Colorado Monument Offers More Amazing Sights to See

One of the important lessons one must learn about traveling is the need to be flexible. When I booked our hotel in the wrong town, we ended up closer to our next destination so we visited Black Canyon of the Gunnison a day earlier than planned. So with an extra day on our hands, I cast about for something to do. We decided to visit Colorado National Monument. Colorado Monument is a little over an hour north of Montrose where…

Driving Along Black Canyon of the Gunnison’s Stunning Cliffs

To be perfectly honest I was not aware of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park until recently. However, it was a good one to add to our list of national park visits in Colorado. Someone told me it was like Grand Canyon National Park. To some extent that’s true, but the Black Canyon seems deeper and more narrow with its own beauty so it is worth visiting. We didn’t make an effort to leave Ourey very early. The…

Exploring the South Side of Deception Pass

Deception Pass State Park is one of the most used state parks in Washington. The park is on both sides of the narrow body of water between Fidalgo Island and Whidbey Island. It’s about an hour’s drive north of Seattle. Last week I shared about the north side of the park. Today we will look at Pass Island and the south side of the park. Let’s start with the bridges that cross over Deception Pass. The two bridges are high…

Exploring the North Side of Deception Pass

Deception Pass is the narrow strait between Fidalgo Island and Whidbey Island about an hour north of Seattle. It was named by George Vancouver after apparently neither he nor his crew noticed it on their first exploration to the area. Later, when they did discover it, they thought it had deceived them, thus the name. Today this strait is traversed by bridges. Between the two large islands is another small island, Pass Island, so there are actually two bridges. They…