love the layover

Love the layover: At DFW? Go to Grapevine!

Holidays, Layover, ,

If you’ve got a few hours to spend before or between flights at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Grapevine is a great, ‘secret’ place to spend it – especially this time of year.

grapvine santa

Like the airport, Grapevine is located between Dallas and Fort Worth, and its historic downtown – packed with shops, restaurants, winery-tasting rooms, public art, art galleries, a ‘performing’ Glockenspiel Clock Tower, the Vetro Glassblowing Studio & Gallery (where you can design and help make your own glass projects), vintage railroad and other attractions – is easy to get to by hopping on the Grapevine Visitors Shuttle bus, which operates daily and stops at the Grand Hyatt DFW as it makes its way to destinations in and around town.

Fares on the shuttle are $5 per person and $10 for a family (2 adults + kids up to age 18).

Grapevine lays claim to being the Christmas Capital of Texas, so this time of year is an especially good time to head for Historic Downtown Grapevine.

Among the seasonal highlights are:

A nightly light show and a chance to sing-along with the city’s Christmas tree.

Through January 15, 2015, “Crafting Christmas: Hand-Carved Santas from Around the World” is an exhibit in Grapevine’s Grand Gallery in the Grapevine Convention & Visitors Bureau headquarters building, right downtown.

Victorian-style Christmas decorations, entertainment, parades and hay rides are all part of Grapevine’s Christmas on Main – and although tickets aboard the North Pole Express via the Grapevine Vintage Railroad appear to be mostly sold out already, it should be fun to visit the railroad terminal right downtown as well as the Palace Theater, which will be hosting holiday concerts and showing holiday films, including ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ ‘White Christmas,” and ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas.’

grapevine santa gals

Love the layover: more offbeat museums

Exhibits, Fun Stuff, History, Layover, , , ,

In a previous post, I told you about some of the offbeat museums I included in my Bizarre Museums slide-show for Bing Travel.

That list included Leila’s Hair Museum in Independence, Mo., the Museum of Bad Art in Dedham, Ma., and the Plumbing Museum in Watertown, Ma.  The Cockroach Hall of Fame, in Plano, Tx. was also on that list. It’s where more than two dozen costumed and preserved award-winning cockroaches are on display, including the bejeweled, piano-playing Liberoachi.

Liberoachi plays on forever at the Cockroach Hall of Fame

Here are few more unusual museums from the story:

If this museum could talk, it would slur its words.

In Bardstown, Ky., the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History traces American whiskey history back to the 1700s with displays of liquor memorabilia ranging from moonshine stills and antique bottles to Abraham Lincoln’s liquor license and the hatchet used by temperance crusader Carrie Nation.

Vacuum or Lamp? Both!

They suck — and that’s why several dozen antique, vintage and just plain wacky suction-producing cleaning devices are displayed at the Vacuum Museum inside Stark’s Vacuums in Portland, Ore. Some of the most unusual models offered time-saving conveniences. Our favorites: vacuum cleaners that double as hair dryers, neck vibrators, lamps or footstools, for those quick clean-ups in the den.

Giant Shoe Museum in Seattle

Giant shoes: not just for clowns

Compact and coin-operated, the Giant Shoe Museum displays about 20 giant shoes dating from the 1890s to the 1950s. A feature of Old Seattle Paperworks in the Pike Place Market in Seattle, the oversized footwear includes The Colossus, a 5-foot-long black leather wingtip from the 1920s, and a shoe worn by Robert Wadlow, once the world’s tallest man.

Want to see more unusual museums? See the Museum Monday post here on StuckatTheAirport.com and check out the full story with 14 Bizarre Museums – on Bing Travel.

Museum Monday: hair, cockroaches, plumbing and more

Fun Stuff, Layover, Museum Monday, Museums, , , , ,

Thousands of museums in the United States document important events and valuable objects.

But if it’s the funny and offbeat you’re after, hightail it to the Plumbing Museum, the Pencil Sharpener Museum and these other offbeat and somewhat off-kilter places I profiled in a recent slide-show story titled Bizarre Museums for Bing Travel.

Here’s a sampling:

Established to celebrate “the labor of artists whose work would be displayed and appreciated in no other forum,” the three galleries operated by the Museum of Bad Art in the Boston area celebrate paintings that have “gone horribly awry in either concept or execution.” Rescued from trash heaps, yard sales, thrift stores and attics, the collection now includes more than 600 works of art, all of them bad — but in a good way.

