Intelligent Travel

Our Favorite Local Haunts

Read other spooky posts at our new blog website: www.intelligenttravelblog.com

Today at Intelligent Travel, we're bringing you a slew of local haunts in celebration of Halloween. Ghosts, spirits, and other oddities can be found anywhere you're traveling, and these stories can often help to fill in the history of a place (all while giving you the willies).

For example, I'm from Long Island, New York, home of the famed Amityville Horror house. But I was surprised to find out that according to some local paranormal "experts," one of my favorite area attractions is apparently haunted as well. The iconic Fire Island Lighthouse is said to be haunted by the ghost of a former keeper who hung himself in the building. People have reported that "heavy doors open and close by themselves,     strange laughing and banging sounds seem to come from inside, and have experienced eerie     feelings, as well as the appearance of a shadowy figure in the caretaker's     house."

O.K., I'm officially creeped out.

What are your own local haunts? Share your favorite spooky travel tales in the comments, below.

Photo: Via Long Island Paranormal Investigators

Deep-Fried Jelly Beans? Only in Texas

As a Texas native, I always look forward to this time of year, not because of fall foliage and temperatures that hover somewhere between brisk and perfection—autumn is somewhat of an abstract concept in Texas—but because this is Texas State Fair season.   

I’ve never been to any other state fairs, but I have a hunch that Texas’ annual celebration in Dallas is one-of-a-kind.

First of all, as you walk into the 277-acre Fair Park complex, you are greeted by a 54-foot-tall cowboy, lanky and smiling as he calls out “Howdy folks” over and over. His name is Big Tex, and he has been a Texas State Fair icon since 1952. In his former life, he was the world’s tallest Santa Claus, but these days he wears mostly denim and pearl-snaps, custom fit by a team of eight seamstresses.

This year, Big Tex is joined on the fairgrounds by a 25-foot statue of the Egyptian god Anubis (left). The jackal-headed statue is there to promote National Geographic's latest King Tutankhamun exhibit, "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," which will be showing at the Dallas Museum of Art through May 17, 2009. (There's no word yet as to how Big Tex feels about sharing the spotlight with his Egyptian friend.)   

But after you pass the odd duo and head deeper into the fairgrounds, the fun really begins. Choosing between concerts, craft booths, daredevil stunt shows, and pig races (yes, pig races) can be difficult, but choosing what to eat is even harder.

Which brings me to the most mind-boggling thing about the Texas State Fair—the food.

While many state fairs boast an array of standard, fairground junk food such as corn-dogs (Texas's own Fletcher’s corny dogs are hand-dipped right in front of you) and funnel cakes, the Texas State Fair takes this to a whole new level. Texans just are not satisfied with ordinary fried foods, which is why each year, there is some strange, new, fried creation that astounds North Texas and everyone else who hears about it.

Strange Planet: Water to Wine

A recent article by the BBC led me to the conclusion that Italy just may be the place for me. After all, who wouldn’t want to visit (or live in!) a land where wine flows like water? Literally.

Just this week, residents of Marino, Italy were pleasantly surprised when, instead of tap water, wine began flowing out of their faucets.

Granted, wine isn’t exactly hard to come by in this smallish town (population around 38,000) southeast of Rome. Each year, beginning on the first Sunday in October, town officials provide approximately 792 gallons of local white wine during the four-day Sagra dell'Uva festival. Oh, and the fountains flow with wine as well.

The latter was the source of the recent fortuitous faucet mishap. Apparently, somewhere in the process of connecting wine to the fountains, an error occurred and the wine was sent to local homes instead. (A popular bar on the town square also benefited from the crossed pipes.)

Marino Mayor Adriano Palozzi told the BBC that the wine flow was short-lived: "Apparently the people living around the square who got the wine coming out of their taps were very surprised, they thought that it might be some kind of present from the local council! It only lasted three minutes, we corrected it straight away."

The locals living in the town square may have been the only ones to enjoy wine from their faucet, but visitors arrived from the world over to enjoy the rest of the festivities.

The Sagra dell'Uva, which is one of Italy’s oldest grape festivals, commemorates the return of Admiral Marcantonio Colonna and his victory over the Turks in the Battle of Lepanto in October 1571. Admiral Colonna was one of many sons of Marino who participated in the battle and returned safely. 

