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The Aer Lingus Airbus A330 is making its inaugural flight from flight from Dublin, Ireland into Dulles International Airport (IAD) on May 1, 2015.
45 lucky people will be invited to view the landing and get a behind the scenes tour of the Ramp Control Towers and Operations at IAD.
I attended one of these “Discover Dulles” events last summer and it was a blast!
Click here to enter the contest for a chance to be a part of this historical event.
When we were in New York City over the Thanksgiving holiday, I wanted to stop by the offices of the Japan National Tourist Organization (JNTO).
In the olden days before the internet, you could pick up lots of great tourist information and maps at various international tourism offices in New York.
Walking down Fifth Avenue on our way to JNTO, we passed the main entrance of the New York Public Library and stopped. I had never been inside the library to see the iconic Reading Room. We were there. We had to go in.
It turned out that the Reading Room was closed to the public due to ongoing repairs. I asked the lady at the information desk what other parts of the library we should see, and she encouraged us to sign up for the free building tour. So we did.
The tour guide was terrific. We got to see the Periodicals Room, the Map Room, and learn about the history of the library and the history of New York City. We never made it to JNTO, but this was a most worthwhile detour.
The New York Public Library offers free one-hour tours at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Mondays to Saturdays, and 2 p.m. on Sundays (except during the summer.) Sign up at the reception desk in Astor Hall.
By the way, if you are in New York at Christmastime, the New York Public Library displays an enormous Christmas tree, decorated with beautiful birds. There were lots of people taking family photos in front of the tree.
While you are in the vicinity, you might want to try out the free ice skating in Bryant Park, which is right behind the library. There is a large skating rink and during the holiday season the park is ringed with vendors like a European Christmas market. If you need to rent skates the cost is $15. Compare that to Rockefeller Center where admission is $12 for adults, $15 for children, and skate rental is $12.
The rink at Bryant Park is open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day from late October through through March 1, 2015.
Bryant Park offers lots of other free entertainment: Ping pong; juggling classes; Tai Chi; fitness club; and more.
Take a ride on Le Carrousel, which plays French cabaret music. It costs $3 per ride, or $15 for ten tickets. There is no charge for parents to ride alongside their small children.
On Saturday February 14, 2015 at 1 p.m. there will be a free Mardi Gras celebration at Le Carrousel, featuring a Cajun band and a magician.
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I can’t tell you how many reports I’ve read about the Andaz Fifth Avenue on other miles and points blogs. They all praise the view of the New York Public Library.
Next time you are passing by, I suggest you go in.
We stumbled upon India House in Sandy, Utah via one of those restaurant business card displays you often see in hotel lobbies. They were offering a 10 or 15 percent discount, so we thought we’d give it a try. Sandy is about 15 minutes south of downtown Salt Lake City.
If you are traveling along the I-15 corridor in Utah you will find a lot of chain hotels and franchise restaurants. Think Texas Roadhouse, Olive Garden, or Chili’s. At home and when traveling, we prefer small, local, ethnic restaurants, whether Thai, Afghan, Indian, Mexican, or whatever.
India House is an unassuming family run restaurant, with the most diverse selection of naan I have ever seen. They run a lunch buffet on weekdays for $8.99, including soup, salad, dessert and an array of fragrant vegetarian selections and chicken kormas. You can also order from the menu. The dishes are flavorful and reasonably priced.
I can recommend the Peshwari Naan — a homemade bread with a marzipan like filling. The lamb saag and butter chicken are delightful too.
But don’t take my word for it — read the reviews on Yelp here.
India House has two other things to recommend it:
1) It is part of at the Rewards Dining program — allowing you to earn frequent flyer miles for eating out.
2) It is next door to an eclectic antique consignment shop — really 20 shops in one as they rent space to various vendors.
It was a great surprise to discover that we had earned United Mileage Plus frequent flyer miles for our lunch at India House. This restaurant participates in the Rewards Dining network. You can register to earn miles with your choice of frequent flyer programs.
