Roadtripping

10 quirky New Year's Eve celebrations

Forget the sheer ordinariness of the ball of crystal and LED lights that is dropped at Times Square every New Year's Eve. Never mind Miami's neon orange or Atlanta's peach. TripAdvisor.com has come up with its list of the 10 quirkiest New Year's Eve celebrations in the U.S. We're talking dropped sardines, possums, bologna, drag queens, Moon Pies and more. Now get to it - you've got a lot of driving to do.

    
1. The Maine Event - Sardine and Maple Leaf Drop, Eastport, Maine. Home to the first sardine cannery in the U.S., Eastport has celebrated the industry since 2005 by dropping an eight-foot long, 30-pound sardine made from wood and acrylic at 11 p.m. Eastern Time. After the sardine plunges from the third-story window of The Tides Institute, revelers rush to give the fish a salty smooch in the belief this will bring good luck in the coming year. The festivities don't end there; at midnight, a four-foot wide Maple Leaf is dropped, to honor Maine's northern Canadian neighbors.

2. Mammal Madness - Possum Drop, Brasstown, North Carolina. Brasstown will celebrate its title of “Possum Capital of the World” for the 18th year, with two fun-filled hours of activities. Local men resplendent in feminine attire will compete for the coveted title of “Miss Possum Queen”, while revelers can soak up live music and tasty treats in anticipation of the lowering of a triangular, plexiglass box containing a prized possum. Once the crowd clears, the nocturnal mammal - unscathed from its public appearance - is given a midnight snack and released in to the night.

3. Savory Soiree - Bologna Drop, Lebanon, Pennsylvania. As the clock strikes midnight, a 12-foot long loaf of bologna, weighing 200 pounds, swallows the attention of New Year's revelers as it is lowered to the ground from a crane service. Following its descent to Earth, the salty sandwich staple will be donated and devoured by a local charity. This annual fte is held at the corner of Ninth and Cumberland Streets and includes toe-tapping tunes, complimentary hot beverages, and festive First Night fun.

4. Pest-acular Party - Wooden Flea Drop, Eastover, North Carolina. Until the 1920s, Eastover was known as Flea Hill, due to a pandemic of the pesky insects throughout town. In honor of its former wretched “residents,” the town will ring in 2012 by dropping a 30-pound flea for the second consecutive year. Constructed from fabric, foam, wire and wood, revelers are in no danger of being bitten by the oversize bug as they partake in the family-friendly celebrations, which include a bonfire, refreshments, and old-fashioned fun.

5. Trifecta of Fun - “Sushi” Drag Queen Drop, Key West, Florida. The isle of Key West will be brimming with holiday cheer as it hosts three fun-filled festivities. Travelers can ring in 2012 at The Bourbon Street Pub, where legendary drag queen “Sushi” is lowered to the ground, while seated in a giant, glossy red shoe. Celebrations will also be held at Sloppy Joe's Bar, where a six-foot tall Styrofoam conch shell is lowered into a sea of revelers - while a “pirate wench” will be dropped from the mast of an old wooden ship at Schooner Wharf Bar, on nearby Williams Street.

6. Marshmallow Madness - MoonPie Drop, Mobile, Alabama. Home of America's first Mardi Gras celebration, Mobile celebrates the famous “throw” of MoonPies to masked Mardi Gras revelers by dropping a 12-foot electronic MoonPie from a height of 34 stories. Residents consume more than four million MoonPies annually, hence adopting the mouthwatering marshmallow treat as the town's informal emblem and even paying homage to it as the clock strikes midnight. Events begin at 7:30 p.m. with a Mardi-Gras style parade, featuring floats, live music and more.

7. Festive Fromage - Cheese Drop, Plymouth, Wisconsin. Cheese lovers can satisfy their cravings at Plymouth, Wisconsin's annual “New Year's Cheese” drop, which pays homage to the local dairy industry. This year will mark the fifth annual dropping of the 80-pound Styrofoam chunk of cheese from a 100-foot ladder truck. Painted and decorated by a local artist, the star of the show is guaranteed to offer flavorsome fun, rounded off with art, games, and complimentary refreshments as hundreds gather to welcome the New Year.

