Crowders Mountain State Park: Charlotte Day Trip
Sometimes you just need a dose of nature to get yourself back on track. We’ve been on the road as part of our latest mobile marketing tour for about three months now. The current tour’s client is Dole (the fresh fruits and vegetables divisions), and they have a worthy goal: getting people to live healthier, […]
Petrified Forest NP: Nature’s Canvas
[metaslider id=11316] Colors of The Painted Desert A new opportunity to learn more about what life was like for early residents of the Arizona desert is one more reason we’d love to return. We’ve driven through the area several times, and have always been struck by the stark beauty of the region. Wide, sweeping views across the […]
Holy Moab
From ski slopes in the north to the red rock formations in the south, Utah is a state with tremendous natural beauty. We have been lucky enough to drive through Utah on many occasions on our cross-country drives for work. One of our favorite stops was a days-off visit to the city of Moab and […]
Petroglyph National Monument
Diverse Beauty of the Southwest The southwest of the US is one of our favorite parts of the country. There’s something about the landscape that attracts us. On the surface it seems barren and desolate. On closer inspection though, these mountains and mesas, deserts and plateaus are full of life. These are the homes of bighorn […]
Franklin Mountains State Park, Texas
Paso del Norte One doesn’t often associate El Paso, Texas with great natural beauty, but it’s there if you look for it. Tired of spending time in the city, we wanted to get out and get active. A long walk was in order. But where? The Franklin Mountains are the longest sustained mountain range in […]
Retracing Dinosaur Tracks in Texas
Dinosaur tracks from several species have been found over the years in Dinosaur Valley State Park. The unique geological history of the area, and later preservation by the Paluxy River made it the perfect place to permanently record the footprints of these huge animals that roamed here long ago. In that era, this area of […]
Intro to Geocaching
Enjoy the outdoors? Hiking? Nature? A good puzzle or game of Hide-and-Seek? You might want to try your hand at Geocaching. We started in 2006 and have made it a part of our travels, both at home and abroad. Our first find was near Pt. Defiance in Tacoma, Washington and we’ve been hooked on “caching” […]
Longsheng Rice Terraces
Longsheng Rice Terraces Hands-down, our favorite part of our visit to Guilin was a day-trip several hours away to the Longsheng Rice Terraces. We shared transportation with four others from the hostel: a recent high-school grad from Peru studying in China, whose father is Chinese, a guy from Slovakia, and a couple from Holland, the […]
North Carolina Roots
On a pleasant May morning, descendants of Ernest Willis gathered not far from the small town of Cashiers, North Carolina to explore a tract of land donated by their ancestor for its perpetual protection. Ernest donated the land through his estate to the Nature Conservancy of which he was a lifetime member. As descendants of Ernest, Donny (second cousin […]
Don’t Skip: Invercargill and New Zealand’s Southland
Intro to New Zealand’s Southland Region From the Catlins in the East to Fiordland in the West, New Zealand’s Southland region is a land of rugged coastline, rolling plains, towering cliffs and ancient glaciers. It’s a nature-lover’s paradise, filled with opportunities to hike, bike and just plain get lost. Though Fiordland can be considered its […]