My favorite John Muir quote (don’t remember where I read it) advises, “Don’t go to Alaska when you are young, it will ruin you for life.” I’m not young any more but I see what he was getting at. I read his book, Travels in Alaska, when I was in Nome three years ago. When our family started talking about an Alaska cruise, I was ready to go back. Even though I don’t consider myself a cruise person.
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For the past year I’ve been reading up on the Apostle Paul, including an Acts Bible study, all focused on preparing for a visit to Turkiye.
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Summer in Madison is filled with fun and adventure, so I ventured out on a Saturday morning. You don’t always see deer in the arboretum, but they are there.
(more…)With just a week of classes left I decided it was time to take a hike – to campus – through the arboretum. It’s spring after all.
Flowers along the trail even before the arboretum.
Time for a spring break road trip and Savannah, Georgia was calling. Roadtrip’s first stop though, at a national park along the way.
Mammoth Cave National Park sign.
Not a big fan of caves but this one is, well, mammoth in size and worth a visit. I signed up for the history tour, which featured two of the 400+ miles of the cave that has been explored and told the story of how its features have been gradually discovered over the years.
Our youngest son Sam lives in Seattle now, so connecting with him on the last day of my northwest vacation was the best part of the whole week.
My base of operations was the Sorrento Hotel, a 115-year old institution just a few blocks down Madison Street from Sam’s apartment.
On my way from Seattle to Redwood National Park (previous post), I had to drive through Oregon and Washington. On the way back, I made a few stops.
Crater Lake National Park was my first stop, an impressive relic of an ancient volcano.
The tall trees called me back to California to start a week of vacation.
I woke on Central Daylight Time and ventured out for a look at Crescent City’s Battery Point lighthouse under the setting moon.
I realized when I woke up this morning that plans to work in the garden today were not going to be realized, due to the 5½ inches of rain we’d seen in our rain gauge the last 2 days. So I decided to to take a hike…to the arboretum.
Dew Droplets on the bright green grass.
Two to two and a half centuries ago, the main source of income in this region was the fur trade. The town where I grew up, Prairie du Chien, was one of the main hubs of this trade. Even today, the annual Rendezvous along the shore of the Mississippi River celebrates the traders and trappers who gathered there for decades to seek their fortune. All of those furs eventually made their way by canoe to Mackinac Island, and from there to the east coast and Europe. Probably since high school I’ve wanted to visit Mackinac and explore that fur trading connection. This became the year.
Friday morning I awoke in my tent along the western shore of Lake Michigan’s Green Bay, at Wells State Park (Michigan DNR).
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