INDONESIA: LABUAN BAJO HOTEL AND BACK TO BALI (DRIVING, TEGENUNGAN WATERFALL, AND BABI GULING FOR LUNCH)

 July 12, 2023

We arrived back in Labuan Bajo too late to catch a flight back to Bali, so we had booked a room at the Sudamala Resort, a four-star accommodation that felt very five-starish. The room itself was spacious, spotlessly clean, and well-appointed.

The toilet and shower had their own room behind the room above, and it was open to the sky. Very unique.

We had a private front porch that looked out on well-manicured grounds.

JAMAICA: OCHO RIOS AND DUNN'S RIVER FALLS AND KONOKO FALLS

 February 18, 2023

Ocho Rios (Spanish for "eight rivers") is a town on the north Jamaican coast. Many believe Christopher Columbus first set foot in Jamaica just outside the city.

Our hotel in Ocho Rios was a once grand multi-building complex, but it is now in a bit of a dilapidated state. Our room had no hot water, no AC, no wifi, and a cockroach on the bed.

However, they had a great sign on the office wall.

We were worn out by heat, humidity, and walking, and in spite of all the hotel issues, we just needed sleep.

The next morning we were in no rush to get started. Chad was snorkeling, and we had a plan to meet at 11:00, so we drove down to the Ocho Rios Craft Market. It was about the junkiest tourist trap we've ever seen, not even meriting a photo. Nothing was original. It all looked like it was made in China. There were multiple stalls, all selling the same items, and every vendor claimed to have made the items in his/her booth. We decided we needed breakfast instead of shopping.

Definitely not a breakfast spot:

NEW YORK: WATKINS GLEN STATE PARK

 July 28, 2021

As I mentioned in the last post, the number of beautiful places in the United States that I have not heard of before visiting them never ceases to amaze me. Watkins Glen State Park in Upstate New York was another one of those places.

The park is located at the tip of Seneca Lake, one of the Finger Lakes.

The park has three trails, two that run along the gorge's upper rim, and the main two-mile trail, the Gorge Trail, which is the closest to the stream. Hikers can start at either the top or the bottom of the gorge. It descends 400 feet, so it was a no-brainer for us. We drove to the upper end of the trail and started from there. 

Here we go! The second photo is looking back at the stairs we had just come down. Altogether, there are 832 steps on the Gorge Trail.

NEW YORK: LETCHWORTH STATE PARK

July 27, 2021

When we travel in the United States, I am always surprised by how many truly incredible places there are that I have never heard of. I know our country is vast in comparison to many countries of the world (we are the fourth largest geographically, or the third if you count our overseas territories), so why should I be surprised? And yet it happens all the time.

We hit two such spots in a row on this trip, Letchworth State Park and Watkins Glen. I'll start with Letchworth State Park, located between the Alleghany foothills and the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York and known as the Grand Canyon of the East. (Note: We also traveled to the "Grand Canyon of Texas" earlier in the year, Palo Duro State Park.) I was surprised to learn that Letchworth State Park is "America's #1 State Park," at least according to a public poll. Why hadn't I ever heard of it?

Of course, it took about two seconds for these two to find a ginormous puffball, the first of many great fungi discoveries.

Letchworth State Park is famous for its series of three falls, creatively named Upper Falls, Middle Falls, and Lower Falls.

The park is named after American businessman and humanitarian William Pryor Letchworth (1823-1910), who in 1859 purchased a large tract of land around the gorge created by the Genesee River. In 1906 he bequeathed what had become a 1000-acre estate to New York State. It was eventually joined to other lands to form the current 14,427-acre state park.

NEW YORK: KAATERSKILL FALLS

 July 25, 2021

We rented an Airbnb in Kingston, New York, for a couple of nights. It turned out to be a brand new house built specifically to be rented out. We could even smell the fresh paint. It was perfect for the four of us. 

Having an equipped kitchen was very important . . .

