Neon Morning

Isn’t it nice that even when we have a bad day, we can sleep it off? Each day starts anew. We can, of course, remember yesterday’s issues while waking up as our feet hit the floor. We can just as easily decide to leave those thoughts aside and instead lavish our senses with tasty cup […]

Wizard’s Hat

Drive most anywhere along the Oregon coast and we’re likely to see hundreds of rocks of varying shapes and sizes lining the beach. Sometimes, when we’re lucky, we get to see them in a good light. Suddenly they look different…unique…beautiful even! Same rock.Same beach (plus or minus some sand.Yet different. The conditions in which we […]

Can I Squeeze In Here?

A family member described as, “a complicated man with complicated relationships,” passed away recently. There’s much to unpack in that insightful passage, and one can walk away with various interpretations of it. If we take the complexity on its face, then contrary to what we might expect out of Hollywood, where someone’s the villain, or […]

Green Mirror

Since everything is literally changing all the time, it’s easy to get stuck reacting to what we observe instead of thinking and planning more for what we desire to experience. Not surprisingly, this often leads us to feeling overwhelmed, dejected, and exhausted. Perhaps there’s another way. Like the mirrored surface of Glacier NP’s Avalanche Lake […]

Moody River

When someone else wrongs us, often our first reaction is to reciprocate with like behavior. But who said we should always live our life per Hammurabi’s lex talionis? There’s no surprise that when we try giving someone else the benefit of the doubt, we’re usually the ones benefitting the most. And similarly, when someone does a […]

Two Coffees, Please

I’ve recently been noticing an interesting phenomenon. I had known in my head starting from the perspective of the solution rather than the problem is best, but when you’re in the thick of it, that’s sometimes easier said than done. It’s where practice is starting to help. Two events over the past couple of days […]

Jewel of the Coast

Ever notice how some people are seemingly unafraid to speak up, to express their thoughts, to run counter to the crowd? There’s such pressure, from so many sides, to conform and “behave” according to rules others have set for us. No wonder they stand out. When we think of those we admire, are inspired by, […]

Royals

We were heading home from Breckenridge yesterday, driving in a short line of cars past Quandary Peak and over Hoosier Pass. As is always the case with a two-lane road, there was a car going a little slower, so everyone else got to pile in behind. It’s pretty easy to get annoyed at the front-most […]

Strong back, soft front

We’re social beings. But not the only ones, and we see it with many other animals. Even certain tree species form entire, connective root structures from one tree to the next, creating an open sharing mechanism for communication and perhaps many other unknown-to-us functions. Humans are unique with our quite dominant egos, which sometimes makes […]

A Gentle Embrace

We almost missed this shot. Returning home to Denver one afternoon, we pulled onto US 285 heading east. As we climbed, I checked my rear view and saw Mt. Princeton quietly shrouded in clouds. We’d seen the mountain, one of Colorado’s 53 14ers, many times before, but not like this. Thankfully we were able to […]

The Way

Our lives can be pretty complex sometimes, and when we’re at a crossroads, what to do next can feel a bit blurry. Our intuition (gut feeling, inner being, whatever you wish to call it) is powerful, however, if we give our attention to it. In modern times, we often look for physically measurable phenomenon as […]

Finding Our Niche

We spend a lot of time thinking about belonging. Finding a good match removes social friction and offers a sense of ease when being with one another. It keeps things easy. Sometimes though, if we’re paying attention, we can see when we’re standing outside of the group. But being a non-conformer is usually harder than […]

Morning Meeting

It was quiet and I was by myself at the Windows section in Arches National Park, showing up well before the day’s light began spilling over the horizon. I scrambled over boulders to climb about 25 feet up, intending to get a shot of Turret Arch through North Window Arch as the sun rose, lighting […]

High Flying

There’s a tip photographers use to improve their photos, and that’s to change your height. To get better photos of kids or pets, for example, get down and shoot from their height. Or, as shown, pointing down from a high up cliff, from well above. In our day-to-day lives, we naturally operate at our normal […]