Whether it’s a good hair day or a bad one, Leila Cohoon is happy to weave stories about the history of hair and take visitors through Leila’s Hair Museum in Independence, Mo. The carefully coiffed collection includes locks snipped from the manes of celebrities, 400 framed Victorian hair wreaths and more than 2,000 pieces of antique brooches, bracelets, necklaces and other jewelry made entirely with, or containing, human hair.

Located, appropriately enough, in Watertown, Mass., the Plumbing Museum’s collection snakes back to the 18th century and includes antique sinks, toilets, water closets and bathtubs as well as historic tools of the trade. If you’re curious about water mains, overflows and septic tanks, this museum devoted to piping technology through the ages will help flush out the answers.

When he’s not out removing unwanted critters from private homes, pest-control expert Michael Bohdan is tending to his Cockroach Hall of Fame and Museum in Plano, Texas. The museum features live insects, such as Madagascar hissing cockroaches, and more than two dozen costumed and preserved cockroaches, including the bejeweled, piano-playing Liberoachi and the sexy Marilyn Monroach.

Get the picture? There are 14 offbeat museums featured in the Bing Travel story, Bizarre Museums.
I’ll let you contemplate these a while and post a few more tomorrow.

Have I missed your favorite offbeat museum? Drop a note in the comment section below and perhaps your recommendation will be featured on a future edition of StuckatTheAirport.com’s Museum Monday.

Fresh art at Phoenix and Austin airports

Air Travel, Art, Exhibits, Layover, Museums, , , , ,

Stuck at the airport?  Look around. You may find an art exhibit right around the corner.

A new exhibit at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport- Fiber Art Unraveled: Material and Process – features work by 19 Arizona artists.

Here are a few samples:

Nick Georgiou’s Green Reindeer is made from newspapers and discarded books;

Clare Verstegen’s Compass is made with screen-printed wool, felt and birch plywood;

And Carol Eckert’s, The Raven Addresses the Animals is made with cotton embroidery thread and wire.

Fiber Art Unraveled: Material and Process will be on display until September 21, 2011 at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), Terminal 4, Level 3 in eight display cases outside the security checkpoints.

At Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), the newest exhibit shows off beads and beadwork from members of the Austin Bead Society (ABS) and includes vintage African trading beads, handmade jewelry  and the work of 20 Austin artists, including this polymer clay face framed with bead embroidery by Laura Zeiner.

AUSTIN Airport beadwork on display

The beadwork exhibit at Austin Bergstrom International Airport will be on display through October 18, 2010 in the airport concourse showcases, post-security, across from gates 7-11.

Have you seen some great art while you were stuck at the airport?

Love the layover: Museum of Bags and Purses

Art, Exhibits, Layover, Museums, ,

There are a lot of things to love about Amsterdam, including the canals, The Van Gogh Museum, The Rijksmuseum, the cheese, the bicycles and the chocolate.   On my most recent visit, I discovered one more: The Museum of Bags and Purses Hendrikje.

The 4000 piece collection includes pouches, pockets, purses, suitcases and accessories dating back to the 16th century and tells a wide variety of stories about fashion, art, history, decorative arts, and industrial innovations.

Here a just a few of my favorite items in the collection, starting with, of course, this assortment of trunks and suitcases:

This bag is actually a working telephone!

And this tortoise-shell bag inlaid with mother of pearl is the purse that started the collection.

Love the layover: See Donald Duck & Madonna at Keukenhof on a Schiphol layover

Exhibits, Layover, , , ,

I first learned about Keukenhof last year, when the historic 80-acre park that bursts forth each spring with 70 million tulips, hyacinths, daffodils and other flowering bulbs was celebrating its 60th anniversary with, among other things, an installation of flowers at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.

Even to someone who can barely keep a houseplant alive, I liked the idea of seeing acres of Holland’s tulip fields in bloom and of strolling through a park filled with so many perfectly planted display gardens.  And once I discovered that you can get to the park by public bus from Schiphol, I was sold.

So on arrival in Amsterdam this week I stashed my bags and headed out to the gardens.

Tulip fields

The perfectly tended-do gardens are as advertised: a festival of colors, aromas, and landscapes laid out along footpaths that are dotted with water features, foot bridges, artwork, play spaces and pavilions filled with – more flowers.  There’s even a Walk of Fame with flowers named for Donald Duck, Madonna, and other celebrities.