Photo: Wine flows from Marino's famed Fontana dei Quattro Mori during Sagra dell'Uva; courtesy of the Marino Town Council Website

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Strange Planet: Landlocked Cruising

Want all of the perks of cruising but none of the guilt (in the form of high gas prices or that gut that you'll inevitably get from too many trips to the buffet)? We recently came across the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Göynük, Turkey, a 325-room "cruise ship" that is "docked" in the country's Antalya beach region. Completed last year to the price tag of $50 million, the nautical-themed hotel sits among a vast network of pools, allowing for all the pleasure of an ocean-side cabin, but without the seasickness. With its Turkish Bath and an amusement park, we're interested in coming aboard, but a word of warning: since opening, reviews have been mixed, so it seems as if it might be time for the hotel's owners to sink or swim...

Know of other hotels that should be on our Strange Planet radar? Let us know in the comments below.

Photo: via Deputy Dog

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Terrestrial Beings to Resort to Extremes

The Roswell UFO Festival has just ended, but that doesn't mean extraterrestrial-themed fun has to stop. Architect/designer Gene Frazier and businessman Thomas Armstrong are out to prove that indulging your inner exphile can be a year-round pleasure.

The pair have been working on Earth Station Roswell, a resort complex nestled in the famous city where a UFO allegedly crashed in 1947. Breaking the bank at $50 million, the saucer-shaped complex, scheduled to open in the summer of 2010, will feature a hotel and conference center with numerous attractions, including a nightly light show, a spa, an all-virtual-reality arcade, extensive grounds, and a UFO theme strong enough to make anyone want to believe.

"We really want this to be the touchstone for information about UFOs, extraterrestrials, crop circles, lost civilizations," says Armstrong, on the phone from his retail store Roswell Landing. "We want it to be the place where people can find out what’s going on in the world with these things—the latest archaeology, the latest research, the latest information."

Being pigeonholed as a tourist attraction may seem inevitable (that's what happens when you build a 75-foot-tall, 300-room hotel shaped like a spaceship), but Armstrong is passionate about the complex being a classy locus of knowledge and information.

Strange Planet: Multiple Multiples

No, you’re not seeing double. Those are twin brothers marching in last year’s Twins Parade in Montreal. Founded in 1998 by a set of twin sisters from Quebec, the event was designed to provide an opportunity for siblings to celebrate their multiplicity. This year’s festivities, to be held on July 12th, will also include a look-alike contest and a costume contest for the siblings whose get-ups best fit this year’s theme, “Traveling through the stages of life.” Organizers expect 2,000 multiples to march in the parade, which takes place during the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal. If you were unlucky enough to be born as a "single," you can join the 250,000 expected spectators, but don’t try to grab a look-alike and join in the fun: the event brochure says organizers reserved the right to require “proof of twinning” from all participants (apparently birth certificates suffice).

If you can’t make it to Montreal, or just want more twins in your life, check out the Twins Day festival in Twinsburg, Ohio,  August 1-3, or head to the Twins Network website for a listing of twins events around the world.

Photo: courtesy of the Montreal Just for Laughs festival

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Strange Planet: Got Hair?

Willi Chevalier has won the "partial beard freestyle category" at the World Beard and Moustache Championships almost every year.

As a Seattleite, I'm well aware of the many stereotypes of the Pacific Northwest: We all wear socks with Birkenstocks, sport flannel shirts, eat granola while listening to grunge music, among many others. But one I've never heard of is that Pacific Northwesterners have unusually creative facial hair. It appears, though, that I'm about to be proven wrong.

On July 5, Bremerton, Washington (a short ferry ride from Seattle), will play host to the first-ever North American Beard and Moustache Championships. This is in preparation for the 2009 World Championships, which will be held in Anchorage, Alaska, on May 23. The 2009 championship will be the second time the event has taken place in the U.S. (the first was in Carson City, Nevada, in 2003). Event organizers in Washington (said to be the "Switzerland of America") hope to draw some 150 competitors this year.

This hairy worldwide competition has been taking place every two years since 1997, and officially began in 1990, when Germany's First Höfener Beard Club organized the championship in the Black Forest. Since then the world competition has taken place in Norway, Sweden, the U.S., Germany (again), and the U.K. Before you head to the competition, check out the Beard Team USA's blog and the online gallery of the best beards in the world.

Photo: JJWaller

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Strange Planet: Mike the Headless Chicken Festival

Here at IT, we love a good tale of chicken grit. No, we don’t mean chicken and grits, but rather the industrious and absurd tale of Mike, the headless chicken of Fruita, Colorado.

Legend goes that on Sept. 10, 1945, an almost six-month-old Wyandotte rooster was looking especially delicious to his owners, the Olsens. Lloyd Olsen swung his ax just so as to leave a “generous neck bone” in the hopes of pleasing his mother-in-law, who would be joining the family for the bird feast. But for whatever reason (perhaps the water in Fruita is extra-fortified?), the chicken shrugged off the assault and “returned to his job of being a chicken,” albeit a bit shorter and with two fewer eyes for navigating the barnyard.

Besides officially ruining dinner that evening, “Mike” persevered to live for another 18 months, growing from a paltry 2.5 pounds to a plump eight. After about a week of feeding Mike grain and water with an eyedropper, Lloyd Olsen drove him to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City to be scrutinized by some skeptical scientists, who determined that the ax blade “had missed the jugular vein and a clot had prevented Mike from bleeding to death. Although most of his head was in a jar, most of his brain stem and one ear was left on his body. Since most of a chicken's reflex actions are controlled by the brain stem, Mike was able to remain quite healthy.”

Mike went on to achieve fowl fame, appearing in sideshows from New York to Los Angeles and features in Life and Time magazines, not to mention an obligatory Guinness World Record (you can watch a video about his life here). Today, the “Headless Wonder Chicken” is celebrated with an annual festival each third week in May (that's this Friday and Saturday!). Hightail it to Fruita for all the trappings of a kitschy small-town festival you could ask for, from a car show and eating contests (of, no doubt, a few of Mike’s less-fortunate relatives) to a chicken dance contest and the 5K “Run Like a Headless Chicken” race.

Photo: A sculpture tribute to Mike on Fruita's Main Street, by Andy Orr

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Strange Planet: International Pillow Fight Day

Sea of Pillows - Great San Francisco Pillow Fight 2008

If you ever worried that your childhood is over, fear not: Saturday, March 22, is International Pillow Fight Day. From Boston to Budapest, New York to Hungary, pillow fights are taking over the planet.

Some cities have their own pillow fight tradition. San Franciscans gathered at Justin Herman Plaza near the Ferry Building on Valentine's Day for the annual Great San Francisco Pillow Fight. Photographer Romel Jacinto was there, and has the scoop on this annual San Fran event.

"It was everything I expected to be and more," says Jacinto. "Insanely crowded with several thousand in attendance, a diverse crowd from teens to those in business attire, goose feathers floating like snow, and the sound of pillows being pummeled. The pummeling was all in good fun though and it was heartening to see strangers shake hands after a well-fought exchange of pillow blows."

Check out the International Pillow Fight Day website to see if there's a pillow fight going on in your neighborhood. IT staffers are especially excited about the Washington, D.C., fight in Dupont Circle, just a couple blocks from our office.

Photo: Romel Jacinto via Flickr

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Strange Planet: Jurassic Lark

Many of us here at IT were sad to hear about the demise of Blueprint magazine, but were heartened to learn that though the magazine is gone, their blog will live on. To that end, Bluelines introduced us to a fascinating museum that is now on our must-see list for our next visit to L.A.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology is an amalgam of the strange and wonderful, and both the museum and its curator, David Wilson, are the subject of the book Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder. Mr. Wilson has gathered his wonderful objects for the past 24 years, collecting everything from X-ray bats to intricate almond-stone carvings. There's an exhibit on space dogs and a tribute to trailer homes. Magician Ricky Jay keeps his collection of decaying dice at the museum, and there's a beautiful selection of micro-mosaics created by 19th century Henry Dalton, who cobbled his tiny artworks out of butterfly wings.

Consider it a refreshing alternative to Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Learn more: you can hear a radio piece about the museum here.

Photo: One of Henry Dalton's micromosaics; via Bluelines

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