If one roll of duct tape is handy for taking care of almost everything but the kitchen sink--oh, wait, you can use it for that too, how about what happens when there are rolls and rolls of the stuff? Head to the Avon Heritage Duct Tape Festival and you'll find out. In Avon, Ohio, "Duct Tape Capital of the World," the place where Duck brand duct tape is made, duct tape shows up in parade floats, hats, clothing, sculptures and crafts.

You name it, you can make it with duct tape seems to be the festival motto. The festival, June 13-15, handily coincides with Father's Day weekend. Flowers for mom for Mother's Day and duct tape for dad. Of course, you can mix it up and make flowers for dad out of duct tape. Although, since the theme of this year's festival parade is pirates, maybe a pirate hat will do--or a ship.

Along with the duct tape events there are rides, food and music. If something breaks down during this weekend, like a ride seat cushion gets a small tear, there will be plenty of stuff on hand to fix it.

If there are any funky festivals celebrating something unusual about your town, let us know. Toot your horn so we can send people your way to toot with you. For ideas for how to use duct tape in your travels, click here.

I heard that this weekend there are Civil War reenactors on the state house lawn in Columbus. This reminded me of my two friends who have dabbled in Civil War reenacting. Each dress up in period soldier attire-- one is in Confederate gray and the other is Union blue. As reenactors, they meet up other reenactors to act out a particular slice of history. There are rules involved for how reenactments are done.

It's not a matter of running around on a field any which way, but following the patterns and paths of what actually happened during particular battles during the Civil War. Clothing reenactors wear are to fit the time period and reenactors are often not supposed to take pictures. One of my friends said that he took a few pictures once when he was "killed" and down on the ground, but he had to be quick so people wouldn't notice.

The Web site Civil War Reenactment HQ lists several reenactment events and locations. Many reenactments include Civil War campsites and interpretive talks geared for various ages, parades and food.

Jeffrey recently wrote a post about the Gettysburg electric map that depicts this battle in different colored electric lights. The map may become no more, but here is a new opportunity to learn about the Civil War. In Washington, D.C., starting Memorial Day weekend, the bus tour "Civil War Washington: Soldiers and Citizens" will be taking people to several sites important to the time period.

On the list of stops:

• Lincoln Cottage on the grounds of the U.S. Armed Forces Retirement Home. This is where Abe Lincoln went to as a summer retreat.
• Fort Stevens which was attacked during the Civil War
• The African American Civil War Memorial
• Peterson House where Lincoln died. He was taken to this house from the Ford Theater where he was shot.

As with any bus tour worth the money, this tour gives insider type information like how Matthew Brady, a Civil War photographer attempted to get his shots. For information about the tour, click here.

Cash and Treasures, as mentioned in a previous post, is a Travel Channel show that features kid friendly places. Host Kirsten Gum, an engaging sort, heads to where you can dig up treasure with or without kids.

Episode: Digging for antique bottles

What are they? Antique bottles. As in bottles. As in antiques. As in old.

Location: Gum headed to the Sacramento Valley in California, however, you can dig for antique bottles anywhere people lived years and years ago. You have to promise not to go all shovel happy, though. There are rules involved for where and how you go rooting around.

The Sacramento Valley offers promise for good digs because of the influx of people who settled here after gold was discovered in 1848. To find bottles, you have to find an outhouse. People used to throw out their trash down the holes. These days, the holes are often buried, and in this case, under a parking lot outside a store.

Which Pulitzer Prize winning author, who I credit as writing the most wonderful book of all time, once worked as a reservation clerk for Eastern Airlines and BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation)? Eventually, friends gave her a year's salary so she could stop working in order to have time to write, and write she did.

Harper Lee's birthday was April 28, and in the tradition of The Writer's Almanac, she was honored by Garrison Keillor who told about this morsel of her life on Monday. So for my last post of April, hats off to Harper Lee who brought us To Kill a Mockingbird after her stint in the travel business.