8. Groovin' in the Gulf - Pelican Drop, Pensacola, Florida. The streets of Pensacola will be flocking with fun and games in honor of the New Year with three stages of live entertainment. At 8 p.m., a “Bubble Stomp” will invite children to jump and jive across a vast expanse of bubbly mailing wrap, to mimic the clamor of fireworks - before the real star of the show, a giant, 14-foot pelican, makes its 100-foot descent at midnight. Celebrations will conclude with a dazzling display of fireworks and colorful confetti.
 
9. Fruity Fun - Watermelon Drop, Vincennes, Indiana. For the fourth year, Vincennes' Watermelon Drop will celebrate the local melon-growing industry along with the start of the New Year. Thousands of spectators - many of whom are dressed as the waterlogged fruit - gather to watch the 18-foot, 500-pound watermelon drop 100-feet onto a “splatform.” The man-made melon, crafted from steel and foam, also releases a dozen locally grown watermelons to signal the beginning of a tasty New Year.

10. Midwest Mayhem - Little Apple Drop, Manhattan, Kansas. For folks who are not able to make it to New York City, Manhattan, Kansas brings the spirit of Times Square to the Midwest. Thousands of revelers gather to join the festivities, which begin at 10 p.m. with a laser light show, accompanied by live music from local artists and a deejay. At the stroke of midnight, a rotund ruby apple, made from aluminum and glass, will shimmy its way to the ground for the ninth consecutive year, as fireworks illuminate the sky.

Exotic birds in Everglades National Park

This is the time of year to see exotic birds. Here in South Florida, we see at least a few species of herons, egrets and ibises year-round. But in Everglades National Park, which was established in part to protect bird species that had been decimated by the trade in feathers and plumes, migratory birds from up north are arriving. Some year-round residents have started nesting season, making their location more predictable.

With dry weather, cooler temperatures and almost no mosquitoes, the park is just as enticing to humans -- many seasonal organized activities started just last week. So I’m planning a short road trip.

“A lot of visitors come here to see birds,” said Bob Showler, a park naturalist. “When we get a real rarity in from the Caribbean, we can get birders coming from all over the country just to see that one bird.”  

Showler detailed some of the birds that visitors might see:

The white pelican, which has a nine-foot wing span, is the largest and one of the most spectacular birds in the park. It can be seen near the Flamingo Visitors Center in the southwest part of the park, now until late March or early April, when it will leave for Canada, the northern plains states and Yellowstone National Park.

At the other end of the size scale are the tiny ruby-throated hummingbird, which hangs around plants with bright red or orange flowers, and the painted bunting, which sometimes can be in the weedy edges around the Eco Pond in Flamingo, or just feeding along the road.

Because it’s nesting season, visitors will have a better shot at seeing some of the park’s year-round residents. Last week, the park closed off Paurotis Pond for the season, which usually runs into April. There, people can see wood storks, which are an endangered species, and roseate spoonbills, as well as more common small varieties of egrets, ibises and herons. In recent years, about 400 pairs of wood storks have nested at the pond.

The rookery is on the far side of the pond from the parking area, so visitors will not be able to get close.  “Even though you may not be able to get good views of them sitting on their nests, which are kind of hidden in the trees, you can see them flying in and out,” Showler said.

 “Another one that people get really excited to look for is the flamingo,” he said. “This is arguably the best place in the U.S. to look for them. They’re actually pretty rare in the wild state, even here.” Best place to spot flamingos: Snake Bight and Garfield Bight, in the shallow water along the northern edge of Florida Bay, year-round.

Everglades National Park is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, although the visitors centers are not open around the clock. Go here for general information about the park and here for more information about birds in the park, including a checklist of more than 350 species that have been spotted there.

Photos, from top: Roseate spoonbills, white pelican (Joe Rimkus/Miami Herald staff); Paurotis Pond (Everglades National Park); flamingos at Snake Bight (Tim Chapman/Miami Herald Staff).

Can you trust your GPS? A North Carolina adventure

We plugged the street address of South Creek Winery into the GPS unit as we left Asheville and drove east for a little wine-tasting. About 45 miles later, we found an ugly warehouse and an asphalt parking lot just off Interstate 40, with no vines, no sign of wine-making. But it was not yet noon, and as we checked the list of wineries we’d brought with us, we saw on the listing that the winery wasn’t open for tasting at this hour anyway. Rather than investigate, we decided to go to lunch and come back afterwards. It was a pretty fall day, and we didn’t mind a scenic detour.

