Stack of books with decorative ribbon (titles are Chicken Sisters, Diary of a Waitress, and The Harvey Girls)

Chicken Sisters, Chicken Wars, and Harvey Girls

Chicken Sisters, Chicken Wars, and Harvey Girls… What on earth could these three things have in common? I recently read Chicken Sisters by Kj Dell’antonia. In the prologue to the story, two sisters who had started out as Harvey Girls left the Harvey House restaurant to start their own restaurants, both serving fried chicken. Three…

photo collage of pictures from Civil War Hospital Museum - bandages, sponges, building, and sign

Were there ghosts?! Visiting the Exchange Hotel Civil War Medical Museum

Some say it’s haunted – it’s ranked the second most haunted place in Virginia! – but we did not see any ghosts or spirits when we stopped to see the Exchange Hotel Civil War Medical Museum. Maybe because it was a sunny, summer day. Or maybe there were ghosts and we just didn’t see them……

Three book covers- Eighty Days to Elsewhere, Around the World in 80 Days, Eighty Days

80 Days? No problem! Dueling Journalists Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland Race Each Other On a Trip Around the World

So by now you probably know that I like to go all-in when I’m researching a new idea to write about here.  When I read 80 Days to Elsewhere by KC Dyer it reminded me of a podcast I had listened to a year or so ago about two women who were racing around the…

Text "Horatio's Drive The story of the very first transcontinental road trip" over picture of an old rusty car wheel stuck in the sand out in the desert.

Road Trip Pioneer

Have you ever wondered about the first cross-country road trip? Americans have driven millions of miles back and forth across the country over the years but someone had to be first. That someone was Horatio Nelson Jackson. I’ll admit, I hadn’t given it much thought myself despite my own epic road trip history. A picture…

the spines of the books titled The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind facing out with an iron star on top of the stack of books

Electric Wind

“Magetsi a mphepo,” he whispered. I will build electric wind.     I live a life of comfort in my upper middle class American home.  I don’t worry about things like famines or poor sanitation.  When I’m hungry I go to the store to buy whatever I want from the thousands of options.  I eat,…