Monte Vista Loop Trail

It’s been awhile since I hiked the Monte Vista Loop, and we picked a day that was pretty much perfect. It had rained overnight, so there was enough lingering dampness to keep down the dust and prevent the burs and foxtails from being too bothersome. I also didn’t intend to hike the full 3-mile loop, but there was so much […]

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Miscellaneous memories

Today I thought I would share a few images that I managed to overlook from the past year or so. Every now and then I’llĀ  upload an image to my Media Library and then forget to insert it into my blog post, and that’s the case with the first three photos. I especially love the view of the Mendocino coast […]

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Farewell to Flagstaff

My last group of pictures from our overnight stop in Flagstaff last June includes images from late afternoon on the forest path as well as a couple of views of the area which I shot the next morning. The scene outside our hotel room balcony was so welcoming that it was extremely tempting to stay over another night! But we […]

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Late afternoon light

When I took my camera and started out on the trail at our hotel in Flagstaff, Arizona, the last thing on my mind was taking advantage of the afternoon golden hour. All I wanted was to stretch my legs and decompress from two long days of driving! It was early June and the southwest monsoon season had yet to start; […]

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In the Texas Panhandle

I’ll admit I don’t know all that much about the High Plains of Texas, but after making six trips through Amarillo and along U.S. Route 287 to the Fort Worth area, I’ve become somewhat familiar with the tiny towns along the way. It’s actually sort of amazing that such a seemingly flat, boring landscape can encompass so much incredible history; […]

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Arizona pine forest

Here are a few more images from my walk along the nature trail at the Little America Hotel in Flagstaff, Arizona, last June. I was quite happy to have the path mostly to myself (the Big Guy had chosen to ignore the trail and set off on his own, cross country), and the clouds and cooler late afternoon temperatures were […]

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Where trees are of stone

I had managed to cover the looping half-mile Main Trail at the Petrified Forest near Calistoga, California. It was nearly time to leave, but when you find yourself in such beautiful surroundings, it can be difficult to drag yourself away! But as I approached the main building and the entrance gate once more, this amazing place still had one or […]

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High hopes, low water

As I promised a couple of days ago, here are the final images from our walk down to the Navarro River just before we left Hendy Woods State Park. According to my copy of The Hiker’s Hip Pocket Guide to the Mendocino Coast, “The Navarro River is the largest coastal river between Humboldt County’s Eel River and Sonoma County’s Russian […]

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