We headed for Morgantown, and ate at Judge's Riverside Restaurant, which specializes in BBQ. We sat out on a wooden deck in the October sun, overlooking the Catawba River. I was on a pulled-pork kick at the time, and Judge’s version was a fine one.

Back in the car, I wasn’t quite ready to give up on the GPS unit. I was showing it off to my friends, who had not been sold on the value of the device when we set out, and were even more dubious now. The small map we had wasn’t detailed enough to get us to the winery. After some circling and doubling back, though, even I was ready to throw the GPS unit out the window.

We eventually got to South Creek Winery  in Nebo by asking directions from people we passed. It was nowhere near where the GPS unit had taken us. We parked next to the grapevines and went inside. When we told our story to the woman behind the counter, she threw up her hands and said she’d called the people who do the mapping, but they had not done anything to fix the problem. We were not the first people to be led astray by a navigation system. "People should just call us for directions," she said.

The woman was Mary Rowley, who owns the winery with her husband, James. They had bought it about 15 months earlier, and were still selling mostly wines made by the former owner. We were far from North Carolina’s prime wine grape region, the Yadkin Valley, but these wines were good and we left with several bottles.

Mary Rowley gave us directions, and we got back to the highway without any more trouble. I turned on the GPS unit as we left, and it couldn’t even tell me the name of the street we were driving on. It was a worthy lesson for me not to rely solely on technology, even though this was the first time in 18 months that the GPS unit had misled me. When I got home, I put my big road atlas back in the car.

Photos: South Creek Winery

Museum membership: LIke a free pass at other museums

If you got a museum membership as a gift, take it on the road.

Many museums are part of a network in which membership in one museum gives you free admission to the others. So say a friend bought you a membership in the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art. As long as that membership is current, it entitles you to admission to more than 500 art museums nationwide. Or if you're a member of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, you can get in free to several hundred other gardens in the American Horticultural Society network.

There are caveats. Membership in an art museum probably won't get you into a science  museum for free. The networks are usually limited to the same type of museum. Not every garden or museum participates in what is called a reciprocal admission program. It may not entitle guests to admission to special exhibits. Often, museums in the same region, typically within 90 miles of each other, do not honor each other's membership -- if you live that close, they want you to buy membership in each. But generally, this is a great deal for roadtrippers. Call ahead to see whether the museum you're visiting will honor your membership and whether there are restrictions.

Here are some links to sites where you can find lists of participating museums: 

Art museums

Childrens museums

Science museums

Botanic gardens

Photos: Membership in Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, top and at right, will get you admitted free to other botanic gardens across the country.

 

Lonely Planet's top U.S. travel destinations for 2012

Lonely Planet, publisher of travel guides, has announced its list of the top U.S. travel destinations for 2012. The criteria: What’s new, interesting, or likely to be overlooked by travelers both domestic and international. Some of Lonely’s Planet’s choices are favorites for road trips, including California’s Gold Country and Yellowstone National Park (although I’d add on a drive from Yellowstone to Teton National Park). Most intriguing to me is the Hudson River Valley in New York, which has gradually been working its way up my to-do list with its art enclaves, the Culinary Institute of America, and hiking trails.

Here is Lonely Planet’s list: 1. U.S. Virgin Islands; 2. Hudson River Valley, New York; 3. Cincinnati, Ohio; 4. Four Corners Region, Southwest USA; 5. Culebra, Puerto Rico; 6. California Gold Country; 7. Boulder, Colorado; 8. Hawaii: The Big Island; 9. Chicago; 10. Yellowstone National Park.

Why these 10 places? Go here for more details.

Websites and apps for road trips

Almost 92 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home between Dec. 23 and Jan. 2, according to AAA, 91 percent of them by automobile. If you’re one of them, here are some websites and apps you might find helpful. Just don’t use these while you’re driving – your smart phone isn’t smart enough to watch the road for you.

FLORIDA ROAD CONDITIONS: You can get updates on crashes, congestion and construction on all of Florida’s interstates, toll roads and major metropolitan roadways from the Florida Department of Transportation by calling 511, visiting FL511.com or downloading the free 511 app on iTunes. Callers can also use 511 for free phone transfers to Florida’s airports, seaports and neighboring 511 systems in Georgia and Louisiana.

WEATHER: Find out what weather to expect en route and at your destination from the Weather Channel WeatherBug.com and AccuWeather.com, all of which have free apps for iPad, iPhone and Android, as well as lots of information and tips on their websites.

TRIPTIK: AAA’s Triptik app for iPhones and Androids provides a map and driving directions, fuel prices, and points of interest including select hotels, restaurants and attractions.  If all you want is average fuel prices for each metro market, try this AAA website.

ITINERARIES: TripIt and Kayak.com both have apps that compile itineraries for you, based on email confirmations of flights, hotels, rental cars and other reservations.

RESTAURANTS: Yelp.com offers restaurant listings and consumer reviews for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and iPod Touch. Type in the city and what you’re looking for — I looked for Thai restaurants near Los Angeles and got 496 listings; I asked for fish and chips places near Miami and got one option.

Santa hats, stress, pets, vegetarian dishes: Surveys are all the rage

It’s the time of year when travel surveys are running amuck. We’ve got surveys on vegetarian fare at airports, travel-related stress, how may people plan to travel with pets, where they want to go next year — you name it. Here are some of the more interesting results:

STRESS: TripAvisor.com says 43 percent of the people who responded to its survey plan to travel during this holiday season, up five percent compared to 2010. Among them: 51 expect to be stressed by the experience; 8 percent will consume alcohol on a flight, 22 percent will pack holiday-themed jewelry; 10 percent will take Santa hats; 11 percent have bought last-minute gifts at the airport.

PETS: In a separate survey, TripAdvisor found that 44 percent of pet owners had traveled with their pets in the last 12 months, while 47 percent expected to do so in the next 12 months. These pet owners are clearly roadtrippers — 96 expected to travel by car and 12 percent said they would fly (presumably some were planning more than one trip).

WHAT TO DO: SPENDING: When American Express asked which travel experiences people would be most interested in trying, consumers ranked outdoor adventure first (19%), followed by a mystery vacation (16%), culinary-focused experience (13%), holistic spa retreat (12%), volunteerism trip (5%) and a ski holiday (4%).

HEALTHY AIRPORT FOOD: Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine says the healthiest of the 15 busiest U.S. airports is in Detroit. The committee surveyed every restaurant at each airport to see if it had at least one low-fat, high-fiber, cholesterol-free entrée. Typically, this meant a vegetarian entrée with no cheese. A full 100 percent of the Detroit airport’s restaurants offer at least one such option — veggie burritos, black bean burgers, hummus-and-vegetable platters. Miami tied for sixth place, with 82 percent of its restaurants offering healthful options, and Orlando ranked eighth (80 percent). Fort Lauderdale was not surveyed. Worst, according to the committee, is Atlanta, where only 71 percent of its restaurants had healthy dishes on their menus. The survey also noted that airport restaurants now have significantly more healthy offerings than they did in 2001, when the committee conducted its first serving. Today, an average of 83 percent of airport restaurants meet the committee’s criteria; in 2001, it was 57 percent. Survey details here.  

TOP CITIES: Kayak.com, an online search engine for flights, hotels and rental cars. says in 2011, these were the top ten cities that were searched as flight destinations: 1. Las Vegas; 2. Miami; 3. San Francisco; 4. Orlando; 5. Seattle; 6. Fort Lauderdale; 7. Los Angeles; 8. Denver; 9. Honolulu; 10. San Juan, Puerto Rico. Kayak.com also ranked the cities with the biggest increases in hotel rates this year: 1. Miami Beach; 2. Atlantic City; 3. Miami; 4. New Orleans; 5. Paris.

 

Taking a break from your family

Even people who love travel find it can be stressful. And everyone's family is at least occasionally stressful. So here's a tip for holiday travel, whether you're going by plane, train or automobile: Schedule some time for yourself, by yourself. Leave the rest of the family behind (with the possible exception of your significant other) and go to a museum, take a hike, get a manicure.

