Travel

Longwood Gardens

Photograph taken on Saturday, June 07, 2025 by Henry
Longwood Gardens

Longwood Gardens

We had a great visit to Longwood Gardens today, going there with our good friends Krystal and Mike. It was drizzling when we first got there but we were equipped for it. If you like gardens and have never been, I highly recommend it (or even if you have been, truth be told). I picked this weekend because I knew the roses would be in bloom, and they really were. It’s a pretty good drive, or we might go more often.

As you can see, the weather cleared and it was a beautiful day, getting warm later in the day. Then it started raining as we were leaving and we saw a nice rainbow.

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Crooked River

Photograph taken on Thursday, September 26, 2024 by Henry
Crooked River

Crooked River

Crooked River

Crooked River

Flowing north into Prineville, Oregon is the aptly named Crooked River. Along it runs Oregon route 27, named the equally aptly named Crooked River Highway. Cathy and I drove out to Prineville this morning and headed south along this beautiful road. We stopped quite a few times to walk down to the river and enjoy the cliffs on the far bank, the beautiful, clear water, and the cool weather we’re having. I have to say, we hit central Oregon at just the right time, temperature wise.

This is a lovely drive and I imagine it gets quite a bit of traffic during the summer and on weekends. I can definitely see coming here to camp and fish. We were doing neither, but still enjoyed it greatly. The first of these images, the panorama made from 10 separate exposures, makes it look like the river is forming a big, horseshoe bend. In actuality, it’s running pretty much straight and then bending the other way in both ends in the distance. The apparent bend is a function of the way the panorama was taken. Still, it’s a pretty nice view, I think.

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Sparks Lake

Photograph taken on Wednesday, September 25, 2024 by Henry
Sparks Lake, Oregon

Sparks Lake, Oregon

Sparks Lake, Oregon

Sparks Lake, Oregon

Sparks Lake, Oregon

Sparks Lake, Oregon

Cathy and I drove up into the mountains west of Bend today. We drove the 25 miles or so to the Dutchman Sno-Park Trailhead, which is also the trailhead for the Tumalo Mountain trail. It is on Southwest Century Drive (OR 372), basically across the road from the Mt. Bachelor ski area. We weren’t sure about hiking that, because Cathy’s hip was bothering her a little and she didn’t want to overdo it and take a risk of making it worse.

As we came back down to the car, Cathy happened to ask me how much gas we had. I hadn’t noticed so I’m glad she asked. We checked and we were well under a quarter of a tank. The nearest gas station was back in Bend so we drove the 20 miles to that, coasting as often as possible, which was not too hard as we were coming down out of the mountains. We made it without incident, filled the tank, and then drove all the way back up and past where we had parked the first time up.

We continued to the four miles to the turnoff for the Sparks Lake Day Use Area. The gravel road going in is very rough, but we were able to avoid the worst of it and made our way to the parking area near the beginning of the Ray Atkeson trail. If you’re in the area, I’d highly recommend this trail. It’s a fairly easy walk with a little bit of it actually paved so it is very accessible. Even after the paving ends, it’s not a difficult hike. We did have some rain, which was a little worrying since I had my camera and long lens, but I was able to keep it mostly dry.

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Big Obsidian Flow

Photograph taken on Sunday, September 22, 2024 by Henry
Big Obsidian Flow

Big Obsidian Flow

Big Obsidian Flow

Big Obsidian Flow

We visited the Big Obsidian Flow today. It is in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument in the Deschutes National Forest of central Oregon and about 25 miles south of Bend. This, in my opinion, is a must-visit site. My pictures really don’t do the site justice. In fact, the trail up into the flow doesn’t do the site justice, although it’s definitely worth the walk. It’s about seven tenths of a mile, with part of that being a loop up on the flow but you only really get less than 300 yards into the flow, which is close to a mile and a half long. If we return to the area, I’d love to plan a full day hike around the flow, which should be doable.

The Big Obsidian Flow was formed in the volcano’s most recent eruption, about 1,300 years ago. It’s amazing that there are actually trees growing in the flow, although not many. It’s a pretty brutal landscape. Obsidian is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed when lava from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. Not all of the flow is obsidian, but there are large boulders, some broken into smaller pieces, others still mostly intact. It’s quite remarkable and eerily beautiful.

