Look closely - can you find the rappeler? Finally, in the last hour of the last park on our national park tour, we came upon what we’d been looking for since we entered the parks a few days earlier.  In the distance, hanging on by a thread – rock climbers.  Or in this case, a single climber rappelling with such speed, I could barely capture the photo.  As I walked closer, I could tell it was a woman with her husband, son and dog at the bottom waiting for her. The Arches Continue Reading

Bryce Canyon National Park took my breath away. The stars are the hoodoos (odd-shaped pillars of rock left standing from the forces of erosion), and from the first time I saw photographs of the terrain many years ago, I knew I wanted to visit. It is a stunning landscape. But at an altitude of 9100 feet, I was not functioning at my best (point of reference – a mile is 5280 feet). Lansing is 820 feet, Madison is 741 feet!  The thin air caught both of us just trying to catch our breath a bit, Continue Reading

As soon as we entered the park, I felt her reach out to me as if to say welcome; strong and chiseled, but softened by time and weather. For twelve miles, we navigated the narrow road, with switchbacks and tunnels, but she was never far from my side.  At times, I could reach out the window and almost scrape my knuckles, she was that close.  This was Zion National Park, and I felt as if I was wrapped in rock, in a gentle, caressing kind of way.Zion is an interactive Continue Reading

First my right eye, then my left. Despite what I wanted, I had to open my eyes; I'd paid too much for this flight to keep them closed. Our pilot, Craig, had asked if we were ready and I'd given him a hearty thumbs up, but when we left the soft visual cushion of junipers and ponderosa pines, my stomach wasn't ready to have the floor pulled out from under me as we hovered over the Grand Canyon. Wow.  An experience like none other.I'd visited the Grand Canyon before on a long day trip from Las Continue Reading