Buckeye, Arizona.
It wasn’t our first hike on this section of the Verrado Trails, but with a cloudy sky and cool temperatures, it was more pleasant than if it was under the typically hot Arizona sun. The hike is a giant loop clocking in at about 2.5 hours and 5.5 miles (8.8 km). Continue reading
Peoria, Arizona.
I always enjoy the views of the saguaro cacti on our hikes in Arizona. As I have commented many times over the years, this species of succulent is found only in the wettest desert in the world, the Sonoran Desert, mostly in Arizona and northernmost Mexico. Continue reading
Peoria, Arizona.
It’s about an hour’s drive from our house in Buckeye to Lake Pleasant. It’s a long way to go for a typical hike, but it’s such a beautiful location, I usually try to hike the Pipeline Canyon Trail at least once a year. That’s two-miles out, two miles back, and we get to cross a canyon on a floating bridge in the process. Continue reading
Buckeye, Arizona.
In November 2020, on one of our first Arizona hikes for the 2020-21 hiking season, our group was hiking in Skyline Park on the Granite Falls Trail. For me, it was the first hike of the season. We took it easy to “break-in” these old hiking legs. Continue reading
Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.
It was a hazy, smoky day in Wyoming when we spent some time in the Grand Teton National Park. In September and October, western states’ wildfires would mar many of the images on our trip. We stopped at one viewpoint in the Grand Tetons where I saw a placard naming the peaks visible from that point. The second-highest peak in the range is Mount Owen at 12,933 feet (3,942 m). Continue reading
Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota.
The South Unit of the park is by far the most popular of the three units. Last week’s Cellpic Sunday featured a view of the North Unit. We didn’t make the trip through to the third park unit, Elkhorn Ranch, as that part of the park is undeveloped and only available to those with 4-wheel drive vehicles probably meant more for off-roading than anything else. The largest section of the park, the South Unit entrance is located on the main street of the city of Medora. Continue reading
Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota.
In mid-September, 2020, we explored the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park for the first time. For travelers along I-94, the South Unit is but a short jog off the Interstate. The North Unit, on the other hand, is an hour’s drive north of I-94 just off U.S. Highway 85. Unless you have another reason to travel north of the Interstate, it’s an easy choice to choose the South Unit, the largest section of the park. Continue reading
Buckeye, Arizona.
Regular readers know of my love of Arizona sunsets and my regular trips to the desert a couple miles from our house to photograph them. Well, I missed the trip to the desert for one spectacular sunset. You see last week was Superbowl Sunday. Of course, I had to watch it. By half-time, the game was all but decided and though it was no longer interesting, I sat and watched like some robot. Continue reading
Napoleon, North Dakota.
About 30 miles (48 km) south of Dawson, North Dakota near the small town of Napoleon, John “Custer” Grenz put together a collection of threshing machines. An avid collector, over the years, he amassed many of these machines that, in their day, were used to separate small grain and seed crops from the straw and chaff. Early machines were powered by horses or steam engines. Continue reading
Buckeye, Arizona.
The boy is back. On our first Arizona winter stay in 2011-2012, we saw a large cutout of a boy in front of a tractor, playing with another tractor. That piece of art disappeared when the Arizona Department of Highways started construction of a stack that would become the interchange for I-10 and the newly constructed AZ-303 loop that services the extreme western edge of the Phoenix metro. It seems the boy and his two tractors were in the way of the interchange construction. When the boy disappeared, there were rumors of a promised return. Continue reading