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Painted Hills, Oregon

Photograph taken on Saturday, September 21, 2024 by Henry
Painted Hills, Oregon

Painted Hills, Oregon

Painted Hills, Oregon

Painted Hills, Oregon

Lisa, Brian, and Cathy

Lisa, Brian, and Cathy

Townsend's solitaire (Myadestes townsendi)

Townsend’s solitaire (Myadestes townsendi)

Today we took a pretty long drive from Bend to the Painted Hills off of US 26 northwest of Mitchell, Oregon. This is part of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. It was an 80+ mile drive north to Redmond and then east through Prineville but it’s a pretty cool place. The main visitor center for the National Monument is another 40 miles or so further along, so we didn’t go there. This is often listed as one of the so called ‘Seven Wonders of Oregon’ although there’s nothing official about that list, which I assume was put together by the tourist bureau. Here’s the list:

  • Crater Lake National Park
  • Columbia River Gorge
  • Oregon Painted Hills
  • The Oregon Coast
  • Mt Hood
  • Smith Rock State Park
  • The Wallowa Mountains

We are certainly glad we visited Crater Lake, which I have to agree is in the right spot on the list at number one. Yesterday we went to Smith Rock and I’d probably rank that higher than the Painted Hills, although these are worth a visit. I cannot speak to the other items on the list, not having been to any of them. I suspect I’d rank the Painted Hills either sixth or seventh (since I know nothing about The Wallowa Mountains.

All that being said, we’re glad we came and enjoyed the views. All else being equal, if we traveled to Bend again, we’d return to Smith Rock but probably not to the Painted Hills. We did see (and I did photograph) a Townsend’s solitaire (Myadestes townsendi), a pretty little grey songbird. So that’s something. There are also some trails that we might have hiked that would have made me more likely to want to return, but perhaps I’ll never know.

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Smith Rock State Park

Photograph taken on Friday, September 20, 2024 by Henry
Smith Rock State Park

Smith Rock State Park

Smith Rock State Park

Smith Rock State Park

This afternoon Brian, Lisa, Cathy, and I drove up to Smith Rock State Park. If you happen to be in the Bend area in Central Oregon, I highly recommend this park. This is especially true if, like us, you live on the east coast and enjoy scenery very different to what you’re used to. One a really hot, sunny day it might be oppressively hot, with all the exposed rock soaking up the sun’s warmth and radiating that back out, but it was quite cool today and that wasn’t a problem.

There were quite a few people there but it’s a pretty large place and most of them are climbing, so on the trails we saw fewer people than we might have expected. We also didn’t spend as much time there as we might have, since we didn’t arrive until almost 2:30 PM. It was a very clear day and the sky was a deep blue. The colors of the rocks, the green along the Crooked River, and the blue in the sky was a really great combination. If we were to come back to Bend, I think I’d plan a full day here, starting early in the morning and bringing a picnic lunch. I’d also want to hike up to the top of the rocks in at least one place. But that was more than we had time for on this visit. Still, I don’t regret what we got to do in the least.

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Lava Lands

Photograph taken on Wednesday, September 18, 2024 by Henry
Lava Lands

Lava Lands

Lisa’s car is back from the shop and we picked it up this morning. After dropping Lisa off at home, Cathy and I drove down to the Lava Lands Visitor Center in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument and walked the Trail of the Molten Land. It’s a mile long loop out into the lava flow. The paved trail is fairly easy to walk and worth the effort, getting you out into the flow. It is estimated that the eruption that created this flow was about 7,000 years ago, which in geological terms is pretty recent. It’s hard to get a photograph that captures it, but this one isn’t too bad.

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Drake Park, Bend, Oregon

Photograph taken on Wednesday, September 11, 2024 by Henry
Drake Park, Bend, Oregon

Drake Park, Bend, Oregon

Cathy and I took a late 40th anniversary trip to visit our dear friends, Brian and Lisa in Bend, Oregon. I didn’t take any pictures on our flight day. Our first full day we didn’t do too much, dealing with jet lag and such. Lisa took us downtown and we walked on the Deschutes River through Drake Park. We saw a flock of cedar waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum). The river is artificially wide and slow here because there is a small hydroelectric dam just below here. The park has really nice trees, mostly ponderosa pines (Pinus ponderosa), which is the predominant tree in the area, but there are also some quite large spruce trees (Picea species) and a large willow (Salix species).

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National War Correspondents Memorial

Photograph taken on Saturday, August 17, 2024 by Henry
National War Correspondents Memorial

National War Correspondents Memorial

We decided to drive up to South Mountain this afternoon. We started out at with a visit to the Washington Monument. It was quite hazy, though, and the view wasn’t much to speak of. Also, the tower was closed, so we couldn’t go up it. From there we went to the three gaps that were the principal sites of fighting in the Battle of South Mountain in mid-September, 1962. They are, from north to south, Turner’s Gap, Fox’s Gap, and Crampton’s Gap.

The National War Correspondents Memorial, shown here, is in Crampton’s Gap in Gathland State Park. It was built in 1896 by Civil War correspondent George Alfred “Gath” Townsend (January 30, 1841 – April 15, 1914), who built a home for himself here in the early 1880s. He also built himself a mausoleum but is buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.

On our drive we happened to go by the South Mountain Creamery and stopped for ice cream.

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Leverington Cemetery

Photograph taken on Saturday, July 06, 2024 by Henry
Leverington Cemetery

Leverington Cemetery

This is Leverington Cemetery. My 7th-great-grandparents—John Wigard Levering (February 2, 1648 – February 2, 1745) and his wife Magdalena Bokers Levering (who died in 1717)—were among the first to be buried here. Their grandson (Septimus, my 5th-great-grandfather) and his wife Mary Thomas Levering are also buried here. John and his brother Gerhard owned about 500 acres between them in what is now called Roxborough although it was at one time called Leverington. While there are no markers for my direct ancestors, I thought it would be interesting to visit, and since we were nearby for a wedding, it seemed like a good opportunity.

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Warrenton, Virginia

Photograph taken on Saturday, April 06, 2024 by Henry
Old Town Warrenton, Virginia

Old Town Warrenton, Virginia

Warrenton Mural

Warrenton Mural

We visited a friend in Warrenton, Virginia today, spending most of the afternoon and evening with a larger group of good friends. We walked through downtown Warrenton, visiting a bunch of shops and basically enjoying being together. It was a cool, spring day and Warrenton seems like a nice town. It’s a bit of a hike from Rockville but once we were there we were glad to have gone.

After our walk through town we had a wonderful dinner and celebrated a birthday. After that we played a game called Codenames. Cathy and I aren’t particularly fond of games but we had a good time. I think we would have enjoyed simply talking with our friends more, but we understand that some people really like games of this sort.

We had been invited to spend the night there but wanted to be home Sunday morning so we left about 10:30 and had no trouble getting home in about an hour.

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Brookgreen Gardens

Photograph taken on Thursday, August 03, 2023 by Henry
Brookgreen Gardens

Brookgreen Gardens

Brookgreen Gardens

Brookgreen Gardens

Cathy and I went to Brookgreen Gardens today (https://www.brookgreen.org/). We’ve been before, of course, but it’s been six years. We decided to see if we could go on their Creek Excursion but, as luck would have it, it wasn’t operating today because they were being inspected by the Coast Guard. We were able to get to the Lowcountry Center in time to get on the 11:30 Oaks Excursion. We visited a plantation cemetery as well as the sites of some of the plantation buildings, which no longer exist. It was an interesting excursion, although I think I would have enjoyed the creek trip more. Maybe next time.

We wandered around the gardens, which of course is the main thing there. The two shots presented here are more of the trees than of the sculpture and they are quite majestic. I enjoy both the sculpture and the gardens in about equal measure. Although it was hot, I’d say it wasn’t as hot as some years we’ve been. We also went to the Lowcountry Zoo and enjoyed the animals. They have a new exhibit with red wolves (Canis rufus) that only opened in the last week.

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Tacoma Narrows Bridge

Photograph taken on Monday, July 03, 2023 by Henry
Tacoma Narrows Bridge

Tacoma Narrows Bridge

Sadly, our trip to Juneau came to an end today and we flew home. I didn’t take many photos from the plane but I did get this reasonably good shot of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge as we made our approach to Seattle-Tacoma Airport. I also got a pretty good shot of Racine, Wisconsin, on the western shore of Lake Michigan.

We had an early flight out of Juneau, which meant that even losing four hours to time zones, we got at Dulles at a reasonable hour this evening.

This vacation was the longest we’ve taken in quite a while and was, I’d say, possibly the best two week stretch in many, many years. That is due to a really wonderful combination of great weather in a beautiful place, with very dear friends. We were sad that it had to come to an end.

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Sundews on Dan Moller Trail

Photograph taken on Sunday, July 02, 2023 by Henry
<em>Drosera rotundifolia</em> (Round-leaved Sundew)

Drosera rotundifolia
(Round-leaved Sundew)

<em>Drosera rotundifolia</em> (Round-leaved Sundew)

Drosera rotundifolia
(Round-leaved Sundew)

Dan Moller Trail Muskeg

Dan Moller Trail Muskeg

Another of my favorite trails in the Juneau area is the Dan Moller Trail on Douglas Island. We went up this with my parents and Albert in 1987 and one of my favorite pictures of my folks was taken from the top of the mountain, looking down on the cabin from above. This was also, I think, the first place we saw sundews in Juneau. There are two main species here and this is Drosera rotundifolia, the round-leaved sundew.

