When I was in first grade, my teacher read to us after lunch each day. Of the various books she chose to share, one of my very favorites was The Little House on the Prairie. I loved thinking about how Laura Ingalls Wilder’s childhood compared to the life I knew…how Christmases were more modest, how their family traveled by sleigh in the wintertime, how staying warm was more complex than simply turning up a thermostat, and how meals were a far simpler fare that took so much longer to cook.

To help us make a “hands-on” connection to Laura’s life, one day my teacher had each of us come one-by-one to her desk to shake a little container filled with cream until it turned ever so slowly into butter. Once it was “churned,” we tasted it on crackers. The experience was so magical, I remember it vividly to this day.

Across the country, there are little enclaves where this kind of magic happens daily.
In the Rochester/Finger Lakes region, we are fortunate to be surrounded by opportunities to “step back in time.” From historic mansions with heirloom gardens to museums, and from a Native American site to the country’s third largest living history village, connections to the past are plentiful.

While the Finger Lakes Region is certainly abundant in these treasures, if there’s one thing my travels across the country have shown, it’s that most communities with a rich past memorialize it, building or preserving a fun and educational destination to visit. The most robust of these experiences include opportunities to touch, taste, listen, feel, and even create a souvenir of the experience, adding authenticity to the adventure.

One value of these experiences, beyond the pure enjoyment, is that we can examine our past, contrast it to our present, and imagine our future in light of the major changes that happened over a relatively short time in history. Whether you go solo, with a companion, or with youngsters, why not savor our historic past this summer with a visit to one of these great destinations?