Perhaps, one of the people who is checking your bags, or telling you that your flight is delayed, has a prize-winning novel percolating. With the way the airlines are going these days, I hope that if someone does have a novel in the works, he or she has a rich friend who can pay his or her salary for a year.

Lee won the Pultizer in 1961.

Tomorrow is May Day when spring is to be celebrated by dancing around a pole, wearing a flower wreath, arranging a bouquet, celebrating workers or honoring the Virgin Mary. It depends on where you're from and when you grew up.

When my mother was a girl growing up in Appalachian Kentucky, she dressed in a white dress to dance around a May pole during a school-wide celebration. Early settlers of her town were steeped in the culture of Ireland, Scotland and England, so a May Day spin off in Celtic traditions was a natural fit. Here's a YouTube video from last year's May Day celebration in Cerne Abbas village in Dorset, England where folk dancing and the May Pole are still traditions.

Location: Delhi, the city with a history that dates back to 1650 A.D. This is where the Mughal Empire once reigned supreme leaving stunning buildings in its wake, and the British tried to recreate into an organized place of roundabouts and more stunning buildings. Common to every part of the city is the sacred cow that wanders throughout. Food truths: milk crosses cultural boundaries, and there's nothing quite like a perfect masala.

Episode Rating: 4 Sheep Testicles (out of 4) using Aaron's system, but trade sheep for goat.

Summary: Oh, rapture! Joy! I thought I missed food in Taiwan until I saw Andrew Zimmern eat his way through Delhi. With the abundance of food options and places to eat, Zimmern and his crew did an admirable job honing in on highlights of the gastronomic variety. If one thinks that Indian food is nothing but yellow curry powder, this episode dispelled that. Another dispelled myth is Delhi belly. I never had it in two years that I recall. If I had it, I'd remember.

Is this a PR strategy to get more tourists to visit Lesbos Island or do they really care?

Three islanders from Lesbos - Greek island and home of the ancient poet Sappho, who praised love between women - have taken a gay rights group to court for using the word lesbian in its name, Newsweek reports. One of the plaintiffs said that the name of the association, Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, "insults the identity" of the people of Lesbos, who are also known as Lesbians.

The three plaintiffs are seeking to have the group barred from using "lesbian" in its name.

Lesbos should just use the term lesbian to advertise the island: "Lesbos: where Lesbians love men." Tell me that wouldn't work.

This week, Big in Japan is on vacation in the Middle East, and will be bringing you travel news and happenings from around this often misunderstood region.

Few places in the world can rest on their laurels quite like Jerusalem, the Holy City of the Promised Land that is home to some of the most sacred sites in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Not unlike that really, really hot girl you bump into at the club, everyone seems to be fighting for a piece.

So how holy is Jerusalem you say? Well, let me assure you that it's certainly holier than thou. While it's difficult to fully appreciate the historical and religious significance of Jerusalem without ever actually setting foot there, today's posting will hopefully shed some light on some of the old city's most storied buildings and monuments.

Disclaimer: This is a travel blog, not political commentary. I certainly don't have a solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, though I can certainly understand, on all sides, why Jerusalem is worth fighting for.

When I went to Japan several years back, the U.S. dollar was the pits against the yen. Luckily I had a friend of a friend of my brother's to stay with in Tokyo. I had a Japanese rail pass for a week so we ventured out on day trips mostly, except for two nights in Kyoto. We went on a day trip to Nara from there. Other trips were to Kamakura and Nikko. This was an impressionistic sort of trip. Japan is such a vivid place that I can conjure up pictures of most of it.

Now that my friend has moved back to Japan, I'm thinking another trip to Japan is in order, particularly since we have another place to go. Okayama, where my friend now lives, looks like it's a perfect sized city for visiting with children, and one where its possible to taken in the nuances of Japanese culture. In an odd way, it seems to be to Japan what Columbus is to the United States--a reflection of the rest of the country without being overwhelming. There is enough to see and do to make it interesting, but because of the size, the people and sites are accessible.

I'm getting this from the Okayama page at Wikitravel that lists several attractions you can take in.