Don’t breeze through southern Idaho without stopping to visit the quirky Museum of Clean in Pocatello, the resort town of Lava Hot Springs and the Experimental Breeder Reactor-I Atomic Museum near Arco, the world’s first city powered by nuclear energy.
Destinations don’t always live up to their hype, but the motto of this bucolic community nestled in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York (“Easy to reach ... always exceptional”) could be considered, in racing terms, right on the money.
Dating back nearly four decades, the Route 127 Yard Sale snakes through Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan.
Go back in time in the Badger State by visiting Wisconsin’s version of Colonial Williamsburg: Old World Wisconsin, which depicts 19th century rural life in the nation’s heartland; learning about the various cultures (Ojibwe, French, English and American) that have called Madeline Island home at its museum; and eating at the Duck Inn Supper Club in Delavan, which was built in 1920 during Prohibition and still has its trap door.
Connecticut’s Mystic Seaport Museum, with its many historic vessels and a re-created village, aims to whisk visitors away to seaside life in the mid-19th century.
A 1 1/2-mile trail will take visitors past more than 60 lifelike dinosaur models at Dinosaur Place, and other activities such as a maze and water play area also await.
Newport, R.I., was popular with Gilded Age moguls who built seaside summer getaways there more than a century ago. And The Breakers, built by the Vanderbilt family, is the grandest of them all. With more than 70 rooms, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994.
Named for the abandoned plan to ship peanut oil from the island, Peanut Island, a nearly 80-acre haven tucked just inside the Lake Worth (Palm Beach) Inlet in the Intracoastal Waterway, is only accessible by boat. Aside from boating and snorkeling, visitors can also swim, fish, camp or stroll a 1.25-mile scenic walking trail.
Spots where Elvis Presley reflected and Frank Sinatra reclined are among the hidden spaces, places and items found in Las Vegas theaters.
