IRELAND, DAY 3: MINARD CASTLE, THE DINGLE PENINSULA, AND SLEA HEAD DRIVE

 July 6, 2024

Our plan had been to start the day at Blarney Castle, but when we tried to get tickets online, they were sold out. That's okay--we didn't feel a great need to kiss the Blarney Stone and taking one thing off the schedule made for a more relaxed day.

We left the B&B at about 9:30 or 10:00 and headed west towards the Dingle Peninsula.

Our first stop on the Dingle Peninsula was Minard Castle.

To get there from the main road, we drove down a very narrow single-lane road. Every now and then there was a turnout so two cars could pass, but in most spots even our tiny car seemed to hug both sides of the road, and if two cars meet in an area like this, they both have to pull over into the weeds in order to pass.

Eventually, we came upon a windswept hill crowned by a lonely mid-16th century monolithic three-story ruin . . .

. . . that looks over a desolate bay of the cold Irish Sea.

TEXAS AND LOUISIANA: CATTAIL MARSH WETLAND, PINTAIL WILDLIFE DRIVE, SABINE NWR, AND PEVETO WOODS SANCTUARY

November 22-23, 2021

Southern Texas is supposed to be one of the country's best places to birdwatch, and I think that is one of the primary reasons Bob wanted to go there. During the Covid pandemic, he has developed a pretty intense birding hobby, which has included upgrading his camera. I can understand that he wants to use his new toy!

In a two-day period in Southern Texas, we visited four wildlife areas, and I'm going to include all four in one post, partly because they have a lot of similarities. We did visit more wildlife areas later in the trip, but they were in a different region and have a different look.

Our first stop, Cattail Marsh Wetlands, was just outside Beaumont, The City of Surprises.

There is a large viewing station that looks over 900 acres of marshes.

A lot of strategically placed information boards help visitors identify what they are seeing.

I've always connected alligators with Louisiana and not so much with Texas, but they are everywhere (and Beaumont isn't actually that far from Louisiana anyway).

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 : STORM KING ART CENTER

 July 24, 2021

On our third day in New York, we picked up a car at JFK, thinking that would make it easy to turn it in when it was time to go back to California (oh, we were so wrong, but more on that later), and we got on the road to go "upstate." ("Upstate" refers to almost all of the geographical region of New York--everything but the metropolitan area of New York City.) It was a Saturday morning and traffic was fairly light, especially by NYC standards.

 We were amazed by how quickly we left the city behind. Within an hour, we were traveling on forest-lined highways with big breaks between cities.

Our first destination was Storm King Art Center (marked by the red ballooon), about 70 miles upstate from JFK Airport (marked by a red star).

Wow, if you haven't heard of this place (as I had not), pay attention and get yourself there on your next trip to New York. It is amazing! This outdoor art museum, containing perhaps the largest collection of contemporary outdoor sculptures in the United States, was founded in 1960 and covers 500 acres. We're not talking minor artists no one has heard of. The most prominent sculptors of the 20th and 21st centuries are represented.

The Arch (1975) was created by Alexander Calder just one year before his death. There is an open arch you can walk through on the other side, but apparently I liked this view better! It is one of the first things we saw after driving into the grounds.

NEW MEXICO AND TEXAS: GUADALUPE MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK AND WHITE'S CITY

July 1, 2021

We had a day of hiking planned and wanted to get an early start. We were out the door by 6:00 AM and on our way to McKittrick Canyon in Guadalupe Mountain National Park. Low clouds still clung to the Guadalupe Peaks, and the air was cool and fresh because of the rains of the previous two days.

We arrived at the gate to McKittrick Canyon at 6:50 AM. Since it wasn't supposed to open until 8:00, we drove to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park main visitor's center. It also did not open until 8:00, so we walked an easy one-mile loop trail that was nearby.

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:

CALIFORNIA, SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK: THE GENERAL GRANT GROVE AND THE SHERMAN TREE TRAIL

 August 11, 2020

We spent the final day of our Great Tree Adventure Trip in Sequoia National Park. To give some perspective on where it is located, on the map below the black circle on the left is Fresno, the red circle is Sequoia National Park, the yellow circle is Mt. Whitney (located inside the national forest), and the blue circle is Death Valley.

Sequoia National Park was created on September 25, 1890, to protect 404,064 acres of forest. These days, 2.2 million acres are part of the park. Yellowstone was the first national park, created in 1872, but Sequoia was the second national park, beating out #3, Yosemite, by five days. Its elevation varies from 1,370 feet to 14,494 feet (the Mt. Whitney summit). The largest living things in the world live within its boundaries.

