Articles with bridges

Wildlife Encounters in Rancho San Antonio near Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley conjures up images of high tech companies in shiny buildings with busy employees working far too much. We sometimes forget that word valley. A valley is an area between hills or mountains, and Silicon Valley sits near some hills which have been preserved for the valley citizens to enjoy and experience nature. One such location is Rancho San Antonio which is an open space preserve in the Santa Cruz Mountains west of the valley. Here visitors will find…

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Dash Point State Park: From the Beach to the Forest

A beautiful, sunny day in February is a great opportunity to do some exploring. On such a Saturday we decided to travel down to Federal Way and explore Dash Point State Park. Washington state has over 100 state parks so there are a number of locations to see, and we have only visited a few of them. It was time to explore more. Dash Point is on Puget Sound in Federal Way. We took the 320th St. exit off I-5…

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Seattle’s Cheshiahud Loop: Pipes, Bridges, and Houseboats

Travel articles often suggest that one needs to look at their own region through the eyes of a tourist. Since I am not always traveling to distant places to write about, I often look around the Seattle community to find experiences and places to share. That recently led me to discover Cheshiahud Loop, a route that goes all the way around Lake Union. The online information stated it was a six and a half mile walk. We figured that would…

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Cruising the Douro on Easter Sunday in Porto, Portugal

Easter Sunday dawned with a slight haze over the city of Porto. While we had plans to see more of Porto including a trip on the Douro River, first we would attend an Easter service. We had decided that instead of going to one of the many older churches down in the historic district of Porto, we would instead attend the service at the local church. It was a few blocks away from our hotel. We arrived a few minutes…

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Discovering Amsterdam from Land and Canals

Amsterdam is the largest city in The Netherlands and has a rich history as an industrial and economic leader. This shows in some of the unique ways the city has reinvented itself over the years. While there is much to see in this city, we toured the city in an afternoon knowing we were missing a lot. To get to the center of Amsterdam from our hotel, we would normally ride the train and be there in ten minutes. This…

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Bruges, Belgium: City of Canals, Churches, and Chocolate

The reason we decided to start our trip in Belgium was to visit the town of Bruges. Andrea had discovered interesting reviews of the town and decided it was a place to visit. The center of town has the distinction of being on the UNESCO World Heritage List as a medieval city. It has become a major tourist destination for Belgium. Bruges is only about a 30 minute train ride from Ghent. When we got on the train, it was…

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Revealing The Walls of Two Cities in Switzerland

In 2017 we spent my spring break in Switzerland. Switzerland had never been at the top of our bucket list of places to visit, however the airfare was compelling. We found a bargain price to Zurich and decided to go for it. What we didn’t realize at the time was Zurich is the most expensive city in Europe. Perhaps it was not as much of a bargain as we originally thought. While we did spend time exploring Zurich, we went…

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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…

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