Tag ArchiveEverywhere Once |

Tis The Season

by Brian on December 31, 2014 in Asia, Travel

For professional portraits, apparently.

All over Vietnam we saw couples and what appeared to be recent graduates dressed to the nines with professional camera crews in tow in scenic spots like Hoi An’s riverfront and Hanoi’s Temple of Literature. It was quite nice, actually.

We intruded just a little to sneak a few photos of our own. I hope they don’t mind. Their presence added such a wonderfully personal and totally joyous context to the places we were visiting. We were happy to share these brief moments with them, however distantly. We really wish them all the best.

Chiricahua National Monument

by Brian on June 8, 2012 in Arizona, Travel, United States

Apache Indians called the area that is now Chiricahua National Monument “the land of standing up rocks.” Much later, European settlers called it “a wonderland of rocks.” We simply called it awesome.

In this remote area of Southeastern Arizona, columns of volcanic rock seemingly grow hundreds of feet in height, in fields that stretch as far as the eye can see. Upon seeing it for the first time, Shannon and I both thought of Colorado’s Garden of the Gods, only dressed in green. But the comparison is somewhat tenuous. Where Garden of the Gods is finely manicured, petite and photogenic, Chiricahua is rough, ruggedly handsome and massive.

Warner Brothers Morning Guests

by Brian on June 7, 2012 in Arizona, United States

After a spectacular sunset, we awoke to our favorite Warner Brothers cartoon. The Road Runner stayed for some breakfast seed.

But Bugs Bunny, seeming distraught at having made a wrong turn in Albuquerque, didn’t linger.

A Serendipitous Solar Eclipse

by Brian on May 21, 2012 in Arizona, Travel, United States

We don’t usually plan well enough to arrive in specific locations during special events. We always seem to just miss festivals and cool cultural goings on. So it was a little surprising when we discovered that our travels took us directly in the path of the first solar eclipse to hit North America since 1994.

We decided to stay a couple of extra days in Holbrook, AZ, so we could take in the event at Petrified Forest National Park. We’ll have a ton more to say about this park in future blog posts, but suffice it to say, there is far more here than just a bunch of rocks that used to be trees. It’s a surprisingly awesome national park and a terrific place to have watched this unusual occurrence.

Last night’s show was what is called an annular eclipse, which is a special type of partial eclipse. Unlike a total eclipse where the moon completely blots out the sun, in an annular the moon is far enough away from the earth that it leaves a visible ring of fire (and it burns, burns, burns.) It really does, too, if you stare at it with unprotected eyes.

Antigua, Guatemala

by Brian on March 28, 2012 in Central America, Guatemala, Travel

Established in the 16th Century as the capitol of the Spanish colonial government for the Kingdom of Guatemala, which at the time included much of present-day Central America, Antigua is a living museum of Spanish colonial architecture.