Wardensville and Lost River, WV

Location: Wardensville and Lost River, West Virginia, USA
Date Visited: June 2014

My car was done for, so I sold it to the nice people at Tim's Garage in Wardensville, on whose lot it had been sitting since they towed it from the spot where it died on the side of the road. Afterward, my friend and I explored the area a bit, including lunch at Star Mercantile, where I had homemade macaroni and cheese with Little Smokies. Delicious! Good thing it's in the middle of nowhere or I'd eat there all the time.

Moorefield, WV

Location: Moorefield, West Virginia, USA
Date Visited: June 2014

When my car overheated and refused to start up again, I found myself stranded in Moorefield for the night at the South Branch Inn. All the rooms were themed; mine was called The Ride the High Five Room, which is apparently a brochure of motorcycle routes through five nearby counties. The room itself was fine, if a bit overrun with ants, and the staff were quite friendly. Lucky for me, Wal-Mart was an easy walk down the road so I could pick up toiletries and other necessities for an unexpected overnight stay. Ordinarily I wouldn't devote a GST spread to a hotel, but it certainly counts as part of my adventures.

Romney, WV

Location: Romney, West Virginia, USA
Date Visited: June 2014

Fort Mill Ridge is a quiet, out-of-the-way park up in the mountains south of Romney. I enjoyed the short interpretive trail. I also appreciated how many of the pamphlets for this part of the world included pictures of historical markers, since that's pretty much the entire point of my visit in the first place.

Baltimore, MD

Location: Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Date Visited: April 2014

In celebration of a friend's birthday, we wandered about Baltimore, including Mother Seton House, Baltimore Basilica, Phoenix Shot Tower, and the surprisingly thorough little Maryland Historical Society museum. A lovely day all around.

Shenandoah County, VA

Location: Strasburg, Mount Jackson, New Market, Edinburg, Toms Brook, and Woodstock, Virginia, USA
Date Visited: March 2014

I started my day at the Cedar Creek Battlefield Park and spent most of my day exploring this picturesque county. I was pleased to find some more Civil War trading cards, as I like to call them.

Glen Echo, MD

Location: Glen Echo, Maryland, USA
Date Visited: March 2014

I may have gone a little bit overboard with my spreads, but I really liked the photos in the pamphlets. Glen Echo Park is a semi-abandoned amusement park from the early 1900s. I say semi-abandoned because clearly a national park isn't abandoned, but it's no longer an amusement park and most of the buildings have been left more or less untouched on the outside. It's a center for the arts now, with the carousel the only still-functioning attraction. It's a lot smaller than I'd realized, and while it was interesting to look at, I think a gifted photographer like my husband would have a field day there. Maybe sometime in the summer I might go back to see the carousel, which was closed for the season.

Nearby is the Clara Barton National Historic Site, which offers hourly tours. Unfortunately I arrived ten minutes after the hour and was too tired to try again after wandering around the park. Still, I enjoyed reading about her and seeing her house.

Frederick County, VA

Location: Middletown and Stephens City, Virginia, USA
Visited: January 2014

Admittedly, I only visited these towns on my way to Winchester, but they were quite nice all the same. You really can't beat the scenery: one of my favorite sights is the Appalachian mountains at dawn.

Winchester, VA

Location: Winchester, Virginia, USA
Visited: January 2014

First Glue Stick Tourism of the new year! This was another one of my "pick a place and go" trips. I made a detailed snarf map, started first thing in the morning, and continued from sunrise to sunset. I logged some 180 markers over the course of the day and had a fine time. I think my favorite stop was Mt. Hebron Cemetery, but I'm partial to graveyards to begin with. I also took a tour of the Old Court House Civil War Museum, though it didn't hold the answer to my more burning question: how did they get those cannons up to the second floor?

Dubuque, IA

Location:Dubuque, Iowa, USA
Date visited: December 2013

While visiting my family over Christmas, my aunt, my cousin, and I went tooling around town, looking at all the old buildings. It's a beautiful old river town, one my family's lived in for generations. We even watched some bald eagles fishing on the partly-frozen Mississippi River. Oh yeah, and the Killer Bee shots were pretty delicious. :)

Centreville, VA

Location: Centreville, Virginia, USA
Date visited: October 2013

On a rainy furloughed day, my friend and I took advantage of the time off to visit the Stuart Mosby Civil War Cavalry Museum right here in my home town. I visited once before a few years ago during their open house, but the collection is much more extensive now. We were also treated to a common perk at such tiny museums: a private tour of everything. The men working there were extremely knowledgeable and personable. Good times.

Cologne, Germany

Location: Cologne, Germany
Date visited: April 2013

The Cologne Cathedral Treasury is full of bejeweled golden goodies, most of which contain body parts from saints. Glitzy and creepy, all in one.

