Beauty

Helen to the Atlantic Ocean Hot Air Balloon Race

Helen to the Atlantic Ocean Hot Air Balloon Race

Up, Up, and Away in my Beautiful Balloon

Chihuly at Biltmore - Chihuly Nights

Chihuly at Biltmore - Chihuly Nights

I want people to be overwhelmed with light and color

in a way they have never experienced. - Dale Chihuly

Another Day with Dale Chihuly – Magic & Light

Another Day with Dale Chihuly – Magic & Light

“Glass is the most magical of all materials.  It transmits light in a special way."
-Dale Chihuly

Oklahoma City – Revisited Part 2 - Twin Fountains RV Resort

Oklahoma City – Revisited Part 2 - Twin Fountains RV Resort

“We have been “Traveling Life’s Highways” (seeing America through the eyes of a veteran) over 23,000 miles around the United States and Canada.  For almost five months, we have stayed in over 100 RV resorts including: National Parks, KOA, Good Sam, and many mom and pop campgrounds.  Twin Fountains RV Resort is the best that we have found.”

Oklahoma City – Revisited – Part 1

Oklahoma City – Revisited – Part 1

Resilience is woven deeply into the fabric of Oklahoma.  

Throw us an obstacle, and we grow stronger. - Brad Henry

Devils Tower National Monument - Wyoming

Devils Tower National Monument - Wyoming

"If I croak while I’m doing this, at least I’ll die doing something I wanted to do, and I’ve had a good and long run.” - Dr. Bill Weber, 91 said the climb was tougher than he expected.  At points, he wondered if he would make it. (Sept 22, 2018 - Breaks the climbing record as oldest to climb Devils Tower)

Yellowstone National Park – Day 3

Yellowstone National Park – Day 3

“It spouted at regular intervals nine times during our stay, the columns of boiling water being thrown from ninety to one hundred and twenty-five feet at each discharge, which lasted from fifteen to twenty minutes. We gave it the name of "Old Faithful."

- Nathaniel P. Langford wrote in his 1871 Scribner's account of the expedition

Yellowstone National Park - Day 2

Yellowstone National Park - Day 2

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.” – John Muir

Driving South through Canada's Yukon, British Columbia, and Alberta

Driving South through Canada's Yukon, British Columbia, and Alberta

The view that lay before us in the evening light was one that does not often fall to the lot of modern mountaineers.  A new world was spread at our feet: to the westward stretched a vast ice-field probably never before seen by the human eye, and surrounded by entirely unknown, unnamed and unclimbed peaks. - July 1898, British explorer J. Norman Collie

Top of the World Highway

Top of the World Highway

“When all’s said and done, all roads lead to the same end.  

So it’s not so much which road you take, as how you take it.”

Loony Island, Charlie Hamilton’s Place

Loony Island, Charlie Hamilton’s Place

“A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles.”

Denali National Park

Denali National Park

"Rivers run through our history and folklore, and link us as a people.  They nourish and refresh us and provide a home for dazzling varieties of fish and wildlife and trees and plants of every sort.  We are a nation rich in rivers." - Charles Kuralt

Key West, Florida to the Arctic Circle, Alaska

Key West, Florida to the Arctic Circle, Alaska

“It is not the destination where you end up but the mishaps and memories you create along the way.”

Chihuly Garden and Glass

Chihuly Garden and Glass

“I want people to be overwhelmed with light and color

in a way they have never experienced.” – Dale Chihuly

Mount St. Helens, Washington

Mount St. Helens, Washington

“Clouds of hot ash made up of pulverized rock were belched twelve miles into the sky. Giant mud slides, composed of melted snow mixed with ash and propelled by waves of super heated gas erupting out of the crater, rumbled down the slopes and crashed through valleys, leaving millions of trees knocked down in rows, as though a giant had been playing pick-up sticks.” – Time Magazine

Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

“There is no better place to find yourself than sitting by a waterfall

and listening to its music.”

Crater Lake, Oregon

Crater Lake, Oregon

"I thought I had gazed upon everything beautiful in nature as I have spent my years traveling thousands of miles to visit the beauty spots of the earth, but I have reached the climax. Never again can I gaze upon the beauty spots of the earth and enjoy them as being the finest thing I have ever seen. Crater Lake is above them all." - Author Jack London, 1911

Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park

“The far-famed valley came suddenly into view throughout almost its whole extent: the noble walls, sculptured into endless variety of domes and gables, spires and battlements and plain mural precipices, all a-tremble with the thunder tones of the falling water.  The level bottom seemed to be dressed like a garden, sunny meadows here and there and groves of pine and oak, the river of Mercy sweeping in majesty through the midst of them and flashing back the sunbeams.” -- John Muir

Pebble Beach, 17 mile drive, Bixby Bridge, and McWay Falls Big Sur, California

Pebble Beach, 17 mile drive, Bixby Bridge, and McWay Falls Big Sur, California

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” ~Andre Gide

Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

"And as we liftoff aboard Air Force One…the winds of freedom will be propelling my mission… As I fly westward over our majestic land, I go knowing that we´re witnessing an awakening to those self–evident truths to which our forefathers pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor."

– Ronald Reagan, April 23, 1986