Wilkommen in Texas Hill Country

America, Culture, History, Travel

Hill Country settlements between Austin and San Antonio, 80 miles apart in south-central Texas, now form one of the most attractive and historic regions in the entire state. Young families yearn to move there for the good schools and a breezy lifestyle. Chocolate shops, cast-iron-pan factories, and gourmet-salsa-makers thrive. Nouveau-Italian restaurants, hat-and-boot boutiques, and yuppified “saloons” do a land-office business. And tourists are thicker than fleas on a lazy possum. You’ll find scads of them (tourists, not fleas) in Fredericksburg, which bills itself as the most German city in Texas. “On the town’s city limits signs, the population is given as 11,257,” says David Schafer, an author, historian, and driver of the Fredericksburg Trolley tour bus. “We get about 1.5 million visitors annually. Around 25,000 of them show up each year to the town’s Oktoberfest celebration. Fredericksburg has a Texas heart and a German soul.”

Aurora 3 Chena

Fairbanks in Winter: “But It’s a Dry Cold”

America, Culture, Travel

It’s 35 below zero, and the snow is as crisp and crinkly as cellophane.Welcome to winter in Alaska’s Interior. Bring warm clothes, a sense of adventure and a cheerful disposition. The keys to winter life up here are remarkably simple: Stay active, go outdoors, sleep well, and maintain your sense of humor. “Best part about 30-degrees below is you can drive as fast as you want,” deadpans local radio personality Glen Anderson. “The cops won’t pull you over. Would you want to get out of your car at 30 below? They’ll just wait and nab you in the spring.”

ng-brown

European Roots Run Deep in the Fertile Soil of America’s Midwest Heartland

America, Culture, Travel

By Mary Bergin New Glarus, Wisconsin, is a village of 2,247 residents that takes pride in being known as “America’s Little Switzerland.”  Located 30 miles southwest of Madison, the community supports a männerchor (men’s choir), kinderchor (youth choir) and jodlerklub (choir of yodelers). The mournful sound of meters-long alphorns (used long ago by the Swiss…

Four Nearest Green bottles

Two American Whiskey Legends, One Of Them Largely Unknown

America, Business, Culture, History

Tennessee has two products that are famous around the world – country music from Nashville and Jack Daniel’s Whiskey from the tiny town of Lynchburg about 80 miles south of Nashville and 25 miles north of the Alabama state line. The story of how country music blossomed in Nashville is well documented, but the origin story of Jack Daniel’s Whiskey has been one that few people even thought about – until recently.