Michigan lost the city of Toledo to Ohio in 1836. It got the Upper Peninsula in return, a trade Michigan’s own newspapers panned at the time. These days, people who’ve lived on both sides of the border have a whole list of reasons why Michigan is better than Ohio. 1. More Great Lakes Coastline Michigan…
Missouri ties with Tennessee for bordering more states than any other state in the country, eight apiece, and that geography makes leaving feel deceptively close. It rarely feels that close once the moving truck pulls away. These are the things Missourians miss most about their home state after they’ve packed up and moved. 1. Toasted…
Florida’s largest weekly flea market packs an entire week’s worth of business into one morning. Show up on the wrong day, and the lot at Webster sits nearly empty except for the occasional first-timer circling the gravel, phone out, looking for a market that isn’t there. These are the flea market mistakes that mark you…
Gruene Hall didn’t get any air-cooling system until this year, and even now it only chills the room to about 85 degrees. Nobody explains that, or much else, at the door. A Texas dance hall runs on manners regulars pick up without ever being taught them, from what to wear to who runs the floor….
Linguists at North Carolina State University (NC State) have spent decades recording how North Carolinians talk. One pattern keeps showing up in the tapes: The warmest-sounding line in the room can mean trouble. These are the North Carolina phrases that sound polite but carry a very different message underneath. 1. “Not to Be Ugly, But…”…
Golden Corral lost about 185 locations during the pandemic, and the version of buffet dining many people picture went down with a lot of them. But that’s not the case for all buffet restaurants in Florida. These are the Florida buffets that people go out of their way for fresh-carved turkey or a dessert table…
Would you guess that Duke’s Mayonnaise, the jar many South Carolina pantries keep for sandwiches, also turns up in dessert? To many out-of-staters, that sounds like a joke. But in South Carolina, some of the tastiest food traditions are the ones that seem like they shouldn’t work, yet somehow do. 1. Dousing Pork in Mustard…
Texas had around 388 drive-in movie theaters when the outdoor movie craze peaked in the 1950s and ’60s. Fewer than 20 are left running today. That’s a brutal survival rate. These are the Texas drive-in theaters still selling tickets today. 1. Graham Drive-In Graham Drive-In has run movies on the same lot since 1948, longer…
California has designated more than 1,100 official historical landmarks, and a surprising number of them sit on plain highway shoulders instead of behind museum glass. Many out-of-state drivers speed right past them, eyes on the next gas station. Locals know better than that. These are the California roadside attractions worth the detour. 1. Salvation Mountain…
A Philadelphia man once paid $4 for an old painting at a flea market in Adamstown because he liked the frame. Folded behind the canvas sat an original copy of the Declaration of Independence, and it later sold for millions. Few Pennsylvania estate sales turn up a find like that one. But many of them…
