| Wasatch National Forest, UT | The mountains surrounding Salt Lake City are imposing. Standing sentinel over the city below they provide an impressive and intimidating backdrop. During my time in town, the peaks of those mountains have been shrouded in mystery as they are enveloped in a constant shroud of clouds. Clouds of course…

| St. George, UT | On Monday, I advised my employer of almost 15 years that our time together would soon come to an end, as I would be retiring from the company effective next month. Though I’d been thinking on and wrestling with the topic for at least six months or so – and…

| Zion National Park, UT | ‘National Parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.’ – Wallace Stegner Somewhere in that great conclave of ideas, stands Zion National Park and as I discovered today, amongst that incredibly impressive panoply, Zion ranks…

| Death Valley, CA | Took the drive up I-95 North from the Las Vegas suburbs to the Rhyolite Ghost Town on the way to Death Valley National Park today. It was yet another jaw-dropper in a wonderful succession of jaw-droppers. Stunning in both it’s beauty and it’s isolation. One of those not a care…

| Henderson, NV | Apparently as you start to get a little older, you are potentially more prone to a variety of maladies; including the truly bizarre ones. Such as nerve issues? Now, initially I wasn’t 100% sure that’s what this stupidity is, but I am pretty adept at typing symptoms into Google and able…

| Petrified Forest National Park, AZ | It’s a very strange feeling, to hold in your hand, something well over 200 million years old and likely never touched by any member of humanity throughout the entirety of our history. Well, that’s what I did today and let me tell you, it was a surreal feeling….

| Sedona, AZ | So I was just digging into my pizza and about to start writing about the day’s adventures in Sedona when I witnessed one of the more ridiculous things I’ve seen in some time. A delivery driver came in to pickup his order, the girl at the counter said ‘Here’s your plates…

| Prescott, AZ | First impressions count. And my first impression is that Prescott, AZ seems like a pretty terrific town. There’s no great reason that I’m in this specific part of the Grand Canyon state, other than the fact that my initial hiking plans in the Tonto National Forest were postponed by the heat…

| Phoenix, AZ | Took a drive from Nogales, AZ to Buenos Aries National Wildlife Refuge yesterday. I really knew very little about it prior, as their website is rather spartan. But I did know that it looked remote and their cause – restoration of grassland habitat – was very noble, so off I went….

| Nogales, AZ | Rio Rico, AZ is an awful long way from Williamsville, NY… In distance, topography, climate and likely a myriad of other ways as well. Well, I stopped in at a Mexican restaurant a few miles from the border, in Rio Rico, AZ, on the way to my hotel in Nogales. And…