They are surprisingly common and at the same time, almost entirely overlooked. They grow in places that are constantly wet and at the same time sunny (or at least not shady). The slightly dryer parts of muskeg, where it’s almost constantly wet is generally the place. Once you see them, they seem to be everywhere, but until you’ve had them pointed out, they really aren’t very noticeable. The False Outer Point Trail is the other place we saw them. I understand that they are quite common on the Spalding Meadows trail, but we only did that on cross-country skis when the ground was covered with snow, so it wasn’t a good time to see them.

The sundews are not the only thing about the trail that I like. The combination of trees and open, meadow-like muskeg with its abundance and variety of wildflowers and plants is relaxing and beautiful to me. The Labrador tea (Ledum palustris), with its tiny, white flowers, the bog candle orchid (Platanthera dilatata, and many other little flowers are all over. None are terribly flashy but all are lovely in their own way. The usually dark water, the bright greens of the meadows, the darker green of the trees, the blue of the sky (when you are lucky enough to have a blue sky in Juneau), all combine to make a really pretty scene.

We also hiked a few miles on the Treadwell Ditch Trail, which is a relatively easy trail because it follows the contour of the land. It’s pretty, too, although quite different to the Dan Moller Trail, in spite of their very close proximity to one another. We also got a good view of downtown from the early part of that trail.

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Skater’s Cabin

Photograph taken on Saturday, July 01, 2023 by Henry
Cathy at Skater's Cabin

Cathy at Skater’s Cabin

It was a fairly wet day today, one of the few rainy days we’ve had in our two weeks in Juneau. We went to church this evening (yes, on Saturday evening) and then Cathy and I drove to Skater’s Cabin on the southwest corner of Mendenhall Lake. Built in 1936 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, it can be reserved for group use for $10 per hour. It is about 200 yards from the West Glacier trailhead. The West Glacier Trail was one of my favorite hikes when we lived here, although it’s fairly steep in places, including what Brian and I call the Aztec Stairs, climbing about 750 feet in a little over a fifth of a mile of trail (a 63% grade). There are literal steps cut into the rock. I suppose technically that part of the trail is the Mount McGinnis Trail, but it’s all one trail to us.

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False Outer Point

Photograph taken on Friday, June 30, 2023 by Henry
Shaman Island, Juneau, Alaska

Shaman Island, Juneau, Alaska

False Outer Point, Douglas Island, Juneau, Alaska

False Outer Point, Douglas Island, Juneau, Alaska

Today I have a pair of HDR photos, both taken from the beach near False Outer Point on Douglas Island. The first of them is Shaman Island, which we walked to at low tide on Monday. The tide was much further in this evening and you wouldn’t know that you could ever walk to it. In fact, the tide was coming in quickly. This image is two images stitched together using the Hugin Panorama Photo Stitcher and each of the source images for that are HDR images made from three exposures each.

The second photo is looking north northeast at the western side of False Outer Point with Spuhn Island visible to the left of it. The seaweed covered rocks in the foreground were quickly covered by the incoming tide. This is a nice beach to visit and it often very quiet and peaceful. It’s a short hike through the woods on the Rainforest Trail, which is a loop that takes you through some lovely temperate rainforest. In fact, if you happen to go to the Tongass National Forest page on Wikipedia and scroll down to the second photo on the page (which you can also see here), that’s a photo I took on this trail in September 20, 2004.

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Rainforest Walk

Photograph taken on Thursday, June 29, 2023 by Henry
Brian, Cathy, and Dogs

Brian, Cathy, and Dogs

Cathy, Brian and I took a walk with the dogs through Switzer Meadow and then on a loop beyond Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School. Most of that later trail is in the woods, some of which is relatively young. The whole area was probably clear cut less than 100 years ago, so there are few if any trees older than that. Some areas seem to be pretty scrubby and one area looked like it was a homeless camp or party spot not too many years ago. It’s hard to tell because wood decomposes very quickly in this wet environment. It’s still a pretty walk for the most part and we enjoyed being out with the dogs.

