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Sky Lakes

Sky Lakes

High in the Oregon Cascade Mountains, south of Crater Lake National Park is Sky Lakes Wilderness. There are many beautiful high mountain lakes in the Wilderness, thus the name. Here are panoramic photos of four of them:

Nobles Emigrant Trail

Nobles Emigrant Trail

In 1851, William Nobles founded a new route to California through lands of the Northern Paiute Tribe. The new trail left the Applegate Trail at Black Rock Springs in Nevada, crossed the Black Rock Playa, passed near what is now Susanville, California and ended at Shasta City, California. It was generally considered the easiest route […]

Ghosts Haunt the Lava Beds

Ghosts Haunt the Lava Beds

The history of the Lava Beds National Monument is rough, with a bloody history of the Modoc Indian War.  Many people died there during the war under horrible circumstances.  Do their spirits live on? Frank Bagges was quite certain they do.  He related his first person report to the The Morning Call, a San Francisco newspaper.  The story was […]

National Fossil Day

National Fossil Day

As I wrote in a past blog post,  fossil hunting can be a great way to explore.  Perhaps you haven’t heard, there is a special day for it – National Fossil Day.  This year it is, October 11, 2017.  The first Fossil Day was created in 2010 by the American Geological Institute and the National […]

Park and Recreation Month

Park and Recreation Month

Since 1985, America has celebrated July as the nation’s official Park and Recreation Month. Created by the National Recreation and Parks Association (NRPA), Park and Recreation Month specifically highlights the vital and powerful role local parks and recreation play in conservation, health and wellness, and social equity efforts in communities all across the country. This […]

Great Outdoors Month

Great Outdoors Month

June is Great Outdoors Month in the USA.  What started as Great Outdoors Week under President Clinton in 1998 has grown significantly under the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations into a month and summer-long celebration of the outdoors and all the benefits it brings.  The month is punctuated with a variety of special days and weeks including: National […]

Native American Heritage Month

Native American Heritage Month

When I was a kid,  westerns were the most popular shows on television.  Often these shows pitted cowboys against Indians.  That led to kid’s play along the same lines.  In my case,  I was an Indian.  We didn’t actually have many gun battles, but we did dress up in our best native imitation and wander […]

Halloween Adventures

Halloween Adventures

Last week I offered some interesting places to explore as Halloween approaches.  This week, just before Halloween, I’d like to offer more. Goblins Goblins are small, grotesque and evil creatures from European folklore.  They really didn’t have much to do with Halloween until author Jack Prelutsky included a poem titled “The Goblin” in his 1977 children’s book […]

National Day of Adventure

National Day of Adventure

There is a national day for about everything, but the most recent invented day is for adventurers!  This national day is the brainchild of Men’s Journal and Victorinox (famed for Swiss army knives).  The National Day of Adventure, this year, is October 14, this coming Friday.  My first reaction to the date was the thought […]

Ghost Towns

Ghost Towns

As Halloween approaches, what better to talk about than ghost towns as a basis for outdoor recreation and our exploratory adventures.  There are ghost towns across the USA and around the world, but choose carefully.  For example, I don’t recommend exploring Pripyat, Ukraine, a city that became a ghost town after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.  Instead locate and explore one […]

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