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If you are here you are reading Travel and History and we are glad you visited. If you'd like to see a short article about any travel or history topic let us know and we'll do it. Just send the request to jhunkins@gmail.com

The Blimp Travel Era

Camp de Meucon. Balloon ascending.
France, circa 1918.
Air Service Photographic Section

Before the tragic explosion of the Hindenberg, Dirigible travel was poised to become a common mode, but safety concerns and other issues overwhelmed the Blimp business.



The Empire State Building's spire was originally designed for docking of Dirigibles!
www.u-s-history.com/pages/h2538.html

UK Holiday Guide from Telegraph

The UK Telegraph is one of the best news sources for all things Britain, and they just published their Summer Travel Guide to the UK here:
www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/760632/Britain-2008-a-summer-holiday-guide.html

For Americans, England offers the comforts of the English language and other western sensibilities but also has the critical historical background to the American Experience. Here in the USA the history of much of our western cultural sensibilities only goes back a few hundred years, where in England you are literally walking the same streets tred by Kings and Queens over a thousand years ago. Dover Castle, on the chalky white cliffs above the town of the same name, played a powerful role in World War II as well as in the reign of King John II circa 1200 AD.

If you visit Dover be sure to hoist an Ale at the White Pony Tavern, one of the oldest in England, located just below the Castle near the many Bed and Breakfasts that guard the street up to Dover Castle.

California Traffic Cams

One of the most amazing developments over the past decade has been how much "real time" data is now available online. One of my favorite types of travel information are traffic cameras and road cameras which are both practical from the point of view of planning a trip and getting to actually see the road conditions as well as from the point of view of just being .... cool.

We talked earlier about www.TripCheck.com , Oregon's excellent Department of Transportation Website that features close to real time imagery from dozens of cams all over Oregon.

Another good source for road cam imagery is the California CALTRANS website: http://video.dot.ca.gov/ this actually features a lot of video which won't work very well unless you have good connectivity, but I think represents a look at the future of how we absorb and report complex travel information. What better way to know the road conditions than to ... see them?

London Bridge in Arizona

London Bridge, Lake Havasu at Night
Originally uploaded by Oliver Scott-Ison

Arizona's second biggest tourist attraction after the Grand Canyon? It is London Bridge in Lake Havasu! And this travel history story gets more confusing the more you know:

Earlier we posted about Tower Bridge in London which remains near the Tower of London on the Thames river and is often incorrectly called "London Bridge".

This is one of the *real* London Bridges and is located in Lake Havasu, Arizona where it was shipped in thousands of pieces and rebuilt in 1971. This London Bridge was the British London Bridge constructed in 1831 to replace a failing bridge that occupied the location on the Thames over which people had travelled into London for some 2000 years on various bridges including the very first Bridge into London.

Currently there is a London Bridge in London at the historic location, built in 1973 to replace the "Rennie" London Bridge that had been shipped to Lake Havasu.

Photo Copyright Oliver Scott-Ison
Visit his website: www.yahuh.com

Got Events?

If you've got an event anywhere in the Pacific Northwest help us spread the word for you with our events calendars. Submit the event (free of course) over here at Northwest Travel Magazines and you'll appear there as well as at hundreds of pages here at Travel, Highways and History.

Eventually our events feature will cover the entire USA, but for now we are focusing on the Pacific Northwest regions served by the magazines.

Historic water-powered mill in Virginia

Historic water-powered mill in Virginia
Originally uploaded by JoeDuck

Small scale water power was often used in milling, and many old mills remain across the united states. This mill in central Virginia near Harrisonburg is now a restaurant however working mills remain.

Eagle Point Oregon is home to a working mill called the "Butte Creek Mill" and you'll find a superb reconstruction of a mill at Dollywood in Pidgeon Forge, TN.