After visiting Lassen Volcanic National Park, I drove straight north to Bend, Oregon for a week stay. Because of all the fires, 97 was one lane for several miles and I was stopped for about 20 minutes. I thought it was just road work until they let us through and I saw all the heavy equipment knocking down and cutting up burned trees. Devastating to see the damage from all the fires. Some days in Bend were hazy because of…
Like Pinnacles, I hadn’t heard of this park, either. I read about it on my daughter’s blog. Unlike Black Canyon of the Gunnison and Pinnacles, however, Lassen Volcanic National Park is not a “new” park, it was established in 1916 under President Wilson after Teddy Roosevelt made it a national monument in 1907. I did check the active fires in the area before booking here or Bend, Oregon. Crazy. I’ve never thought about doing this before, but every time I listened…
The Pacific Coast Highway runs from just north of San Diego all the way up to Seattle, Washington. Two years ago right after my retirement, during the “Summer of Lisa”, I drove the coastal highway from Redwoods NP, California up the Oregon coast to Seattle, Washington. This year, I did it in several stages. When in San Diego, I drove Highway 101 to and from Carlsbad many times. While it still had heavy traffic, it was much more beautiful and certainly easier…
Pinnacles, in west central California, is a fairly new park. It was dedicated January 2013, although it has been a national monument since 1908. I’ve owned the National Geographic “Guide to National Parks of the United States”, since the second edition, early 1990s, I think. Like Black Canyon of the Gunnison, in Colorado, dedicated in 1999 and Congaree, in South Carolina, dedicated 2003, none of these parks were in my old book. Time for an upgrade. I now have the…
After leaving the San Diego area, I headed east to spend 3 days and nights at Joshua Tree. I’ve been wanting to visit this park for decades and finally made it out here. Wrong time of year, definitely, with temperatures in the 100s but … I loved this park. I just wanted to see the trees but the park is so much more than that. There is amazing scenery, rock piles, mountains, “gardens” of cholla cacti, plus, great trails, historic…
After Moab I had stays planned in Caineville, Hatch, and Kanab, Utah to visit Capital Reef, Bryce, and Zion National Parks. Because of the heat and the summer crowds, I decided to cancel all the stays. I had booked 3 days for Joshua Tree NP and still wanted to visit there so found a place on the California coast for 11 nights between those dates. I stayed in Carlsbad, about 30 miles north of San Diego but with the traffic,…
“The most arid, most hostile, most lonesome, most grim, bleak, barren, desolate, and savage quarter of the state of Utah – the best part by far” – Edward Abbey ** Canyonlands National Park in Utah is comprised of four unique and separate districts; Island in the Sky, The Needles, The Maze, and Horseshoe Canyon. All but Horseshoe Canyon are contiguous but separated by the Green and Colorado Rivers. The Maze has no paved roads and is only accessible with 4-wheel…
I haven’t been to Santa Fe since 1998, so decided to stay for two weeks to do all the museums and historical parks and sites in the area. I found a B&B, close to downtown on Paseo de Peralta which encircles the historic center. I could walk almost everywhere and not have to deal with parking. The room was very small and I didn’t have much space for “stuff” (I was quite spread out and messy!) but they had several…
Or is it? I don’t know but thought it would be fun to stop for a day when driving from Carlsbad to Santa Fe. I am a huge science fiction nerd, growing up watching the original Star Trek and reading Asimov and Heinlein and Clarke. I never did watch X-files. I might need to find that on streaming and start watching it. I did pull up the “Little Green Men” episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9 on Netflix as…
I stayed in Carlsbad to visit both Guadalupe Mountain National Park and Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Unfortunately, the Dog Fire, that started May 11th from lightning, closed much of Guadalupe Mountains NP. And I didn’t get reservations in advance for a tour of Carlsbad Caverns. They were booked for over a week. Luckily, however, I kept checking recreation.gov and got a tour Tuesday, June, 1st. I had booked 5 nights here thinking that would give me a lot of time…