Mary Karr wrote in The Liars Club: "A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it." Go ahead, try and dispute it. Tell me that you don't need a break from the squabbling, the competition, the icy silences, the constant taking-measure, the compulsive games of Charade -- whatever it is about your family that starts to drive you crazy after the first 24 hours of togetherness. Uh-huh, I thought so

If your host's feelings are hurt easily, tell him or her in advance that as long as you're going to come all that way, you want to slip out and (fill in the blank). If necessary, make it something he or she doesn't enjoy and something that you can't easily do back home -- a book-reading by an author, a strenuous hike, a museum exhibit that your host would find excruciatingly dull. Guess what? They might not admit it, but they'd love to have a few hours of guest-free time to themselves too. Offer to pick up groceries or run an errand as long as you're out and about -- a signal that you're still involved.

By the time you rejoin your family, you'll find that your mental health has improved. And maybe theirs has too.

A look at the American road trip at the Henry Ford Museum

Those of us who love hitting the highway may have already been to The Henry Ford, a historical complex that includes the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. The Henry Ford is a must-do for car lovers, telling not just the story of the automobile but of the Industrial Revolution.

For nearly a year, the museum has been redoing its automotive exhibits, creating the expansive Driving America exhibit, which will include a section on the American road trip, as well as the influence of the automobile on U.S. culture. The new exhibit opens on Jan. 29. Read more about it.

Road trip stop: My pilgrimage to Chez Panisse

The fellow sitting at the next table at Chez Panisse scribbled on the butcher paper overlaid on my white tablecloth, then tapped on what he had just written. "Go here for lunch tomorrow," he said. "The chef is doing great things."

I had expected that eating here, a Berkeley, Calif., restaurant that was a temple for foodies before people started calling themselves that, would be different  from eating in other restaurants. What I hadn't expected was the sense of community between tables of food adventurers.

On a road trip through Northern California -- San Francisco, Sacramento, Placerville, San Jose -- I made a reservation to eat at Chez Panisse, which Alice Waters had launched in 1971. It quickly became known for its emphasis on fresh, local, organic ingredients and simple preparations that spotlighted the quality of the ingredients. Waters became an early food celeb. Even here in Miami, 3,000 miles away, Waters drew a crowd when she appeared at Books & Books to talk about what eventually became known as the Locavore Movement.

I went for lunch in the cafe upstairs and was seated in a row of small tables crowded together, so close that I could carry on conversations with the people at tables on either side of me without raising my voice. Which was good, because the conversations started right away, questions and comments about what we were eating or ordering.

On that day, the menu, which changes daily according to what ingredients are available, was Egyptian-inspired. I chose a three-course prix fixe lunch consisting of green salad with baked goat cheese, pan-fried rockfish served with sautéed spinach with raisins and pine nuts, and almond cake with honey ice cream and tangerine slices. I started with a glass of champagne to celebrate that, after many years of talking about it, I was finally at Chez Panisse.

I had been torn between the salad and a turnip-cumin soup, which sounded homey yet like nothing I had ever eaten before. The salad won, though, because I'm passionate about goat cheese. But when a bowl of soup arrived on the table to my left, I asked the diner if that was the turnip-cumin soup. "Yes, would you like a taste?" he asked. "Uh, no," I said.

"Sure you would," he said, and waved at a waiter. "Please bring another spoon so this lady can taste my soup."

He was a 40-something man who, like myself, was dining solo. He was from the area but lived in Japan and was here visiting his mother. He said he ate at Chez Panisse at least once each time he was in town, and I told him this was my first time.  We chatted about where Chez Panisse bought supplies, the difference between cooking and eating styles in Japan and the U.S., and the turnip soup, which was creamy and fragrant, had a hint of sweetness, and was not overwhelmed by the cumin. Then we turned our attention back to our lunches.

It says something about Chez Panisse and its patrons that my neighbor did not engage me in a round of where-have-you-eaten. We were simply enjoying the food, speaking the common language of foodies.

As we were finishing our meals, he leaned over and wrote down a place he recommended: Boulevard Restaurant, by the Ferry Building in San Francisco, opened just last year. I tore off the corner of the butcher paper and ate there the next day. The food was terrific. But I already knew I could count on that. My neighbor had established his credentials by ordering the turnip-cumin soup.