I arrived in St. Paul Minnesota, early on Saturday morning for the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) conference. After checking into the hotel and getting a short nap, I attended several presentations and ended the day at their awards dinner. I kept my acceptance of their Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research…
Business and Pleasure–Day One: Mammoth Cave National Park
This trip would allow me to combine a little business (receiving recognition for my second book, Recorded Solo Concert Spirituals, 1916-2022) and a lot of vacation. My initial plan was to visit two national parks, including finally getting to Montana’s Glacier National Park. I left home base before midnight on May 16th because I was…
King Tut-ing
There are so many exhibits and activities going on that I sometimes feel like I have to use “eenie-meanie-minee-moe” to decide what to see or do. When I saw the ad announcing the exhibit, Tutankhamun: His Tomb and His Treasures, I had to go. The exhibition consisted of reconstructed objects, film, and narration based on…
Seein’ the DMV: Touring the City
I was born and raised in North Carolina, spent a decade in the Florida panhandle, and just finished 18 winters in Iowa. Between those periods, however, I have lived in the District of Columbia/Maryland/Virginia (known as the DMV to residents) area. And like most folks who live here, I tended to vacation somewhere else. So,…
Call Me Crazy, But…
I am planning to attend the 2024 Association of Recorded Sound Collections conference to receive an award for my book, Recorded Solo Concert Spirituals, 1916-2022. The conference is in St. Paul, Minnesota, so I want to take advantage of the opportunity to get some of the national parks–especially Glacier in Montana. The current proposal is…
Totally Eclipsed–Cuyahoga Valley National Park
I got up Sunday morning before the scheduled solar eclipse feeling better than I had in several day, but I wasn’t convinced that I should make the approximately seven-hour drive to Cuyahoga National Park to observe the total eclipse. From my residence in Maryland, I could set up on the outside deck and get the…
Cherry Blossoms Cruisin’
I invited my DC siblings (Debra, Chuck and Gerry) to join me on a lunch cruise to view the flowering cherry blossoms lining the Washington Channel and Potomac River in Washington, DC. The Cherry Blossom Festival connected to the blooming of these trees is a major event held during the Spring. Traffic to and from…
Catching Up and Looking Ahead
In the months since I last posted, I made my move from Iowa to Maryland, or the DMV (DC/Maryland/Virginia). It was wonderful to spend my first Thanksgiving in years with my family. It was also nearly as wonderful to miss the 20 inches of snow that fell in Iowa and below zero temperatures they experienced…