Green Machine

No matter your perspective, life is really complex. It’s moving every which way and seems impossible to confidently predict. Whether peering through a microscope or a telescope, our physical universe is unfathomably and impressively sophisticated. Even this plant’s leaves offer no discernible order to their direction. They simply grow in the direction of what feels […]

Life Finds a Way

I‘ve really grown to love the desert (mostly thanks to Anne). I have a newfound appreciation for the creativity and tenacity of its inhabitants. Both plant and animal, they make the absolute most of their lean (with the exception of sunshine!) resources. It’s really quite impressive how a tree can thrive when its neighborhood is […]

Bend, Don’t Break

Sometimes it seems like we’re having to heave ourselves uphill all the time on what feels like a daily Sisyphean merry-go-round. Every once in a while though, we break through with clarity of purpose and an outpouring of joy for what’s ahead. That’s what this tree, leaning far over and away from the continual sea […]

Head in the Clouds

High atop Trail Ridge Road in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park, you’ll view the surrounding scenery from over 12,000 feet. Except when you don’t. It’s not uncommon for fog to roll in, sometimes in between mountain peaks, sometimes in wholesale billows, encompassing everything in its path. This was one such day, where we could see […]

Bright Spot in My Day

This scene will never exist in this exact way again. We enjoyed it for one brief moment, with sunlight falling on young maple leaves just so, with neighboring trees basking in the shade. It can be a little unnerving thinking about the fact that this one, individual moment, is all we have available to us, […]

Support Hammock

Sometimes the best move is just to lie down for a bit. This inviting hammock stretched just so between a pair of palm trees just says, “Try me!” as if you really ever had a choice. We found it on a Thanksgiving break’s stay at Palm Springs’ iconic Parker Hotel. Funnily, we’d assumed the place […]

The Other Side

Some years ago, back when we were wedding photographers, we vacationed typically in wintertime because it was the slow season. We visited Zion National Park on one cold & cloudy day, taking the winding Route 9 up through the Zion-Mount Carmel tunnel, leading to the park’s lesser-used Northeast entrance. Given the tunnel’s size, RVs generally […]

Fence Leading to Nowhere

There’s an isolated, peaceful place in Northern California named Sea Ranch. The community itself has a fascinating history and while the whole of its founders’ original purpose may not have lived on in perpetuity, its surrounding habitat remains largely and beautifully unperturbed. We had the pleasure some years ago of a short stay in one […]

It’s a Shy One Today

You know how sometimes when you’re driving or walking along, just minding your own business, you glance over and see something which knocks your socks off? I was driving along the Oregon coast a bit north of Depoe Bay one summer morning and rounded a corner to this sight. Fog is a common summer phenomenon […]

Colorado Mardi Gras

Wildflower fans are already taken with the magnificent bloom underway in Death Valley. Later in summertime in Colorado’s Crested Butte, flowers bloom with mad colors, smothering the surrounding hills with vibrant blooms. They’re so widespread the town created an annual festival to celebrate their arrival, as if Crested Butte needed yet another excuse for people […]

The Morning Run

I awoke early, a short while before sunrise, and sauntered outside to the balcony to take in the fresh sea air. We were visiting New Zealand and in a couple of hours would be taking the ferry to the South Island. In the meantime, we’d slept overnight in the Island Bay Lighthouse (literally, a former […]

The Best Amusement Park Ride

We’re not kayakers. Well, at least not whitewater kayakers. But it sure is fun watching skilled paddlers take on eye-popping rides like Benham Falls. It’s along the Deschutes River near picturesque Bend, Oregon. This group repeatedly hiked upriver to put in, paddle their hearts out all through the falls, get out at the bottom, and […]

The Confluence

How often do we feel prepared for what’s next? Sometimes we can see it coming, and sometimes it just slaps us upside the head with surprise. We’d been taking sunset shots at Arches National Park on a beautiful spring evening and, stomachs rumbling, were headed back down toward Moab for dinner. However, of course as […]

The Frosty Goodbye

Traditional photography advice is to have the sun back over your shoulder so it lights up your subject. It’s a solid tip in some circumstances, such as most portraiture. Yet it’s hardly a hard and fast rule. Want some drama? Position the sun to your side for contrasting light and shadows, or even shoot toward […]

