I had spent time in Sedona before, but never enough. I was always there for just a night, usually late in a tour where we didn’t have much time to do more than have a cursory look around. The cost and snobby attitudes of the locals with their spiritual vortex talk was always a turn-off for me. I had never had the chance to really get out there and do some hiking before, but I’m sure glad I scheduled a few days for it on this trip. I’ve been to a lot of places in this country, but few can compare to the red rock country surrounding Sedona. I don’t know about vortexes, but it is definitely a beautiful and magical place. Like most of red rock country, it’s best to hit the trail very early in the morning or just as the sun is starting to go down. While I was there, I hiked to the Birthing Cave, the Subway, Devil’s Bridge, the Courthouse and Bell and, my personal favorite, the Airport Loop. With the exception of this last one, which I had all to myself, there was no shortage of people in the area. It’s definitely not a secret place, nor is it off the beaten path, but it’s well worth it to visit and the shear number of trails in the area helps to disperse people pretty well. I had a wonderful few days in Sedona and will definitely be back. I hope you enjoy these photos from beautiful Sedona, Arizona, a true hikers’ paradise.
Hello Everyone! It’s hard to believe it’s May, but it definitely is. Even in the middle of the desert, flowers are blooming, bees are buzzing and the days are getting longer and longer. That means it’s almost time for me to go back to work so I can fund these adventures and I’m really looking forward to being back out there guiding tours for a while. That being said, I am hoping to really enjoy these last few days of freedom because guiding is pretty full-on and I know it’s going to be a busy summer. Yesterday was my 5 Year “Vanniversary”, marking five years since I bought Shadow Catcher up in Lansing, Michigan and began this wonderful adventure. We’ve seen good times and bad, but it was definitely the best purchase I’ve ever made and the adventures we’ve had together have been pretty epic. This week has brought us north into central Arizona where I’ve found cooler weather, beautiful landscapes, cute towns and endless miles of hiking trails. It’s really been exactly what I needed and it’s been a pretty great week out here and I can’t wait to tell you all about it.
My hotel night last week was very relaxing and refreshing and I felt significantly better when I headed off to the Diamondbacks’ baseball game Wednesday afternoon at Chase Field. I was a little surprised that the cheapest seats in the stadium were $29, higher than most ballparks, but on the other hand I found free parking nearby and they had inexpensive hot dogs and corn dogs, so it all worked out in the end. The stadium was beautiful and stayed pretty cool as long as you found a seat in the shade. It does have a retractable roof which I guess they save for even hotter days (it got up to about 97° while I was there for the afternoon game). I got a kick out of knowing my uncle and cousin were at a Milwaukee Brewers game this week and they had to close their roof because it was snowing. It was not an action packed game, but the Diamondbacks did pull out a win for their hometown fans. They were playing the L.A. Dodgers and there were a LOT of Dodgers fans there as well. After the game I went and enjoyed a cocktail at Bikini’s, a Phoenix Tiki institution which has been slinging Mai Tais since 1947. It was a nice enough place to stop in for an afternoon drink and then I stopped into Tombstone Brewery for an excellent session IPA and found a nice corner to sip my beer and read my book for a while before calling it a night.
Thursday morning I headed over to tour the Arizona State Capitol, or more accurately the State Capitol Museum. Much like Louisiana and Florida, Arizona has a horrendous 1970s era capitol building, but thankfully, also like those other states, they hung onto their original capitol building and opened it as a museum. The museum had a fascinating display of information and artifacts from the USS Arizona which was sunk in Pearl Harbor in 1941. They had a nice tribute to Sandra Day O’Connor who, while born in Texas, served much of her career in Arizona. They had the phone on display on which O’Connor got the call from Ronald Reagan conveying news of her nomination to be our first female Supreme Court Justice. I was impressed by their lengthy exhibit on Arizona’s World War II Japanese internment camps. I also loved the Arizona Model Railroaders’ room which is a work in progress but had trains pulling through several Arizona towns as they wound their way around multiple levels of tracks. There was also some beautiful Arizona art on display and several smaller exhibits and I found the whole place a very worthwhile visit. Outside of the Capitol are several war memorials which were all beautifully done. When I had finished my visit, I took my book and sat under a nice shade tree and read for a while. Then I headed south of downtown to the home of my old college buddy, John Bushko, who I haven’t seen in 25 years. It was wonderful to meet his wife and children and catch up on all that he’s been up to in the interim. We have a lot of overlap in our Penn State friend circles, so it was fun to hear and to share stories about our mutual friends. They made an absolutely delicious dinner to share with me and we sat out by his pool swapping stories into the night. They definitely left me with a different appreciation of Phoenix and another night in a cool bed was welcome and greatly appreciated.
