ArcaMax

When you travel with love in your heart -- and a bit of curiosity -- even the smallest of cities become rich tapestries of experience. Our recent four-day journey to Muncie, Indiana, wasn't just an ordinary visit, however. It was a reunion, a farewell and a discovery all wrapped into one.

We arrived after a long day of planes, buses and rental ...Read more

On a farmstead near the tiny town of Eagle, Wisconsin -- population about 2,000 -- a blacksmith heats an iron rod in a fire and bangs it into a desired shape. Nearby, some women turn spindles to transform wool into yarn while others prepare food on a wood stove.

If this sounds like early pioneers who came to the New World centuries ago, it is ...Read more

In the mid-1800s, people traveling through a desert landscape in present-day California stopped at an oasis to rest and refill their canteens. Soon afterward, a way station along a stagecoach route was built there.

Fast-forward to 1915. The producer of a silent motion picture chose the place to film "Peer Gynt," a fantasy adapted from a drama ...Read more

You want me to go where on what? That was my first reaction to seeing Mount San Jacinto in Palm Springs, California, and the tramway I was supposed to ride to its top. It was a somewhat precarious option for someone not all that happy about heights.

However, once safely enclosed in the tram, which slowly ascended to the apex, I was able to ...Read more