning and the end of social gatherings, celebrations, and council meetings; and it is recited each morning at the beginning of the school day.”

 

The Ska-nonh Center is open Wednesdays through Saturdays, and is located on the Onondaga Lake Parkway at Liverpool, northwest of Syracuse. Details and schedules are here.

 

=========

This week’s Side Trip Suggestion: 

The “Shoe House” in Yorklyn, PA.

“There was an old woman, who lived in….”

You probably already heard about that one, but elsewhere, an old businessman lived and worked in a retail-store shoe. “Colonel” Mahlon Haines became a millionaire selling shoes, but in the late 1940s at age 73, he decided to spend some of his money to build a 48-foot* shoe.  He sold work boots for $1.98 there. The Shoe House became famous, as Haines offered the shoe as a free honeymoon suite (with a butler and maid) to any couple who got married in town.  You can see the outside, but tours are no longer available — unless you arrange to be a paying customer. The Shoe House (in south central Pennsylvania) has become an expensive vacation rental home.

* (that’s a measurement, not a count)

Staycation – Women’s Rights National Historical Park – Rebecca Weaver – 07/21/23

Staycation – Women’s Rights National Historical Park – Rebecca Weaver – 07/21/23

 Family Life’s “Staycation Destinations” for Summer 2023

Tucked into the Finger Lakes region of New York is the Women’s Rights National Historical Park. It’s so appropriate that this launching point of a major movement in American culture is this week’s “Staycation Destination”, because this week is the 175th anniversary which made Seneca Falls a historic site.

On July 19-20, 1848, more than 300 people gathered at the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel for a first-of-its-kind Women’s Rights Convention. The event resulted in a “Declaration of Sentiments”, a document which paralleled the Declaration of Independence of 72 years earlier and which now is recognized as the founding statement of the women’s rights movement which eventually would spread through the nation and the world. The declaration was signed by 100 women and men.

Park Ranger Rebecca Weaver gives us the inspiring stories of that Convention which predates the Civil War, details of the 175th anniversary celebration there and throughout the Seneca Falls community (July 21-23, 2023), and an inviting glimpse into what the Park offers for its visitors year-round.

During scheduled programs, reenactors portray Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and other leaders of the movement. As part of the National Park Service, the Women’s Rights Park charges no admission fees, and it is open 362 days a year.

Seneca Falls is in the Finger Lakes region, near a midpoint between Syracuse and Rochester.

– – – –

This week’s Side Trip Suggestion: 

Sculptures made of old metal highway signs.

Go a mile or so east of the Meadville exit off I-79 in western Pennsylvania, and you will see a wide-ranging quarter mile of unique art. Sculptures and panoramas at the PENNDOT facility along the north side of Highway 322 have been made from out-of-service reflective metal road signs. See if you (and your travel companions) can find anything from hot air balloons, to a Ferris Wheel, to a singing cowboy, to 3-D flower gardens. (Park at a safe place nearby, and walk along the display called “Read Between the Signs”.)

[New this summer, each of our “Staycation Destinations” podcast posts will also describe one additional tourist site in the Family Life listening area. It could be a quirky attraction, a new activity, or something else that you may discover is worth seeking out.]

Staycation – Gettysburg Beyond the Battle Museum – 07/14/23

Staycation – Gettysburg Beyond the Battle Museum – 07/14/23

            Staycation Destinations for Summer 2023

Untold hundreds of battles littered the nation when the American Civil War decimated this nation. Yet one which happened July 1-3, 1863, has become etched in U.S. history, in part because of of the two-minute, 272-word address President Abraham Lincoln would deliver to commemorate the war dead at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

A new tourist site opened there this spring (April 2023) to not only commemorate the battle, but life in that part of southern Pennsylvania.

The Gettysburg Beyond the Battle Museum certainly looks at that battle, the war, and the Gettysburg Address. Yet, the Adams County Historical Society developed its expanded museum with an expanded role — to tell the story of the local area before, during, and after the 1860s.

Michaela Shaffer, our guest for this week’s Family Life “Staycation Destinations”, offers insights into the museums artifacts, displays and interactive experiences at Beyond the Battle. Find out about Native American cultures who lived in the area. Hear how the museum as recreated for visitors a full sensory experience of what it was like to be trapped in your farmhouse when a major battle breaks out all around you. Shaffer also provides a few stories about another president — in retirement Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower returned to the Gettysburg area to buy a local farm, decades after his military career included training and service in the area. This museum features a number of areas where it is OK to touch and hold history, so it has something of interest to all ages.

Gettysburg is in the south-central section of Pennsylvania.

– – – –

This week’s Side Trip Suggestion: 

What color is the light on top of a traffic signal?  There is one in the Family Life listening area which defies the most common response.

The Tippery Hill traffic signal in Syracuse, New York is the only one in the world which is described as upside-down. The statue of a family looking at the sight might describe it that way, but the 1920s’  residents of the mostly-Irish neighborhood were fine with the Irish green above what was seen as the British red. City leaders eventually gave in, but the state insisted the colors be put in the traditional order. However, each time it was “fixed”, the traffic signal “somehow” stopped working. Once the green-on-top was allowed to stay, no further “troubles” were reported.

[New this summer, each of our “Staycation Destinations” podcast posts will also describe one additional tourist site in the Family Life listening area. It could be a quirky attraction, a new activity, or something else that you may discover is worth seeking out.]

22-0819_Staycation_Johnstown Flood Memorial

22-0819_Staycation_Johnstown Flood Memorial

The catastrophic Johnstown Flood occurred on Friday, May 31, 1889. Park Ranger Elizabeth Shope relays background of the club that owned the earthen dam that gave way and tells about Clara Barton’s rescue efforts following the torrent of destruction on the Conemaugh Valley. The Johnstown Flood National Memorial’s visitor center is located at the site of the dam.

EMAIL FAMILY LIFE

Fill out my online form.