Icing Sugar

We’d been staying at a spacious AirBnb in Sedona, Arizona one December when a rare snowstorm arrived, enveloping the area. But photographers know that combination of sunlight and dark, threatening skies are custom-built for dynamic, engaging photographs. So when the clouds and fog began to part late in the afternoon as the sun was low in […]

Yellowstone

I have admittedly mixed feelings about this image.  In the strict sense—the perspective of the scene at the moment of capture—conveys the mystery and wonder of sunrise at Yellowstone, surrounded by waves of fog and mist arising from the Earth’s geothermal crevices. It’s a gentle and quiet scene and can evoke peacefulness, which is what […]

A Pensive Solitude

Many people are surprised learn there are giant sand dunes in Colorado (it’s true!). One can stand, with shoes undoubtedly filled with sand, atop one of these ever-shifting dunes and watch the morning sun light up the mountainous Collegiate Peaks to the west (or watch it set behind them if you’re a night owl like […]

Kids Will Be Kids

Just downhill from the Continental Divide in Glacier National Park is a fave hangout spot for mountain goats. One afternoon during our trek, we spied a female adult confidently descending a nearby cliff. What we didn’t also see at the time were its two playful offspring, until they emerged tentatively from some thick underbrush just […]

Not What It Seems

The casual viewer may eye this and do a double-take what with the combo of clouds and the island’s reflection. Wait, is that water? Indeed, it’s the calm, nearly wind-free waters of Crater Lake National Park, from which the ethereal Phantom Ship island emerges.  We converted one of our mirrorless Canon cameras to full-spectrum, meaning […]

Something Borrowed

Like last week’s image, you might glance at this and determine these are desert flowers blooming against a blue-hued building. We were  south of Santa Fe, exploring the smaller artist-centric communities, when we spotted this house. People in this part of the country are not afraid of a little domestic color, especially when it contrasts […]

Blue Ridge

Today’s image is named “Blue Ridge” and…most viewers might look at the image above and think, “Oh, that’s clearly the Blue Ridge Mountains,” which look cleverly similar. Amazingly, it hails instead from the Pacific Northwest at Crater Lake National Park. It was late in the afternoon on a slightly hazy day with minimal winds. We’d […]

Making My Homestead

Hiking the Virgin River upriver from the Temple of Sinawava is a rite of passage for many. On this particular fall morning I held only a fraction of that desire, wanting instead to simply wade into the Narrows for a mile or two to see what there was to see as the sun rose. I […]

A Week at Camp Airstream – Yellowstone

Despite being well into our 3rd year in our Airstream, we’d never been to a rally or organized Airstream event until this summer. Color us chagrined perhaps, but the first two years simply exploring beautiful Colorado was its own reward. We sure made up for it with Camp Airstream — Yellowstone though!  The best part […]

Birthday Surprise: The Derailers at Albert Dance Hall

Annie always seems to come up with the best birthday surprises for me. I’d initially indicated a preference for a bottle of tasty single-malt Scotch as a birthday gift since space in an Airstream is limited and it was a consumable gift. But she offered me a choice: whisky or an heretofore unknown experience. Thank […]

Test your gear before you need it

Our first season with Ellie we camped in a gorgeous, tree-filled spot in Gore Creek in the White River National Forest near Vail, Colorado in early September, just as the mornings were getting brisk and the trees thinking about their winter break. At this point we’d had some practice boondocking, but this was the first […]

The breakneck pace of the Tour de Fat

As you can see below, racers donned their speediest outfits and circled, round and round, about downtown Fort Collins this summer. They celebrated bicycles and beer, the official symbols of the great state of Colorado.  It’s a high-profile race, and the costumes aided in their quest for endless circling amid friends—both new and old—to work […]

Coffeeshop Wisdom

Sometimes it’s just nice to get out of the rig and work in a coffee shop (or brewery or distillery!) for a change of scenery. One of our favorite Breckenridge coffee shops is Mountain View Coffee and in their restroom is this painted sign with a wise saying on it: Your mind is the garden,your […]

Quiet Louisiana Mornings

White heron waitingmorning fog blinds the impatienta fish captured, snatch!

Broken Hearts in the Crescent City

We awoke this New Year’s morning, having slept in from reassuring two stressed-from-the-fireworks cats at midnight, to a text from a dear friend. Are you two ok?  Just seeing the news It took only a second to see why on nola.com with a story with weight far larger than my phone’s small screen size could […]

Photo locations in this year’s holiday card

Without further ado, note that for a couple of these letters (at least when this post was written), the posts associated with that photo are still getting drafted. But stay tuned! They will be published soon. C – Tour de Fat bike parade in Ft. Collins O – Aspens in the fall hiking up Marshall […]

Aspens at Marshall Pass in the fall

Last year it seemed like we nailed autumn in Colorado, hanging in the SW part of the state just as aspens around the San Juan mountains peaked. This year sadly it seems like we’re a couple of weeks late. We hung out at Sylvan Lake for a week before heading south to O’Haver Lake, about […]

Everyone’s Trying to Hold on for 8 Seconds

Professional photographers know one (among many) adage: Half of getting access is looking like you belong there. That’s the tack I took to photographing the Manassa Pioneer Days rodeo this summer. Grandstand seats along with everyone else are rarely the best spots for making good photos.  Another adage is: If your photos aren’t good enough, […]

That’s *One* Way to Travel

We had a triple-threat of sorts in a recent camping trip to Chatfield State Park: Originally we booked it so we could see Gregory Alan Isakov at Red Rocks (Sunday & Monday nights!), but the timing also worked out well to finish packing up and prep our condo for sale and, while we were there, […]

The Wrong Kind of Excitement

We had a bit of a scare this spring. Anytime we ran a significant electrical load (like the microwave), we’d get wafts of that nasty electrical wiring burnt smell in the rig. When you’re in a confined space, like a boat or an RV, an electrical fire is exceedingly dangerous. On top of that, it […]

What’s a little snow to kick off full-time RV living?

Well, it’s official. We moved out of our LoHi digs for the last time and reached out for, well…this. Within days of the transition, we plowed right through three 30# tanks of propane while worrying about frozen pipes and huddling next to Ellie’s furnace (which seriously puts out). Cherry Creek State Park ultimately got 17″ […]

Finding contentment in unlikely places†

I awoke about 6:30 as the morning light careened across the kitchen island, reflecting into the bedroom. Developing discipline is hard for some—it’s hard for me—so I was trying to get back into my normal morning routine. Too often while living in Ellie I’d just head straight to the coffee, and the litter box might […]

My tripod, the walking stick

Winging it works pretty well a lot of the time. I held that attitude boarding the Zion NP Canyon bus at the midnight-dark visitors center. The full(!) busses seated hikers sporting walking sticks and waders, while other adventurers just wrapped themselves in layers of dri-fit that’d make any Coloradan proud. I was part of the […]

Art imitates life

We had just arrived in Navaho Nation’s Monument Valley in Arizona when we spied this Cruise America rental parked off to the side of the KOA office. My only wish was for it to have occurred just after sunrise to match the light. Alas.

Will the generator finally start?

Following the eclipse, while everyone else departed after lunch for the spires and buttes of Canyonlands, I unpacked the generator’s new controller, dragged the work bench (ne, picnic table) across the sand into Ellie’s shadow, and draped a large towel across to keep things as clean as possible. I had a mixture of dread and […]

What “high-clearance required” really means

The morning after the eclipse, we talked with a ranger inside Canyonlands’ bustling visitor’s center. We were looking for some place without the crowds we could do in an afternoon. They had just the ticket. A nearby road simply marked “HIGH CLEARANCE REQUIRED” (highlighted map below) led through 7 miles of Oh. My. God. four-wheeling […]

Eclipses always leave you wanting more

Eclipse day at Canyonlands National Park! The run up to totality is an odd mixture of anticipation and boredom as celestial bodies prefer their slow, considered movements across our celestial view. The light starts to turn…weird. It’s hard to describe. Almost like Ra patiently held out a gray camera lens filter between us and the […]

Fall foliage in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains

Honestly, there’s not much more to say about this, so we’ll let the pictures do the talking. Gorgeous scenery, and feeling lucky to be able to spend so much time in this part of the state for fall.

(Windy) Lakeside at Eleven Mile State Park

When the season’s wound down and hardly anyone (but more than you’d expect!) is out camping, it’s a fine time to go book those spots you really wanted to stay at last time but holy cow look at that the whole calendar’s full! Such was the case with Eleven Mile State Park, housing…you guessed it…Eleven […]

Rifle Falls

Colorado’s State Parks are, as you can imagine, pretty popular among campers. Rifle Falls (down the road a spell from Rifle Gap SP) is one of those where you need to be on it to get a space for your rig. You can see why.

Tie that shit down

If you’ve spent any time at all on a boat, like if you spent 12 years in the navy, you well know to tie shit down, lest it be launched toward you in the most unfortunate way. Normally ahead of moving campsites we’d have taken the litter box (literally, a wooden box with a cat […]

Squirrel!

Who knows what got these two to wake up and sit side-by-side looking at the window at…something. Did they want to chase it? Eat it? Let it inside? Only they know. And they’re not telling.

Fur Professional Services

If you’re ever in need of a pair of consultants with a particular point of view, Willow and Frankie are studied up and prepared to help you. Particularly if the engagement involves eating fish, sleeping in the sun, or studying the effects of simply lounging about.

Was that an alarm clock? Sucks to be you!

Nothing really to narrate here. You can fill in the gaps yourself.

A blue heron contemplates breakfast

Walking by myself downriver along the Uncompahgre River (near Ridgway State Park) this morning, I spied this rather uncommon blue heron, contemplating its breakfast.

Vast wildflower bloom in Crested Butte

The middle of summer, smack dab in July’s midsection, herald the eruption of wildflowers in Colorado. Crested Butte gets an outsized portion of this display, and Annie had planned already to be in that part of the state on the tail end of peak season. The mosquitos, on the other hand, still seemed fully peaked […]

Ellie at Dusk

It’s nice when you capture an image you end up using as your phone’s wallpaper. Lottis Creek campground (there are a few loops close to one another but at different access points) was absolutely lovely. We stayed at site 2 in the Park Cone loop for a week, with a 30a electrical connection. That was […]

Kayaking on Dillon Lake

One of the best parts of camping at Heaton Bay in the White River National Forest near Frisco is its proximity to Lake Dillon. If you can go without utility support, some of the sites have nice water views. If you’re needing electric and water, Loop C is not a far walk, and there’s a […]

The light in our thunderstorms

One thing to note about Colorado weather, is it can be unpredictable, particularly in the mountains. It’s why if you want to hike a 14er, you need to start early in the morning so you can be off the mountain in case a (brief, yet somewhat common) afternoon thunderstorm rolls through. Rifle Gap State Park […]

I’m just going to nap here, thanks

Nothing really beats a snug, comforting space, irrespective of its original purpose.

Cats, meet Airstream

You find yourself in a small fabric carrier being bustled about in the back of an oh-my-god-what-happened-to-our-old-car Ford F-250. And you don’t like it. Such was the predicament Sadie, Willow, and Frankie found themselves this fine spring day. Like prisoners in a lineup, they glanced about nervously as we secured Ellie’s front door and prepared […]

Our first camping spot: Rifle Gap State Park

It was a relief to finally have taken Ellie back to Colorado after our fitful start last month. Now we just needed to remember everything we’d been taught. Thankfully we had presence of mind to video everything for reference. That saved us from an unknown number of problems. Preparing an arrival and departure checklist would’ve […]

Aaaaannnnd they’re off! Oh, um…well, not quite.

The snow is pouring down in Sandy, Utah, and we’re approaching the yellow…no, make that red…light. We’ve had our F-250 (Carl—we’ll explain later) for about a month, and this is the first time he’s been out in the snow with OEM tires. I gently press on the brakes and…we do the (soooo not electric) slide […]