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Granite Basin Hike

Photograph taken on Tuesday, June 27, 2023 by Henry
Ebner Falls from Perseverance Trail

Ebner Falls from Perseverance Trail

Cathy and Henry in Front of Granite Cataract

Cathy and Henry in Front of Granite Cataract

Granite Basin

Granite Basin

Lisa, Brian, and Cathy Hiking Down from Granite Basin

Lisa, Brian, and Cathy Hiking Down from Granite Basin

We took a long hike today. It was overcast and threatening rain but we only actually had a little drizzle for part of the hike. We started at the end of Basin Road. There are two branches at the lower end of the Perseverance Trail. The one we took is shorter but steeper. There is a door covering an entrance to the Ebner Adit and a very cool wind was coming out of it. I found that useful when we returned, because I was fairly warm. The first part of the trail is fairly steep and by the time you get to Ebner Falls, the first photo presented here, you’ve climbed 815 feet in about 0.7 miles, an average grade steeper than 1:5, although parts are closer to 1:3. The trail gets a bit easier at that point. You cross Gold Creek a few times and eventually get to the Granite Basin trail.

We passed a work crew on the trail. The near side of Gold Creek has been undermining the trail a bit so they were building gabions and filling them with rocks to stabilize the bank. It looked like hard work. One of them noticed my camera. I was carrying my 150-600mm zoom with the camera on it, mounted on a monopod. I also had two additional lenses, my 100mm macro and the 17-40mm zoom. She asked, “Are you going on a photo shoot?” Laughing to myself, I said “No, just taking pictures of whatever we see.“ She asked if I wanted to take their picture and when I said I would if they wanted, the all got excited. I took a few shots of them and got an email address to send them to. Oh, they also complemented my hat, which they said was ‘sick’ (which I’m pretty sure they meant as a compliment).

About a mile and a half up that trail, you take the left fork to stay beside Gold Creek. Another 0.6 miles or so and the Granite Basin Trail branches off on the left. This starts with five switchbacks and climbs quite steeply. After that the climb is a bit more moderate. We got to a point where there was a large snow drift covering both the trail and the entire value below the trail, with the stream going under it. Eventually we got to the cataracts below Granite Basin and stopped for a few pictures. We continued up into the basin but didn’t really go much further than that.

We had climbed from about 370 feet to about 1,750 over the course of about 4 miles (and then back again, totaling about 8 miles). It’s a beautiful hike and Granite Basin is really pretty. I remember the first time we hiked there the fireweed was in bloom, which was particularly nice. It’s not the easiest hike in the Juneau area but it’s one of my favorites. If you don’t mind a bit of exercise (and possibly crossing a bit of snow if you aren’t late in the summer) then I highly recommend this hike. It’s not a bad idea to bring water and a snack. The weather can be significantly different in Granite Basin from what it is at the start of the trail.

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Cathy, Point Louisa

Photograph taken on Monday, June 26, 2023 by Henry
Cathy, Point Louisa

Cathy, Point Louisa

When you decide to go to Juneau, you are making a tacit agreement to deal with rain. Depending on your source, there are between 180 and 235 days of rain per year in Juneau and there are only about 80 days described as ‘sunny’ per year. With the average high temperature in July, the hottest month, being only 64.1° it’s not the place to go to get a tan. That being said, we arrived late in the day on June 17 and didn’t have any rain the entire first week. Today was the first day we had to walk in the rain if we were going to walk. We drove with Brian, Lisa, and the dogs out to Auke Rec and walked to Point Louisa. The tide was out and this picture of Cathy gives you an idea of what the day was like. Actually, it wasn’t raining hard and we had a really good time being out. The tides in Juneau are pretty significant and where we were standing when this photo was taken will be under quite a few feet of water at high tide. The rocks are covered with barnacles and there are quite a few mussels, although not as many as on the rocks around Shaman Island, where we walked to on the 19th.

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Nugget Falls

Photograph taken on Sunday, June 25, 2023 by Henry
Cathy, Lisa, and Brian at Nugget Falls

Cathy, Lisa, and Brian at Nugget Falls

We went to the glacier again today, this time taking the short walk to Nugget Falls. When we lived here, the glacier came to about where we’re standing in this photo. It has receded quite a bit since then, which is a little sad, but glaciers have advanced and receded throughout history. Underneath the glacier are the remains of huge trees, frozen for quite a while, showing that the glacier has been considerably smaller than it is now for many, many years at some point it its history. It will advance again. In the meantime, Juneau may need to stop advertising it as a “drive up glacier.” It’s still quite impressive and worth going to see. One hike I wouldn’t have minded taking is the West Glacier Trail, which is the first real hike I took with Brian after we first met. I’d love to have photographs showing the difference in the glacier in 37 years. Maybe we’ll need to visit at least one more time. I also wouldn’t mind going up East Glacier Trail and Nugget Creek Trail. It’s more wooded but very pretty. We never went up that as far as Nugget Glacier, which would also be nice to do, some day. There are more trails in and around Juneau than can be hiked in two weeks, though. You have to pick and choose.

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