Bonn, Germany

Location: Bonn, Germany
Date visited: April 2013

One of the highlights of our trip was Beethoven House. He only lived there the first few years of his life, but it's the only Beethoven residence in Bonn still standing, so it's been turned into a museum. We sprung the extra 2 Euro for the audio tour, which was good because all of the signage was in German and we would have had no idea what we were looking at. The whole place was fascinating. There were a lot of the original instruments, as well as more personal things like ear trumpets. The audio tour also let you hear what the instruments actually sound like when playing Beethoven's music. The most heartbreaking part was when they played Beethoven's music as he would have heard it at various points in his life. "Ode to Joy" was basically unrecognizable, it was so muffled. The entire experience was pretty unforgettable.

I am unreasonably proud of my "many faces of Beethoven" page. I like how he looks all grumpy in all the pictures except the Beethoven who wants to give you a hug.

Cologne, Germany

Location: Cologne, Germany
Date visited: April 2013

Cologne Cathedral is probably the most impressive church I've ever entered. It's simply amazing. I tried to include the most representative pictures but photos just do not do it justice. Every corner reveals more amazing art and architecture. Definitely somewhere worth seeing. The boat tour on the Rhine, however, was less interesting. We mostly went on it as an excuse to get my husband off his feet for a while.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Date visited: April 2013

By far our favorite place in Copenhagen was the Nationalmuseet (national museum). It was informative, entertaining, and free! There were bog people galore - apparently the ancient Danish were into human sacrifice via tossing people into the bog, so they're all really well preserved. The museum itself used to be some sort of castle, and a few of the rooms were decorated as they were when folks were still living there. All in all, it was a really great place to explore, and their brunch buffet was pretty darn tasty too.

Cologne, Germany

Location: Cologne, Germany
Date visited: April 2013

The NS Documentation Center is a Socialism museum housed in an old Gestapo prison. The graffiti on the walls of the basement cells was haunting, but the upper floors had no English signage. It appeared to be an in-depth history of the Nazi party, but since everything was in German we didn't really know what was going on. It's something that I'm glad I visited, but I would have gotten so much more out of it had I been able to read the captions.

Gothenburg, Sweden

Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Date visited: April 2013

We did not spend nearly enough time in Gothenburg. Though originally we went for the 2013 BookCrossing Convention, we'd go back in a heartbeat. The people are nice, the city is beautiful, and there's plenty to see. Included in these pages are Flying Barrel (delicious), Haga (would like to see when it's not pouring rain, thanks), the Poseidon statue (which I made horrible comments about), and Skansen Kronen (which we stumbled upon entirely by accident). Wish we could have spent another several days there. Maybe next time.

Cologne, Germany

Location: Cologne, Germany
Date visited: April 2013

Gross Sankt Martin isn't the most impressive church in Cologne, but it's still quite lovely to visit. My favorite pamphlets to include in these spreads are ones that include photographs of the interiors, especially big panoramas that really show the scope of the place.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Date visited: April 2013

To be honest, we weren't that impressed with Copenhagen. It was okay, but honestly we could have skipped it. But we tried to make the most of it while we were there, and did kind of enjoy our random tour of Christiansborg Palace. We checked out the castle ruins underneath, which weren't the most interesting (yay for unidentifiable piles of rocks!), but the video about the history of the building was unintentionally humorous, as it seems to have had a problem with fire. After the second conflagration we started making jokes about the king of Swamp Castle from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "So I built a third castle. That one burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp!" Later we wandered into the chapel portion of the castle and learned that it too had burned down on another occasion. We decided to leave before the building caught fire again, as it was clearly overdue.

The National Book Festival

Location: Washington, DC, USA
Visited: September 2013

The National Book Festival is an annual event to celebrate books and reading. It's mostly author talks and a Pavilion of the States, where each state library system with information and stuff for the kids. It's not my favorite festival (too crowded and usually none of the authors are anyone I'd want to see) but sometimes I go with some of my fellow BookCrossing buddies. I particularly liked the artwork on the program this year. Too bad it poured rain all afternoon.

The National Holocaust Museum

Location: National Holocaust Museum, Washington, DC, USA
Visited: September 2013

I almost didn't make a spread for this museum, thinking it might be construed as disrespectful, but I think it's more important for me to remember my experiences here. You can't take photographs inside, so these pamphlets are my only real reminders of the collection and its impact on me.

The National Postal Museum

Location: National Postal Museum, Washington, DC, USA
Visited: June 2013

This is a cute little museum and a definite must-see for any lover of snail mail. It's kind of a pain in the butt for me to get to (as is anything on the red line of the Metro) but well worth visiting. I was there on a day when they had a stamp collecting kiosk, so I pasted the ones I picked out on this page.