Canyon de Chelly In the vast red desert landscape of Arizona, in the same state as the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley, there is a virtually unknown canyon that is comparable in beauty to these two famous national parks. I am referring to Canyon de Chelly (pronounced Canyon de Shay), which is unique among National Parks, as it is comprised entirely of a Navajo Tribal Land Trust that remains home to their canyon community. Before beginning to plan our three…
Mesa Verde National Park was established in 1906 to preserve and interpret the archeological heritage of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from 600…
Straddling the border of Utah and Arizona, we could see the giant sandstone formations of Monument Valley towering over the desert floor from miles away as we approached. Perhaps nothing better…
The Grand Canyon North Rim is very close to the Utah Border. It is more remote and less visitors make it to the North side. Further from any freeways, it is…
Cathedral Wash is a short and scenic slot canyon with easy access and big rewards. Located in Marble Canyon, Arizona, you can drive right by it if you are not paying…
Boat Mesa (above). Bryce Canyon National Park In September 2018, we visited Bryce Canyon National Park in Southwestern Utah, which was designated a national park in 1928. The park covers 35,835…
In 2016, while attending a Peter Mitchell Cidermaking course in Mount Vernon, Washington, Halee Fried sat a row behind me and we struck up a friendship. We talked about what each…
Carnivorous and always hungry, sea anemones are not plants, as some people might think, but silent slow-motion predators that will devour any small animal careless enough to stray within reach of…
Yim and I visited Puerto Escondido in southern Mexico in 2018. We stayed in a small resort called Posada Real, right on the Playa Bacocho, a long beautiful stretch of beach…
Legend has it that a pirate named Andrés Drake kidnapped a young Mixtec woman from the village of Santa María Huatulco. While the pirates were camped out in the bay of…
We travelled to Catalonia in 2017, landing in Barcelona first and spending five days exploring the city, enjoying or giggling at the architecture of Gaudi, shopping, walking, eating, drinking and touring…
During our trip to Catalonia, Spain in 2017, we decided to visit Llafranc as part of our round trip. Llafranc doesn’t seem to be somewhere that’s on the radar for a…
The Pyrenees mountain range separates the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of Europe, stretching more than 430 km between Spain and France and rising higher than 3,400m in elevation. Hiking trails…
Tossa de Mar sits rather majestically on Catalonia’s Girona coast – basking in its beautiful Mediterranean climate. The walled old town offers stunning views of the surrounding coast, and is the…
In 2017, we visited Barcelona in the province of Catalonia, Spain. We had been wanting to visit or several years and after quite a bit of research, decided that the province…
