Twice now in the past six months I’ve gone to Las Vegas for a concert. Trust me, I’m just about the last person you’d expect to spend any time in Vegas—I have zero interest in gambling or shopping, and the nonstop lights and noise of the Strip really get on my nerves. So since we…
Travel
I saw the light!
Last month I spent four days in the town of Egmont, BC. My husband and I had joined a friend on his annual excursion to the stomping grounds of his youth. We trailered the friend’s boat, Scherzo, up through Oregon and Washington and into British Columbia. We took a ferry and then ditched the car…
Earthwatch 1: Counting crowberry
This summer we finally got to take a trip that had originally been scheduled for 2020. It was an Earthwatch expedition to Acadia National Park in Maine. It was also the first time I’d traveled outside the Pacific time zone, flown, and taken public transit since the COVID-19 pandemic began. All of those were stressful….
A Walk in the Mountains
Another guest blog entry by my husband, Alex Johnson 22 September 2020Lake McDonald, Glacier National Park, Montana Thirty four years ago I worked as a seasonal employee in Glacier National Park. My first job – and my most favorite – was Information Desk Clerk. I found I loved sharing my enthusiasm for the park with…
Of rocks and fish in the desert
I don’t remember what I expected from my first view of Death Valley. I knew it to contain the lowest elevation (Badwater Basin, 282 feet below sea level) in North America and that it was really hot in the summer, but beyond that I had no clue. [Aside: the marine biologist in me wondered which…
Where the streets have no name
Joshua Tree National Park gained a certain notoriety this past winter, when idiots went there during the federal government shutdown and trashed the place. The vandals chopped down the iconic Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia), let their dogs run around unleashed, left litter scattered over the landscape, and carved new roads through the desert. I’d like…
Anza-Borrego
The first new-to-me visit on our spring break road trip was Anza-Borrego State Park in the southern California desert. We arrived late in the day on Monday and had just a brief chance to look around. On Tuesday we got up early and went for a hike, trying to avoid some of the midday heat….
Wildflowers
We’ve had a good strong wet season this year, resulting in another wildflower superbloom. Over spring break we went to southern California to chase the flowers and, while we were at it, visit some places that I’d never been to. Our first stops were at familiar stomping grounds that we’d visited in 2017: Shell Creek…
Bearing witness
The United States entered World War II in December 1941, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. With Japan now considered an enemy state, part of the U.S. response in 1942 was to order more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry living on the west coast and in Hawaii into forced interment in…
The Selkirk Loop
In early July we joined my in-laws on a 2-day driving trip around the International Selkirk Loop, a series of highways that follow rivers and lakes through the northeast corner of Washington, the northern skinny part of Idaho, and southern British Columbia. These roads pass through some beautiful country in both the U.S. and Canada,…