Imagine standing on the median of Central Parkway in Cincinnati today. Traffic rushes past, and the noise of the city surrounds you. Now, transport yourself back to the 1850s. The asphalt disappears. In its place flows the Miami and Erie Canal, a waterway crowded with barges and lined with industrious activity. Across that water lies
When you leave the sensory overload of the French Quarter and head upriver, the atmosphere shifts. The tight grid of colonial streets gives way to wide avenues, and the noise of Bourbon Street fades into the rhythmic hum of cicadas and the rumble of the St. Charles streetcar. Here, in the New Orleans Garden District,
A surreal sight greets every visitor who steps onto the grounds of Wat Mahathat: rows of headless Buddha statues sit in silence, guarding the collapsed central prang (tower). The structure, built in the distinct Khmer style, is broken, yet it still reaches skyward like a defiant fist. These ruins are not merely old temples aging