Travels in the 2nd half

The NYC Fire Museum   I have written before about New York City as a treasure trove of small museums. These are places that can be visited in one to two hours. They are not usually destinations, but fillers that can be part of a larger day in the city. This week I have two more entries in this series - the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace and the NYC Fire Museum. The Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Memorial. Teddy Roosevelt Birthplace   Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (1858-1919) was the 26th president of the United States. He was known as a “grand reformer,” taking on the corrupt Tammany Hall in NYC and the large industrial “trusts” of U.S. Capitalism. He led the Roughriders in that famous charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba. He created what would become the countries first national parks. He was also a social-Darwinist, and a proponent of the expansionist view of U.S. imperialism in the western hemisphere. His view of non-European societies was denigrating and racist. And all of the...

California Visitors' Center   Sonoma County is one of the centers of California wine country, and Santa Rosa is the county seat of Sonoma. So, on a trip to the area, I decided to make Santa Rosa my base of operations. It is centrally located in the county, and offers a wide range of restaurants and hotels. The land where Santa Rosa is today was the home of the Bitakomatara tribe of the Pomo people. Europeans settled in the area in the early 19th century. Santa Rosa was founded in 1833 by the Maria Ygnacia López de Carrillo , a member of the Carrillo family, who were highly connected in the Mexican-California ranch society and government. Today Santa Rosa is a slightly sprawling city of around 175,000 residents. Public domain via wikimedia commons I started my visit at Railroad Square, where the California Visitors’ Center located, inside the historic rail depot. The center is a wonderful resource, offering a range of local walking and driving tours in the county, along with the u...