Mount Rushmore is an iconic monument that is inspirational even if you’ve seen pictures dozens of times.  The setting, size, and thoughtful facial expressions still take you by surprise.  You can’t help but feel a sense of pride and patriotism when you look at it.  You also have to appreciate the skill, perseverance, and ingenuity it took to carve it. Conversely, it looks unfinished.  The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, built a…

The Badlands are in South Dakoda and consist of vast prairie lands and unusual rock formations carved by millions of years of erosion.  The park is large – about the same size as Rocky Mountain National Park, but only a fraction of it is accessible. It was home to the Sioux Indians for hundreds of years before being for forced out and replaced by Homesteaders.  Most of the Homesteaders left…

We toured Sicily and the “heal of the boot” for 3 weeks starting in mid-February 2022 with Marv and Laurie Baker.  The depth of history was remarkable and somewhat unexpected.  In addition to your everyday 2000 year-old Roman stuff, there are amazing Greek and Byzantine buildings, cultures, and history going as far back as the 10th century BC.  To generalize, Southern Italy is more rustic than Northern Italy, including the…

The Greece visit was on the heels of our Italy trip and included the southern Greece mainland and three of the Islands.  Like Italy, we were there early in the tourist season and among the first Americans touring Greece since the pandemic started.  The Greeks are friendly and courteous people who treated us wonderfully. We had no real communication problems even in the off-the-beaten-track places.  It was easy to get…

Our trip to Florida didn’t play out like we had planned, but it was still a lot of fun.  Our RV was out of commission due to a blown out hydraulic part that couldn’t be replaced due to supply chain issues.  We decided to compress the trip and stay in hotels and Airbnbs.  We covered the west coast for the two weeks before Thanksgiving and the east coast for 10…

We finally made it to Utah in September to see the three northern-most National Parks. Our home base with Sue and Dean Hereford for the first two weeks was Moab, which was well situated to get to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.  The Colorado River runs through the entire area and the river canyons dominate the landscape.  The canyons, rock formations from millions of years of erosion, and the desert…

The third week of our Utah trip with the Herefords was focused on visiting Capital Reef National Park and the surrounding area.  Capital Reef is a large “tall and narrow” park almost entirely surrounded by federal lands including National Forests, National Monuments, and BLM lands. Consequently, if seems like the wilderness goes on forever.  The park is centered on a 90 mile long ridge in the earth’s crust known as…

At the end of March, we stayed in Bosque, New Mexico about 40 miles south of Albuquerque for a few days followed by Santa Fe for almost a week.  Our time was largely spent hiking in National Monuments and visiting American Indian ruins. Many of the ruins are at least 700 years old and are the last vestiges of native peoples who occupied the land for thousands of years.  In…

We have passed by Petrified Forest National Park several times while traveling through Arizona on I-40, but haven’t taken the time to see it.  When we cancelled our mid-March stop in Durango (due to weather), we decided to stop at “Petrified” instead.  This was a good move as the park is much more than some petrified wood chunks.  It is also  about the Painted Desert, extinct creature excavations, as well…

The Monument Valley Tribal Park a huge area that straddles Utah and Arizona that contains some of the most scenic rock formations in the world.  It is the product of 50 million years of erosion and lies entirely in the Navajo Nation Reservation territory.  Normally, you can take Navajo tours in and around the entire valley with a Navajo guide, however in mid-March the Park was still shut down by…