What Does a 6th Century Irish Monastery Have in Common with Star Wars, Mark Hamill, and Georgetown, Colorado?

Donna Wichelman Uncategorized

In September 1910, the Irish writer and Nobel Prize-winning author George Bernard Shaw took an open boat, manned by ten men on five oars to Skellig Michael, an island seven miles offshore from the Irish coast. In a letter to a friend, he said of the “pinnacled… caverned, minareted” island, “They landed me on the most fantastic and impossible rock …

Why Some Historic Places Leave A Lasting Impression On Us

Donna Wichelman Uncategorized

Have you ever visited a place that so staggered you that it had an indelible effect on your life? Some veterans and their families experience overwhelming tears when they visit the Pearl Harbor National Memorial in Waikiki, Hawaii. Others feel that same emotional tug on their hearts when they see the 911 Memorial and Museum. Many who tour Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, …

How A Wintery Day Transported Me to Another Snowstorm Three Centuries Ago

Donna Wichelman Uncategorized

As I sit at my computer in a warm house this January wintery morning, I look out my window at the white, pillowy snow that accumulates, blanketing our neighborhood with more than eight inches of snow and still mounting. The snowstorm transports me to another era when tremendous cold and miserable snowstorms impede the progress of a regiment of men …

When Tradition Finds No Room in the Inn

Donna Wichelman Uncategorized

Our family decorates the house for Christmas each year on the day after Thanksgiving. It’s become a tradition. Carols play in the background while a fury of activity ensues. Everyday household décor is removed and replaced by candles, garlands, snow globes, and poinsettias. We rearrange the furniture in the family room to set up the Christmas tree in front of …

How a Bygone Era Came to Life in a Colorado Mountain Town

Donna Wichelman Uncategorized

Have you ever visited a place where you had that sensation of having stepped into a picture postcard of a bygone era? Did your body seem to relax, as if you’d been transported into a time long ago when life seemed much simpler and the stresses and strains of daily routine melted away? Christmas 2019 in Georgetown, Colorado was that …

In Honor of a Veteran

Donna Wichelman Uncategorized

Today, I’m switching up my content a little bit because it’s Veteran’s Day, and since my father was a Veteran of World II, it seems only fitting for me to say thank you to everyone who has served and is still serving today in the armed forces of the United States. Your contributions to help secure the freedoms we hold …

Where Swiss Technology Meets a Colorado Icon

Donna Wichelman Uncategorized

In my last blog, I talked about the nineteenth-century, narrow-gauge Georgetown Loop Rail Road in Colorado. This week, I want to expand on a theme that connects Swiss technology with another Colorado icon—the Manitou and Pikes Peak Colorado Cog Railway west of Colorado Springs. Long before the Territory of Colorado was formed in 1861 in response to the Colorado gold …

Where an “Old-Time” Train Experience Meets a Modern Adventure

Donna Wichelman Uncategorized

Long before my Singing Silver Mine historical fiction series came to pass, our family became fans of the Georgetown Loop Railroad, a living museum attraction in Georgetown, Colorado. The three-foot, narrow-gauge railroad through the Rocky Mountains provided a delightful summer excursion only forty-five minutes west from Denver. Little did I know its importance in the history of Colorado would take …

Have They Really Found the Prison Where Peter and Paul Were Incarcerated Two Millennia Ago?

Donna Wichelman Europe, Uncategorized

The unsuspecting tourist visiting Rome may not know that at the north end of the Forum they have just walked past one of the most revealing archaeological finds in the city discovered a little over a decade ago. Since Medieval times the Mamertine Prison, also known as the Carcere Tullianum in Biblical times, was hallowed as the prison where Christians …