Early in the year is a good time to take advantage of bonus offers for signing up with various Rewards Dining programs. Different airlines have different offers. The most lucrative offer right now for new sign-ups is with the Delta Skymiles rewards dining program.
New members of the Delta Rewards Dining program earn 2,500 bonus miles after spending $30 at a participating restaurant. Register by March 1, 2015.
Salt Lake City is a Delta hub so 2,500 Skymiles could come in handy.
The Sandy Antique Mall is next door to India House. It’s an agglomeration of several buildings that seem to go on forever.
Vendors specializing in everything from vintage clothing and jewelry to antique furniture and gadgets have “booths” here.
It’s fun to browse because you never know what you might find.
Many of the restaurants in the Rewards Dining program are unremarkable but India House is definitely worth seeking out.
Do you participate in the Rewards Dining programs?
Twenty Los Angeles area museums open their doors to the public on Saturday January 31, 2015 for the tenth annual Museum Free-for-All.
The list of participating venues includes diverse art, cultural heritage, natural history, and science museums.
There are a number of top attractions participating — such as the Los Angeles Museum of Art and the California Science Center, but if I had my druthers I would head over the the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits.
Kids love dinosaurs and what could be better than an active excavation site for dinosaur fossils? We spent half a day at the Tar Pits when we last visited LA with our then school-aged daughter. Regular admission is $15 per adult and $8 per child, so free admission is a really great deal for families!
Here are links to the museums that are participating in this year’s open houses. The Jan. 31 offer is good for general admission only and does not apply to specially ticketed exhibitions.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Annenberg Space for Photography
Armory Center for the Arts
California African American Museum
California Science Center
Chinese American Museum
Craft Folk & Art Museum
Fowler Museum at UCLA
The Getty Center
The Getty Villa (Timed tickets required)
Hammer Museum
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles Fire Department Museum and Memorial
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA)
Museum of Latin American Art
Museum of Tolerance (Feb. 1)
The Paley Center for Media
The Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits
Pasadena Museum of California Art
Santa Monica Museum of Art
Skirball Cultural Center
The Torrance Art Museum
USC Pacific Asia Museum
William S. Hart Museum
Zimmer Children’s Museum (Feb. 1)
If you can’t make it this coming weekend, plan to take advantage of the regularly scheduled free admission days at Los Angeles area museums.
FreeMuseumDay.org publishes a calendar of free museums and free museum days for LA and for these major cities:
Check it out!
Did you know that you can rent a bike at Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) airport for just $5 a day?
If you find yourself at the airport with time on your hands, you can take a bike ride on the BWI Bike Trail.
The 12.5 mile bike trail encircles the airport passing through pine forests and Andover Park, where the Thomas A. Dixon Observation Area offers a great vantage point for plane spotters.
Zagster rents bikes outside the airport’s International Terminal, near the BWI Marshall Airport Light Rail stop.
You can reserve one of ten self service bikes for a daily rate of $5 for up to 12 hours. This has got to be the deal of the century!
Bikes come with seven gears, front and rear lights, a bell, and a front basket. Riders can make reservations with Zagster via an app available from the App Store or on Google Play.
The BWI Bike Trail begins at the Linthicum light rail station, runs past a historic property on the grounds of the airport, the Benson-Hammond House.
The trail continues along Aviation Boulevard to the Stewart Avenue Bridge.
At the bridge, continue traveling west to the Thomas A. Dixon, Jr. aircraft observation area where there is a playground, bike racks, and restrooms.
Most of the trail is paved, with some boardwalk areas over wetlands.
This trail seems to be a favorite for bikers and plane spotters alike. Now you can enjoy it even if you don’t have a bike. BWI, which was originally named Friendship International Airport, is indeed the friendliest airport around!
Is space travel in your future?
NASA hopes so!
The space agency is promoting extraterrestrial travel with some fun retro travel posters featuring exotic destinations.
Planetquest is a joint project of NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and California Institute of Technology which aims to search the universe for another earth.
