Recently in Events Category

York County Cooperative Community Education, Mountain View Travel and Princess Cruise Lines will hold a meeting from 7 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, July 15 in Room 160 of York Suburban Senior High School, 1800 Hollywood Drive, Spring Garden Township, for anyone interested in learning more about a seven-day cruise to Alaska scheduled for July 31 to Aug. 14, 2010.

Those who go on the trip will get a chance to cross the Arctic Circle and dip their toes in the Arctic Ocean. The trip includes Anchorage and Denali National Park.

For details, call Sharon Stutts at Mountain View Travel, 444-3131.

If you think you have to venture to far-off places to find weird and wacky festivals and events, you're wrong.

Just look at these gems that will take place right here in Pennsylvania this fall -- highlighted in a recent press release from the state tourism department.

Pocono Garlic Festival, Sept. 5 and 6 at Shawnee Ski Area. In addition to live musical entertainment and garlic-themed crafts, you can try culinary delights such as roasted garlic ice cream or garlic funnel cakes. Wow.

The following weekend, head to Stahlstown for the 101st Flax Scutching Festival, said to be the second-oldest continuous flax scutching festival in the world. (I imagine there's a lot of competition for that honor.) Apparently, flax scutching is the art of making linen from the flax plant.

And then there's always the
Coal and Coke Heritage Music Festival in Uniontown, Sept. 19.

Family-Child Resources and Krouse Travel of Red Lion will host a seven-day Eastern Caribbean Family Cruise with Carnival Cruise Lines from June 20 to 27, 2010.

It sails from Baltimore and stops at Grand Turk (Turks & Caicos), Half Moon Cay (Bahamas) and Freeport (Bahamas). Proceeds benefit Family-Child Resources' programs in York County.

For details about the trip, or to reserve your space, call 244-6410.

The Pennsylvania Cable Network, PCN, together with the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, will broadcast a series showcasing Pennsylvania state parks again this summer.

It kicks off Sunday, June 28, with a visit to what I consider my state park: Cowans Gap in Fulton County. It's where my family has gone camping since I was little -- first in pop-up campers, then rented cabins.

The series will continue for 10 weeks, highlighting just some of the state's 117 state parks. York County's Codorus State Park will be featured Aug. 2 at 7:30 p.m.

Grab your camera and sneakers and prepare for a free Photo walk of downtown York Saturday morning. (The photo shown from the steps of the State Capitol is from a recent photo walk in Harrisburg.)

Walkers of all ages and photography levels are invited to meet at 10 a.m. at Continental Square (Market and George streets in downtown York) for a 2-mile meander around town, photographing items of interest.

In addition to obvious landmarks like the Central Market and the Colonial Courthouse, participants will be looking at architectural details noted in local author Scott Butcher's "York's Historic Architecture." Butcher will be available to answer questions.

Following the event, walkers are encouraged to upload their favorite pictures to a shared Flickr page, where other walkers and friends can view and enjoy them.

Cameras ranging from disposables to professional models are all suitable.

For details visit www.vrphotowalks.com or email Andy Smith at ostman4200@comcast.net.

If you're already bored by summer, Gettysburg is where you want to go.

The town has a lot going on this week, but the main event is the Gettysburg Fringe Festival, which continues through Sunday with a number of events at venues throughout town. If you're into art or interested in preserving nature, check out the Land Conservancy of Adams County's art market at the Adams County Agricultural & Natural Resource Center from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday.

Both days this weekend, the Gettysburg Foundation will offer art-focused tours of the battlefield, one of the world's largest collections of outdoor sculpture. Learn more about the artists who made the 1,300 monuments and the stories behind them. For tickets, call 877-874-2478.

Folks who are familiar with the popular UnCork York wine tours each March will be pleased to learn that the York County Convention & Visitors Bureau will hold a new event Nov. 20, 21 and 22.

UnCorkYork participating wineries will feature exclusive tastings of Nouveau and newly-pressed wines fresh from the harvest. Vistors will be invited into the cellars for tank and barrel tastings to witness another step in the process of turning grapes into fine wine.

Thing is, they need a name for the new event. Submit your vote by Friday, June 19, for a chance to win four free tickets to the November event.

York County is pretty well known for its snack foods and motorcycles.

But did you know that a local textile mill produces material used in Hollywood films? That the country's oldest and largest wallcovering manufacturer has its products in more than 40 countries?

Learn these trivia tidbits and more during this year's Made in America Tours, June 17 to 20. More than 20 local factories will welcome the public onto the production floor to see how items are made.

New for this year's event, Historic York's Architectural Warehouse will present a guided tour showcasing stories of treasured architectural elements and historical furnishings.

For details, visit www.factorytours.org or call 1-888-858-YORK (9675).

We Pennsylvanians should count ourselves lucky.

We don't have to pay an admission fee to lounge at Gifford Pinchot State Park or take the kayak for a spin on the lake. That isn't the case at state parks in many nearby states, nor at the country's national parks.

Tuesday the National Park Serivce announced it will waive
entrance fees at 147 national parks and monuments -- including the Grand Canyon and Yosemite -- on three weekends this summer: June 20-21, July 18-19 and August 15-16.

The Park Service said 147 parks and monuments charge entrance fees that range from $3 to $25; the nation's other 244 parks are already free. Most Americans live less than a day's drive from a national park.

For details on the offer, click here.

For those of you who enjoy collecting travels more than possessions, check out this list of the 100 Greatest Places to Stand on the Planet. Anyone can go to the site and vote for their favorite places through Dec. 1. Or, upload a picture of yourself visiting a particular spot.

I found it rather depressing to go through the list and realize that, at age 31, the only place I've been to is New York City's Times Square. And that was just in passing during a daytrip to the city -- not even for the big New Year's Eve celebration it's famous for (of course, I don't know that I'd deal well with such a crowd though).

I've come close to some others. Why didn't I take the trip to Angel Falls when I was studying abroad in Venezuela? If only I had more time in Argentina to get up to Iguazu... And neither of my trips to Ecuador have included Galapagos (very pricey).

Have you been to any of these places? What do you think of the list?