Some of the flowers, especially a few of the unusually-shaped and colored tulips, don’t look real. But, of course, they are. That why, as popular as is it, Keukenhof’s spring garden is only open to the public for eight weeks a year.  This year’s closing day is May 16th.  So if you’ve got a layover at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport before then, take the #58 bus out to see the gardens. If not, add the gardens to your ‘must see’ list and schedule your next trip with a long layover at Schiphol.


(Keukenhof photos courtesy: Keukenhof)

Tulips at Keukenhof

Love the layover: airport adventures on Oahu and the Big Island

Air Travel, Airport shops, Art, Aviation history, Exhibits, Free Stuff, Fun Stuff, Layover, , , , ,

Snowstorms, mudslides, rain, more rain, and tornadoes.

Sounds like a good time for a trip to Hawaii.

If you go, or just want to dream a bit about going, be sure to check out the slide-show I put together for MSNBC.com – Cheap and Offbeat Oahu – about activities that are free, cheap or bit offbeat.

Included: the tale of the fish auction that takes place 6 days a week, beginning at 5:30 am;

Information about a free exhibit at the Hawaii State Art Museum that’s filled with historical objects and photographic portraits that tell the history of Hula,


(These pot holders are not in the exhibition, but you can buy them at the airport..)

And a reminder to travelers that there are a trio of tranquil cultural gardens – Japanese, Chinese and Hawaiian – inside the Honolulu International Airport (HNL)

If you’re going to go to Oahu, you should also pop over to the Big Island.  And if you do, you’ll be able to visit the Astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka Space Center at the Kona International Airport.  On January 28, 1986, all seven crew members were killed when NASA’s Space Shuttle Challenger exploded less than two minutes after launch. One of those crew members, Ellison S. Onizuka, was Hawaii’s first astronaut.

To space center has oodles of fun, hands-on activities as well as exhibits that include a moon rock from the final moon landing of Apollo 17 in 1972, an authentic NASA space suite, and personal items that belonged to Ellison Onizuka.

My favorite items in the collection are the freeze-dried macadamia nuts and the freeze-dried Kona coffee that NASA created especially for Onizuka. Today’s astronauts can still choose these items from the space menu.

Cheap air fares to London: then what?

Free Stuff, Museums, , , ,

london-eye-introstandard

There are plenty of worthwhile things to spend money on in London, including theater tickets, fine meals, shopping and a ride on the London Eye or in an iconic black cab. But there are also loads of attractions, museums and special sights that are very inexpensive and many where admission doesn’t cost a penny.

Two, totally-free hidden gems I recently discovered: The Wellcome Collection and the Grant Museum of Zoology, pretty much around the corner from each other.

The Wellcome Collection has oodles of offbeat health and medicine-related objects on display, including shrunken heads, a brass corset, antique artificial limbs and Napoleon Bonaparte’s toothbrush.

wellcome-collection - napoleon's toothbrush

The Grant Museum of Zoology is jam-packed with skeletons, fluid-preserved specimens ranging from tiny fish to giant reptiles, and all manner of taxidermied animals, including this cute elephant shrew.

grant-museum-elephant_shrew_taxidermyhmedium

For more cheap, cool places to spend your time in London, see my article posted today on MSNBC.com.

Love the layover: elevator ride in Paris

Hotels, ,

If I had a one-day layover in Paris, I’d probably spend a few hours at the Musée du Louvre and then head to the Eiffel Tower for an elevator ride to the top.

Or I might just save my euros and visit the new Radisson Blu Le Dokhan’s Hotel, Paris Trocadéro and spend some time drinking champagne and riding the elevator there.

paris-trunk-small

The boutique hotel is housed in a former private residence in the 16th arrondissement and was the site of Paris’ first champagne bar. They’ve still got a champagne bar on site – and they have an elevator made from a single, vintage Louis Vuitton wardrobe trunk believed to have belonged to the Dokhan family, who were the original owners of the private residence.

Love the layover: eat sweets

Food

If you were disappointed with your drugstore chocolates this Valentine’s weekend, then take a tour of the Sweet Travel Blog and find out where the really great treats are around the world.

Julia, the person who maintains this blog, started researching sweets in Japan and has just kept going, sweetly, around the world.

jalebi

Read about her latest finds, like these  Indian treats called jalebi – which she describes as “big swirls of blaze orange dough, deep fried and soaked in sugar syrup” – and then dip back through the 85 posts she penned about the amazing sweets she encountered in Japan.

japanese-candy

Think all these sweets will make you fat? No way, says Julia,  who believes that “calories don’t count when you’re carrying your own bags.”

I hope she’s right!

(Photos courtesy Sweet Travel blog)