. . . as were the extensive woods and trails located behind the house, which produced, among other things, this:

NEW MEXICO: ORGAN MOUNTAINS, DRIPPING SPRINGS TRAIL

July 3, 2021

On July 2 we stopped at the Dripping Springs ranger station in the Organ Mountains on our way to our hotel in Las Cruces. We were hoping to do a three-mile hike, but rain was threatening and we didn't want to be caught in a storm, so we continued on to Las Cruces and came back the nexr morning

Our son Sam did some rope climbing here with a friend several years ago, so we were intrigued to visit and get an up-close view. These needle peaks loom over Las Cruces like Mordor rises over Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings. 

These first pictures were taken through the car window on our way in just as the sun was rising.

TEXAS, AUSTIN: A HAILSTORM AND McKINNEY STATE PARK

 March 25, 2021

On Thursday morning at about 4:15 AM I awoke to some loud banging that I thought was Bob trying to open the window.  When I asked him what he was doing, he said he was watching an incredible hailstorm. He had woken up thinking I was trying to get something out of my suitcase. It sounded like rocks were hitting the hotel. Bob said that when he first looked out the window, the ground was covered with white balls of ice. By the time I pulled myself out of bed to look, it had already melted and a good-sized river was rushing down the road. I checked out the weather app on my phone and saw the following:

Later, we saw photos of the quarter-sized hail:

SOUTHERN OREGON, DAY 3: TOKETEE FALLS AND DIAMOND LAKE

 September 5, 2020

After our two safari experiences, we decided it was time for some trees, so we headed into the Umpqua National Forest, which is located on the west slopes of the Cascade Mountains and covers almost a million acres.  

It only made sense to start out with some Umpqua ice cream, especially when chocolate peanut butter was an option.

The road into the park snaked alongside the 111-mile-long turquoise-colored Umpqua River, which originates in the Cascade Mountains and makes its serpentine path in a northwest direction to the Pacific Ocean.

We had been in the car for a good part of the day, and I was ready for some exercise. This looked like a good place for a little walk.

MEXICO, VILLAHERMOSA DAY 2: PALENQUE AND MISOL-HA

March 16, 2018

On our second full day in Villahermosa, our friends picked us up for a 90-mile drive to what in my opinion is the best of all the Latin American pre-Columbian sites: Palenque. Well, at least it is the best of the ones I have seen. I had been there in 1979, and I remembered that walking around it felt like walking in a movie set (which is a little strange--something real feeling like something fictional). 

The walk between the parking lot and the ruins was lined with vendors, which was good because Bob really needed a hat. We were facing another day of almost 100° weather and over 90% humidity. A hat won't help with the humidity, but a little shade on the head is a good thing, and this shopkeeper seemed especially happy to make the sale.

Tropical climate makes for bodily misery, but it also creates a beautiful setting.

The region was first inhabited by Mayans in about 200 BC, with Palenque's glory days beginning at about 200 AD when it was a power center that ruled over the region. For unknown reasons, Palenque was abandoned by its residents in 900 AD, leaving its temples, palaces, and homes to be gobbled up by the hungry jungle.

The first "modern" account of the city was published in 1567 by Father Pedro Lorenzo de la Nada, the Spaniard who initially ran across the ruins and named them "Palenque," or "fortification" in Spanish. No more official visits were made until the late 18th century. Many archaeologists visited the area throughout the 19th century, but it wasn't until 1891 that the first excavations and restorations began.  Palenque was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 and is now one of the most visited archaeological sites in Mexico.

The restored section of Palenque covers about a square mile, but it is estimated that only a tenth of the city has been uncovered and that there are more than a thousand buildings still enveloped by heavy jungle growth, waiting to be excavated. 

SOUTHERN ICELAND I: SELJALANDSFOSS, EYJAFJALLAJOKULL, DRANGURRIN, AND SKOGAFOSS

June 13, 2019 (My title is quite a mouthful, don't you think?)

Another day of driving  took us to the southern tip of Iceland, where once more we were stunned by the rich variety and endless beauty of the country.

Erv, our wonderful driver/tour guide, picked us up in this ten-passenger minibus, and we headed out:

Our destination was Vik (pronounced "Veek"):

Our first stop was at Seljalandsfoss--a towering 197-foot-tall waterfall that looks like a bride's lacy veil that has been dropped over the edge of a cliff:

Some smaller waterfalls off to the side are like bridesmaids at the wedding: