This coming Friday (4/10/2020) my daughter and I were supposed to leave for the Netherlands, but we are obviously not going. She had wanted to see the tulips, and next week is her spring vacation. However, the COVID-19 has changed so many things including travel. It has ceased, and since I am writing a travel blog, that’s been a bit tough. Fortunately I live in a beautiful area that I can share about with others. Also I have memories of…
United States
Discovering Seattle: The Boeing Plant
Often it is the things in our own backyard that we never get around to seeing. We make a point to visit specific places when we travel, but often we fail to visit the attractions in our own hometown. Such was the case with the Boeing Plant. I knew the company offered tours, but in 40 years I had never visited. I finally changed that after a friend recently told me about his experience. The tour of the Boeing Plant…
Palms to Pines Road Trip
A fellow blogger Mike in his blog Mikes Thoughts often talks about the value of just wandering in a city with no particular plan. This was about to happen to us. After realizing we were not going to go up in the Palm Springs Tram, we cast about for a way to spend out final day in Palm Springs. We ended up wandering through the nearby mountains traveling what is known as the Palms to Pines scenic byway. It had…
Discovering Joshua Tree National Park
One of our priorities when we visited Palm Springs, California over Christmas was a trip down to Joshua Tree National Park. With the nearest entrance only about an hour away, it makes for a great day trip to get you out in nature, nature that is quite unusual. Joshua Tree National Park is a large park in the desert. It actually covers two desert environments which have distinctive flora in them. The Joshua trees are not all over the park…
Palm Springs Impressions
This past Christmas our family decided we wanted to do something different to celebrate the holidays. Hawaii was at the top of the list, but it is so expensive to go there at Christmas time. After some discussion we settled on Palm Springs, California. None of us had spent any time there, and we thought we would enjoy some warm, sunny weather over Christmas rather than the typical cold, wet, gray skies of Seattle. While we did stay in Palm…
Day Trips from Las Vegas
Most people go to Las Vegas for gambling, drinking and partying. However, if you grow tired of these activities or are just not into that sort of thing, it doesn’t mean you have to sit in your hotel room. Here are two options of things you can easily do in a day or even in an afternoon. However, they are on opposite sides of the city so it is probably not the best to try to do them on the…
Discovering Pinnacles National Park
Pinnacles National Park is a newer national park. It only became a national park in 2013. Perhaps because it is newer explains the reason why many people aren’t even aware of it. While it is located just 80 miles south of San Jose, it is the 13th least visited national park in the United States. Only a little over 233 thousand people visit in a year. Compare that to the 4 million who visit the popular Yosemite National Park just…
Exploring Angel Island
While visiting my daughter in San Jose, she decided we needed to explore Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. She and a friend had ridden bikes around the island and enjoyed it. She thought it would be fun for my wife and me to explore it as well. To get to the island was a journey in itself. We had to drive about a half hour north to catch the BART light rail system. After a half hour ride, we…
Beyond the Grand Canyon: Day Trips Near Flagstaff
If you have spent a day at the Grand Canyon, What do you do next? While the Grand Canyon is an amazing place to visit, the truth is unless you are going to hike in the park, it really only takes a day to see it. So what do you do with the rest of your vacation time? If Flagstaff is your home base, here are some day trips near Flagstaff that you can experience with your next day or…
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Washington’s Unique Nisqually Wildlife Refuge
Traveling on I-5 from Seattle to Portland can be a long drive. If you are looking for a break, you will find one just over an hour from Seattle at the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge. One might expect a wildlife refuge to be a long way from a major freeway, but it really is just off the freeway. In fact while we were at the refuge we could see the cars driving by. I had driven by the exit on many…
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