The National Park Service arrowhead features a sequoia silhouette, and embossed sequoia cones, like the ones on the sign below, decorate the belts and hatbands of park rangers nationwide.

The obvious difference between Redwood and Sequoia National Parks is that being on the coast, Redwood National Park has a much more lush environment. For the novice, however, it is hard to see the difference between the redwood and sequoia trees themselves. 

Perhaps the most significant difference for a lay person like me is that the giant sequoia has a huge trunk that tapers slightly as it rises, and the redwood, though it generally taller than the sequoia, has a more slender trunk. These are sequoias:

ICELAND, THE GOLDEN CIRCLE PART I: Craters,Thingvallavatn Lake, and Thingvellir National Park

June 12, 2019 (I've decided to start putting the date of the trip on each post. Sometimes it takes me months to get around to posting about a trip, and so when I come back to the post, it's hard to remember what season of the year, or even what year, we were somewhere.)

On our third day in Iceland, the ten of us went on a tour to what is called "The Golden Circle," a 186-mile scenic loop on the southwest side of the island. Here is what it looks like for most tourists:

Our savvy guide took us on a slightly different route, which meant we missed most of the crowds in the beginning AND had a better view of a volcanic basin and a lake. We began in Reykjavik and went clockwise:

And here is a map of Iceland for reference:

The initial part of the drive was pristine in its beauty and completely devoid of other tourists, although the Golden Circle is the most popular tourist drive in the country. We did see lots of tourists later in the day.

The road leaving Reykjavik was lined with lupine and yellow flowers:

After some time, we passed through three consecutive craters created by volcanoes--rugged lava rock splattered with lichen:

ICELAND: FOOD

On our first day in Reykjavik, it was lunchtime and we were hungry. While we were admiring the Leif Erikson statue in front of the Hallgrimskirkja, we noticed Café Loki across the street. It promised "Icelandic traditional food," and although we knew we were risking a tourist trap, we were hungry, parking was challenging and so we didn't want to move our car, and the restaurant was nearby:

Holy cow, for our first meal in Iceland, we hit the jackpot.

We began with a shared plate of mashed turnips, lamb headcheese, and creamed vegetable salad:

My main dish was mashed cod and potatoes topped with Gruyere cheese (A+) and served with rye bread and salad:

CHIRIACO SUMMIT AND JOSHUA TREE, CALIFORNIA: SUPER BLOOM 2017

I interrupt our Caribbean adventure posts with time sensitive material. In a week or two, the subjects of this post will disappear like Brigadoon, so I need to post about them now while they are still relevant.

When Bob asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, I suggested going hunting for the Southern California Desert Super Bloom.  We've had a record amount of rain this winter, and wildflowers are supposed to be putting on their best show in twenty years. My first choice would have been the Anza Borrego Desert, but it is over two hours away from where we live. Because I had a Saturday commitment, we could only go on a weekday, so Bob took a half day off on Friday and we drove to the high desert, only an hour away.

Of course, heading east on the 10 freeway mandates a stop in Cabazon at Hadley's for a date-banana shake. The shakes, along with a few other treats we bought there, served as our lunch: 

After Hadley's we passed snow-capped Mt. San Jacinto: 

 

. . . and field after field of electricity-generating windmills:

Eventually we arrived at the first of our two major stops: Chiriaco Summit, 1,705 feet above sea level. 

Broad swaths of flat, windy desert are dotted with blooming ocotillo, one of my favorite desert plants. During the bloom season, the stalks are covered with green leaves and topped by mustaches of deep orange blooms:

ALASKA! DENALI NATIONAL PARK

What is the first color that pops into your head when you see the word "Alaska"? Be honest now.

It's "white," isn't it? Yeah, me too.

We did see plenty of white, but even the white was a more colorful white---but more on that in another post. I think what really surprised me the most about Alaska was the crazy, brilliant, ostentatious COLOR. This was especially true in Denali National Park.

But first, some background information. The entrance to Denali National Park and Preserve lies about 265 miles north of Anchorage, or a 4-5 hour drive. From Talkeetna, where we had spent the day ziplining, it is only 60 miles. It is a HUMONGOUS park--more than six million acres. There is only one road that is available to tourists, and in most cases that road is accessible only by park bus, but it does go to the heart of the park.

We spent the night in one of the Denali Backcountry Cabins, which were quaint and wonderfully located, but not luxury accommodations, which I wouldn't have guessed based on the price. I suppose when there is little competition, you can charge what you want.

Important facts about Alaska: