Rene Cizio's Blog, page 9

The PEZ Visitor’s Center is Pop Culture Nostalgia

PEZ candy dispensers have been an iconic part of childhood since the 1930s, but did you know there’s a PEZ Visitor’s Center museum dedicated to their history and cultural relevance? Not too far from New Haven, Connecticut, inside the PEZ factory, you can see hundreds of different PEZ dispensers and watch the famous candy being made. Which child doesn’t remember PEZ dispensers and the secret thrill of seeing those colorful, square sugar tablets pop out when you tip the character’s head back? I still love PEZ candy and am delighted to see the new dispensers during the holiday season. During my nearly two-year-long road trip, I spent a few weeks in the area, and when I saw the PEZ Visitor’s Center was open for tours, I had to stop. The PEZ Visitor’s Center The PEZ Visitor’s Center is inside the factory, making and distributing billions of PEZ each year. It’s also the largest, most comprehensive collection of PEZ memorabilia on display in the world. Because it’s also a factory in an industrial complex off the freeway, but you’ll find it easily from the three giant 50-foot PEZ candy packs affixed to the side of the building. Right away, you’ll know […]

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10 Iconic Things to Do in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Finding things to do in Philadelphia isn’t hard; deciding what you’ll do will be a challenge. Philadelphia is worth visiting because it’s the birthplace of the United States, where the founding fathers formed a new country. It’s also a UNESCO-designated World Heritage city. I spent several days rambling around, and each brought a discovery, place to visit, or fascinating historical fact to add to my quickly increasing bank of Philadelphia historical knowledge. No place in the country is so preeminent in our minds as America’s. If you’ve ever thought about the American revolution, constitution, politics, or governance, chances are the visual image in your mind includes Philadelphia. For me, it was due time to see it for myself. Independence National Historical Park There are 62 National Historic Parks and 83 National Historical Sites in the U.S. Of those, 19 are in Philadelphia, but this one is tops. This park spans sites around Philadelphia, including historic buildings, artifacts, structures and landscapes any American school student will be familiar. If you’re looking for things to do in Philadelphia, you can’t miss these sites. The National Park Service has spectacularly preserved and reconstructed Philadelphia’s history. It’s only too bad that our zest for […]

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Help Save Monarch Butterflies with this Unique Gift Idea

This holiday season, do something different and help save Monarch Butterflies while delighting your friends and family. Save Our Monarchs, a non-profit organization dedicated to saving endangered Monarch butterflies sells milkweed seed packets all year, but for the holiday season, they’re selling special Christmas-themed packets. These Christmas-themed milkweed seed packets are the perfect gift to include in Christmas cards, stocking stuffers, or pass out as gifts this holiday season. There are two designs to choose from. One is a snowman waving into the night sky as Santa and his team of reindeer fly past. The other features a pair of charming gnomes dancing with a Christmas tree and a snowman. Each seed packet contains enough milkweed seeds to help you ensure you’ll get some plants to feed the Monarchs when they come back to North America in the spring. The Monarch Butterfly Migration Every autumn, the Monarch Butterfly migration takes place with millions of butterflies traveling over 3,000 miles from northeastern North America to spend the winter in the forests of southwestern Mexico. There are four preserves about two hours outside Mexico City, where visitors can see the butterflies high up in the mountain. Last year, I was very fortunate […]

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Exploring the Eerie Energy Inside Eastern State Penitentiary

Some say Eastern State Penitentiary is haunted. It’s haunting; energy lingers and clings, calling for notice as you walk past empty, ruined cells. Block after block; these small, featureless rooms now hold only impressions of those who once dwelled there, locked in perpetual isolation. There’s a heaviness in those cell blocks, and though hundreds walk through them daily, an eerie silence permeates everything. Like the people who used to be locked inside, we sense this is not a place for frolic or happy times. Inside those lonely little rooms, amid the rusting metal bed frames, and crumbling plaster, there is desolation that threatens to overwhelm. Energy in Eastern State Penitentiary Everything has energy and each person has an “energy” about them. Even the most skeptical can feel the positive or negative vibrations that individual humans or animals exude. Collectively we create a shared energy when we assemble in a place or over a cause. When energy collects for long periods in one place, especially if it is the same type of energy, highly emotional, or in large amounts over long periods, it lingers. Inside Eastern State Penitentiary, you can feel the oppressive, sad, lost, hopeless energy throughout its halls. It […]

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11 Fun Things to Do in Baltimore, Maryland

I spent a week looking for fun things to do in Baltimore, and it wasn’t difficult. As I journeyed up the east coast on my long road trip, I looked for places with history, charm, art and architecture, and Baltimore did not disappoint. This historic harbor town provided all of that and more. Plus, it reminded me of my home – Detroit, Michigan, where I was born and raised. The historic town on the water used to be an industrial shipping community, but now much of the industry has been converted into cultural activities, living spaces and small businesses. Here are a few of the things to do in Baltimore that I enjoyed. 1 George Peabody Library As an avid reader, author and book lover, I was excited to see the George Peabody Library. If you like books, you’ll find it’s the Instagram-worthy library of your dreams. Built in 1878, the stacks comprise five tiers of ornamental cast-iron balconies that stretch up toward a massive skylight 61 feet above the floor with books all the way to the top. It is, in a word, stunning. Those floors combined hold about 300,000 books, mainly from the 19th century, including rare Edgar […]

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What Strange Beds Teach a Traveler

These strange beds are too small, too firm, too tall, or too big. I can’t remember the last time I slept in a bed I found flawless. But I long for it. You know that feeling of sinking into your bed at the end of a long, tedious day. It’s as if you can fluff your pillow, pull the covers up, and disappear on a cloud. It’s been almost two years since I’ve had that feeling. I’ve been on a road trip, hopping from state to state and staying in short-term rentals. I’ve slept in 25 different beds, but none were my own. As Goldilocks knew when she went for a walk in the forest, a bed is a very personal, important thing. Lately, I’ve thought of her as I laid on beds too hard, too soft and, well, I haven’t found one just right. My perfect bed is locked in a storage unit somewhere in Chicago. I’ve learned a lot about humans by the way we make our beds. Each of us has a history of good and bad beds that form our preferences for how we sleep at night. Our beds are our private island. They’re the safe […]

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Unravel the Mystery of the Edgar Allan Poe sites

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary … about how many Edgar Allan Poe sites there are on the east coast and why I needed to solve this mystery. I’d been on a road trip for over a year as I made my way up the east coast. The trip took several months, and as I went, I became confused; it seemed like every major city I visited had an Edgar Allan Poe house, room, site or museum. But how many could there be, I wondered? As I drove, they kept popping up, so I decided to figure out how this happened. Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. He is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and macabre. He was one of the first to write intuitive, psychological horror; his most famous is “The Raven.” Although Poe didn’t make much from The Raven, it led to international success and opportunities enabling him to become the first American writer to live entirely from his earnings. When I travel, I frequently visit the sites attributed to writers and artists, and Poe was an intriguing study, […]

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11 Fun Things to do Near Madison, Virginia

There are so many fun things to do near Madison, Virginia; you may be surprised. When I recently stayed for a month, I was shocked at how places and activities on my ever-growing list of things to do kept expanding. It was astonishing since I’d never heard of the place before renting a little cottage there. But it ended up being an idyllic location in the Shenandoah Valley within just two hours of many premiere Virginia locations and attractions. Plus, there are several wineries, breweries, a ton of incredible history, and beautiful scenery. That the land is beautiful goes without saying when Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, James Madison and Herbert Hoover all had homes in the area. It’s a place that holds its history dearly and still commemorates Hoover’s 1929 visit to the area yearly. Downtown Madison is a short stretch of historic architecture from of 18th and 19th centuries, and many are now museums. Going past the extensive vineyards and driving down Main Street is like traveling back in time, but with enough modern amenities that anyone can enjoy the experience. Here are a few fun things to do near Madison, Virginia or within a few hours’ drive. […]

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Touring Luray Caverns and the World’s Biggest “Stalacpipe” Organ

Luray Caverns in Virginia is the third most-visited cave system in the United States, and it’s the only one with a stalagmite pipe organ. I’ve been known to say if you’ve seen one cave, you’ve seen them all, but this one promised to be unique.    Each day roughly 3,500 people from all over the world take the one-hour tour through Luray Caverns. When I recently pulled into the massive parking lot after driving two hours in relative solitude, I was amazed at the number of cars in the lot. Fun Fact: According to the National Park Service, Mammoth Cave in Kentucky is the most visited, drawing 300,000 visitors each year. Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico is second. About Luray Caverns The Luray Caverns are a United States National Landmark in the Shenandoah Valley, just west of the Blue Ridge/Appalachian Mountains in Luray, Virginia. No matter which direction you drive from, you’ll travel through wide-open swaths of land, rolling hills and tiny historic towns. Then, in stark contrast, the commercial ecosystem surrounding the caverns to support all the visitors becomes evident. The Luray Caverns were discovered in 1878 and opened in 1882 below Cave Hill. Before the discovery, the area was curious due to its many […]

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Why You Should Visit Arlington National Cemetery

When you first enter Arlington National Cemetery, the tranquility is striking. Then, as you walk among the many perfectly uniform white headstones, you are quietly humbled and, finally, seeing the magnitude of our dead, sad but proud. There far many more graves than I could comprehend. There are 600+ acres in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Though I knew it was large, nothing prepares you for the immensity of so many uniform graves. That they represent only a tiny fraction of our military dead is stunning. Presidents in Arlington National Cemetery I headed from the visitor’s center to President John F. Kennedy’s grave. As I marched past the silent rows, I joined hundreds of other people visiting the cemetery that day. As a taphophile, I visit cemeteries worldwide, but I’m usually alone. Cemeteries, I often lament, are too often under visited, but not this one. At the top of a hill, in sight of the Washington Monument, Kennedy’s grave is simpler than I expected. It’s a circular granite walkway and, at the grave, an eternal flame. The flame burns from the center of a five-foot circular granite stone at the head of the grave and, as the name implies, […]

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