I arrived in Vancouver today after grossly underestimating how long it would take to get to here from Banff. It wasn’t the distance so much as the roads and how fast you can go on a winding mountain highway. I also ended up pulling over to sleep for an hour in the middle of the …
Some are calling this the worst winter in 25 years. The entire island of Great Britain is covered with snow. In Florida, the entire orange crop is threatened by freezing weather. Flights in Tampa, (TAMPA!) were delayed because of ice. This morning when I woke up there was another two inches of snow and as …
After visiting 9 national parks in the US in the last month, I figured it was time for an update on my project to visit every national park in the United States and Canada. To recap, there are currently 104 places with a “national park” designation between the United States and Canada. 59 in the …
In the last week I’ve put on a lot of miles and seen many amazing things. The Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Four Corners, Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, the Very Large Array, and the dunes of white sand desert. I’ve also been polishing off audiobooks and podcasts during the hours I’ve had to sit behind the …
From the Rideau Canal World Heritage inscription for the Rideau Canal: The Rideau Canal, a monumental early 19th-century construction covering 202 km of the Rideau and Cataraqui rivers from Ottawa south to Kingston Harbour on Lake Ontario, was built primarily for strategic military purposes at a time when Great Britain and the United States vied …
From the World Heritage inscription for L’Anse aux Meadows: This archaeological site at the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula of the island of Newfoundland contains the excavated remains of an 11th century Viking settlement consisting of timber-framed turf buildings (houses, workshops, etc.) that are identical with those found in Norse Greenland and Iceland at …
Whenever I plan a trip to visit family, I look around to see what else I can see and do while I’m there. This past weekend, I headed to Des Moines, Iowa and so I began my search. There are only three things Iowa is known for… cornfields, the Field of Dreams (also a cornfield) …
I’ve always had a fascination with the Cold War. I wasn’t alive for the majority of it, but when I was a kid Russia (or the USSR as it was called then, children) still had a lot of mystique. I remember vividly sleeping in the Soviet Space exhibit at the Fort Worth Museum of Science …
Dry Tortugas National Park is one of the least-visited, but surely one of the most unique, gems in the U.S. National Park system. For most, the highlight is a massive sentinel red brick redoubt, Fort Jefferson, that stands resolute and in stark contrast to the bright blue skies and crystalline Gulf of Mexico waters that …