Travel

By Renée S. Gordon “A ship, like a human being, moves best when it is slightly athwart the wind, when it has to keep its sails tight and attend its course…” —Chesapeake From the first European sighting of the Chesapeake Bay area, by Spanish explorers in the 1520s, the region has been lauded for its…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  Cannon’s Ferry Boardwalk By Renée S. Gordon “When they told me my new-born babe was a girl, my heart was heavier than it had ever been before. Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women.”  –Harriet Ann Jacobs Edenton’s designation as the “South’s prettiest town” is well deserved….

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By Renée S. Gordon Edenton is the second oldest town authorized by legislation in North Carolina and it has been a witness to and participant in our nation’s history for more than 300 years. It is known as the prettiest town in the South and has been designated by the Smithsonian as “one of the…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  Illinois Monument and Cannons By Renée S. Gordon The Delta Blues is a singularly American musical art form that evolved over time and because many of the early musicians were not literate they left scant information about the music they played. We do know that one of the earliest people to document hearing…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  Bluefront Cafe By Renée S. Gordon “The region is often shrouded in romance and myth but its realities are as intriguing, as intricate, as its legends.”  –William Ferris The Mississippi Delta is one of the most recognized regions in the world. International sojourners travel from around the globe to visit the sites deemed…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  Louisiana Sport Hall of Fame By Renée S. Gordon The Caddo Indians who inhabited the area now known as Shreveport told of a legendary creature that grew, sucked the life out of the river and made the land uninhabitable for animal and human life. Early documents from 1722 came to recognize the creature…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  Nottoway By Renée S. Gordon “Somewhere lives a bad Cajun cook, just as somewhere must live one last ivory-billed woodpecker. For me, I don’t expect ever to encounter either one.” –William Trogdon 1982 Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, the world’s longest bridge over water, is one of the world’s architectural wonders. It is actually two…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  Antoine’s Restaurant By Renée S. Gordon “To jazz, or not to jazz, there is no question!”      –Louis Armstrong Louisiana is not just a physical place, but also a state of mind and the mere mention of the name conjures up warm feelings and images of good times. It has been a…

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By Renée S. Gordon “How lazily the sun goes down in Granada, it hides beneath the water, it conceals in the Alhambra.”  –Ernest Hemingway It is believed that Córdoba was originally settled by Carthaginians and became a Roman city in 152 BC. In 45 BC, Julius Caesar killed more than 15,000 Córdobans in retaliation for…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  Toledo By Renée S. Gordon “I paint because the spirits whisper madly inside my head.”  –El Greco Toledo was a Celtic settlement long before it entered the pages of history around 193 BC during the time of the Roman conquest. Tito Livio documents the city as “Toletum,” meaning “raised aloft,” because of its…

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