NASA is promoting Planetquest with its Exoplanet Travel Series, complete with tempting posters advertising some out-of-this-world vacation spots.
The descriptions below are copied from the NASA website.
Kepler-186f is the first Earth-size planet discovered in the potentially ‘habitable zone’ around another star, where liquid water could exist on the planet’s surface. Its star is much cooler and redder than our Sun. If plant life does exist on a planet like Kepler-186f, its photosynthesis could have been influenced by the star’s red-wavelength photons, making for a color palette that’s very different than the greens on Earth. This discovery was made by Kepler, NASA’s planet hunting telescope.
New York has TKTS. Washington has TicketPlace. And Baltimore has Culture Fly.
Every Thursday, the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance sends out the Culture Flyer — a guide to free and half price performances and events for the coming week.
You won’t find tickets to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra or to traveling Broadway shows here.
But there are plenty of offers for free and half-price theater and dance events, art openings, concerts, and other fun stuff.
If you are interested in the offbeat and the avant-guard, Baltimore definitely beats straight-laced Washington, DC!
For example, this week the Culture Flyer features:
and dozens of other discounted offerings.
You can find the Culture Fly calendar online, or you can sign up to receive weekly emails of the Culture Flyer newsletter.
The British Airways Airbus A380 is making its inaugural flight from London Heathrow into Dulles International Airport (IAD) on October 2, 1014.
38 lucky people will invited to view the landing and get a behind the scenes tour of the Ramp Control Towers and Operations at IAD.
I attended one of these “Discover Dulles” events this summer and it was lots of fun!
Click here to enter the contest for a chance to be a part of this historical event.
Contest entries opened Friday, September 26, 2014 and will close on Tuesday, September 30, 2014 at 12:00 am (Eastern Time).
Participants will be randomly selected and notified via email by on September 30.
Hat Tip to Trevor at Tagging Miles.
As soon as I opened the email from my husband (see picture to left), I knew a road trip to central Pennsylvania was in my future.
Factory tours are de rigueur on our family vacations. I’ve been to an aluminum smelter, a silk tie factory, a newspaper printing operation, an airplane factory, a ski-doo factory, a cheese factory and a toothpaste factory. If we ever make it to Japan, we’ll probably go to the Toto toilet factory, the Ramen noodle factory and the Toyota factory.
We are members of the Society of Industrial Archeology which often arranges small group tours to industrial sites.
2014 Woolrich Woolen Mill Tour Dates
Woolrich Woolen Mill in Woolrich, Pennsylvania has been in operation since 1830. It is the oldest continuously operating mill in the United States.
Several times a year, Woolrich offers tours of the mill to members of the public. The tour shows how wool is spun into yarn and woven into fabric and blankets.
The 2014 factory tour dates are:
There will be four tours offered on each date, at 12:30, 1:00, 1:30, and 2:00 p.m.
You must register early, and in advance, by calling 570-769-7401.
On the day of the tour, you’ll receive a $10 gift card to use at the Woolrich Outlet Store. The best values are found in the Back Room, where Woolrich fabric is sold by the bolt, yard or pound.
Photographer Christoper Paine has chronicled a few of the remaining textile mills (as well as some of the closed mills) in a photo essay for the New York Times, entitled “Fruits of the Loom.”
Here are links to a video and blog post about the Woolrich Mill Tour.
Did you see the Argo? Now you can meet the spy that inspired the movie at one of three free events sponsored by the International Spy Museum!
International Spy Museum Briefing
Meet the Tony and Jonna Mendez. Both are former CIA Chiefs of Disguise, responsible for changing the identity and appearance of thousands of clandestine operatives around the world.
Tony is most famous for his rescue of American diplomats from Tehran during the Iranian Hostage Crisis as depicted in the award-winning film Argo.
Rendezvous Info
The rendezvous takes place in the book store at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC. Admission is free, and no pre-registration is required.
There are three dates scheduled: