Sandra Scott Travels

The Great Wall of China is not a continuous wall, but a number of sections built over a long period of time. If all the sections are included in the length it would span about 13,600 miles. There are conflicting reports on whether or not the wall was seen from the Moon with most people saying it was not. The wall, while massive, is a long thin line. We visited the Great Wall on our first trip in the 1990s. On our recent visit to Beijing John and I decided to visit a different section of the wall.

New York State is fortunate to have so many unique places to visit. One of those places is Howe Caverns which I found just as impressive on my third visit as I did on my first two visits decades ago. Howe Caverns took six million years to create and it is not finished yet, but the change is slow. Even if the changes in the caverns are not discernible other changes are. There is now a rock wall, zip lines, and even a bungee-style activity for those looking for thrills.

John and I have been to several chocolate museums but nothing compared with our visit to the Chocolate Museum in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic and the first European city in the Americas. The Choco Museum is just steps from Plaza Colon in the heart of the colonial center of the city. The tour started in a small garden of cocoa plants and then followed the production process. We learned that the cocoa plant is “finicky.”

In May 1814, about 700 British troops came ashore in Oswego and ended up destroying Fort Ontario. It is hard to imagine the terror the residents felt. I love the book “The Great Rope” written by Rosemary Nesbitt. It is just one story about how local residents rose to the occasion and took part in the defense of their country during the War of 1812.

A few years ago, John and I were in St. Charles, Louisiana, where we visited the Imperial Calcasieu Museum. While browsing the displays I overheard someone say, “Claire Chennault! He is known by every school child in China.” It caught my attention. Claire Chennault, the commander of the Flying Tigers, a group of volunteer military men who trained in Burma, now called Myanmar, lived in St. Charles. The Flying Tigers helped defend the Chinese against the Japanese before the U.S. entered the war.

Author Pearl Buck called the Yangtze “The wildest, wickedest river on earth.” All that changed when the river was tamed upon the completion of the Three Gorges Dam in 2012. There was a lot of controversy surrounding the dam’s construction as I am sure there must have been similar concerns when the Hoover Dam was built. Thousands of people were displaced but the new towns created along the river looked very nice and there is no longer the danger of yearly flooding plus China needed the power to continue its rapid industrialization.

Harry Houdini, the world famous magician, claimed Appleton, Wisconsin as his home even though he was born in Budapest. So it is only right that Appleton’s Museum at the Castle, has a major Houdini exhibit. When the museum opened its current Houdini gallery it caused a flurry among magicians when it was revealed that the exhibit would show how Houdini performed his famous metamorphosis illusion.