We were all up early on Friday and enjoyed some coffee and breakfast in between John’s early morning meetings (he works with a lot of people on the east coast, so his day workday starts at 6am). I said my goodbyes around 9 as I wanted to get out of town before the day heated up too much. I headed east through Apache Junction and Superior to Globe, an old mining community with a cute historic downtown and a few great ghost signs on the sides of their buildings. Globe’s old courthouse has been converted into a lovely art gallery and they also had a cool old train engine in one of their local parks. I was there for about an hour and then headed up the hill to Tonto National Monument, an old Sinagua Indian ruin in the middle of Tonto National Forest.
Organ Mountains - Desert Peaks National Monument is a beautiful park in Southeast New Mexico managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Just 25 minutes from Las Cruces, this park makes for a great day trip from the city or a stop-off on your way to or from White Sands National Park. I enjoyed a wonderful 7 mile round-trip hike up to Baylor Pass, a saddle with wonderful views out over the Chihuahuan Desert. In the afternoon, I made a 3 mile round-trip hike to the ruins at Dripping Springs. This area, which contains a natural spring deep in a hollow, was once home to Boyd’s Sanitarium and Van Patton’s Mountain Camp. The sanitarium catered to tuberculosis patients while the mountain camp was a fancy hotel and resort. Opened in 1897, the hotel had 15 guest rooms, a dining hall, a concert hall, a gazebo and a roller-skating rink and hosted the likes of Pat Garrett and Pancho Villa. The resort fell on hard times during World War I and Eugene Van Patten sold it to Dr. Boyd who ran the sanitarium. The Great Depression would be the final blow to the resort and it closed for good in the 1920s. Today it is maintained in a state of arrested decay and makes for a cool walk in the late afternoon. There is so much more to this park than just these two hikes, but they were all I had time for during my visit. I hope you enjoy these photos from Organ Mountains - Dripping Springs National Monument.
February is upon us. Hard to believe, but it’s really here. I know I’m not the only one that thinks February is weird because it’s so short. Why don’t we take the two days from some of the months with 31 days and add them to February to balance it out a little bit? I don’t know and I’m not going to look it up. I guess I could use the same argument I make against the metric system - boring! But it is February, and that means spring is coming. It’s just about a month until Mardi Gras, and then it’s only 40 days until Easter. Before we both know it, it’ll be May and I’ll be back at home in D.C. and planning my next moves. I’m not going to lie, I am going to need a break. I’ll be going back to guiding this summer where I hope to do some planning, some real site maintenance, some catch-up, and figure out where Miles2Go goes from here. In all honesty, the loneliness is getting to me. While I have amazing friends who have been super supportive and amazing to catch up with around the country, my day to day is a little too isolating and a little too quiet. I don’t know what the answer is to that right now, but I will let you know.
It’s been a pretty good week out here in West Florida. My second Georgia podcast is finally done. This one took a while because the weather has been so great here, and my mind has been on other things, but it is up and published. You can find it at THIS link, or by searching “American Anthology” on iTunes, Stitcher or most podcasting apps. Other than that, I’ve been catching up with friends and trying to get out and enjoy this great weather in some of Florida’s beautiful parks.
Cloudland Canyon State Park is in the far northwest corner of Georgia, an easy half-day trip from Chattanooga and a reasonable day-trip from Atlanta. It is a beautiful place with a thousand-foot deep canyon on the western edge of Lookout Mountain. Even the name makes me smile and conjures up magical images in my head. The hike down to the waterfalls involves a lot of steps, but is well worth the effort. I got there a little late in the day to get good light for my photos in the canyon itself, but the stunning dusk and sunset views from the rim made up for it. This was a wonderful introduction to the state and a great place to spend the afternoon. This was my first visit to Cloudland Canyon, but it will not be my last. I hope you enjoy these photos from my visit, remember you can always click on them to see a larger view.
It’s been a very busy and very enjoyable week on the road. Fall colors are peaking here in Kentucky and it is truly beautiful to see. Peak foliage is such a short and intense time it’s hard to fully appreciate it before it’s over. Like strawberry season you just have to enjoy it as much as you can with the time you have. I finished my first Kentucky podcast this week which you can listen to HERE or by searching “American Anthology” wherever you get your podcasts. I really like how it came out. I’ve also taken some great photos this week which I’ve only now begun to sift through.
My week started in the world’s largest cave system at Mammoth Cave National Park. I had a great time exploring the park both above and below ground. From there I made my way out to beautiful Big South Fork National Recreation Area and on to Renfro Valley where I got to see some great music in a wonderful setting. I had a wonderful visit to tiny Berea with its fascinating historic University and from there made my way back into Appalachia and spent some time in unbelievable Red River Gorge, one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen here in the east, especially under fall colors. I’m finishing the week with a visit to my dad here in Charleston, West Virginia, where this whole journey started just about a year ago. In fact this week I will be celebrating my one year anniversary on the road. The weather is turning colder and as temperatures dip below freezing I’m starting to turn my attention south for the winter. It’s been a great stay in the Bluegrass State, but it’s almost time for me to be moving on…
Cuyahoga Valley National Park, located in north-central Ohio between Cleveland and Akron, is a wonderful place to visit. There are several beautiful natural areas to see including The Ledges, a series of moss covered rock cliffs, and the Beaver Marsh, a restored wetland teeming with wildlife. Several beautiful waterfalls can be found within the park boundaries, most notably powerful Brandywine Falls and graceful Blue Hen Falls. Cuyahoga Valley National Park also preserves some wonderful history with a restored section of the Erie and Ohio Canal and excellent interpretations of canal life and travel. Some of the surrounding towns are full of charming buildings and make pleasant detours.
A friend of mine recently passed through Cuyahoga Valley National Park and commented to me that it wasn’t worthy of the National Park title. At first glance, I might have agreed with him but I really warmed up to the area during the two days I spent there. Having grown up in an east coast city…
It has been another busy but wonderful week out here on the road. I curled my way up into the far northeast of Tennessee to visit the Tri-Cities of Johnson City, Bristol and Kingsport. From there I traveled across the north of the state to Big South Fork National Recreation Area and then headed south to the cute little town of Dayton. I've gotten to see some really cool and interesting sites, heard some great music and have done a lot of writing and research for my next podcast. The weather continues to get warmer and the flowers are really starting to come out in force. Unfortunately, with them have come my allergies, but I'm not letting them get me down. There is just too much to see and do in Tennessee to worry about a little pollen.
Hello my friends! It has been a great first week in Tennessee out here on the road. When I wrote last week, I was on my way out to the Deep Creek area of Great Smoky Mountain National Park in far western North Carolina. Today, I'm writing from Knoxville in north eastern Tennessee. It's been an exciting week of festivals and hiking in the park, and the weather has been just beautiful. Strawberries are coming into season and I love good, local strawberries which I'm thankful I've been able to find. I've also been trying to wrap up a few things from South Carolina and begin writing my next podcast. Thankfully the days are getting long down south and it seems like long ago and a million miles away that I was sitting in sub-freezing temperatures in the dark at 4:30 p.m. in West Virginia. Daylight and sunshine really do make a difference - I hope you are all getting outside and enjoying both. Anyways, this is what I've been up to this past week. I didn't quite get it done in time for my Thursday newsletter, but it has been busy out here…
America's National Parks are our nation's most valuable resources. From the U.S. Virgin Islands to the coast of Maine and from Alaska to the South Pacific and so many amazing places in between, the National Park System protects our most treasured natural and cultural areas. There are many different designations within the system, from National Battlefields and Historic Sites to National Monuments and Heritage Areas, but none is more revered than the National Parks. Of the 420 or so sites withing the system, only about 60 have the designation of National Park. Over the course of many years, I've had the distinct pleasure of seeing almost all of them. They are all incredible places and I can't imagine my life without being able to visit these areas again and again. While sometimes the topic will come up in the news about "government owned land", we must remember that this is actually public land - our land. And it's there for us to enjoy and will be forever as long as we don't let our guard down.
Congaree National Park in central South Carolina is one of our newest National Parks, having received that designation in 2003. It protects the largest tract of old growth, bottomland hardwood forest left in the United States...
