Long days spent in the car have forced my sightseeing to take to the night. Tonight my moonlight moseying brings me to Greece. The blaring neon lights of Broadway along with those stumbling to see the light from bar after bar seem far from any Greece I have envisioned. And then, lit up like a Christmas tree, a lone monument imitating one in Greece stands in Nashville, Tennessee, of all places. The Parthenon was built to look just like its original in Athens, the one with traces back to 438 B.C. However, this testament to construction and Athena was built for Tennessee’s 1897 Centennial Continue Reading
Mount Evans, Colorado Wishes You Were Here
In the harshest of environments, a gentle mountain goat poses for the clicks of a few cameras. He doesn’t care I am invading his mountain, a mountain of 14,130 feet. No, he will ham it up for someone who enjoys the camera just the same. I am on top of Mount Evans in Colorado where the Continental Divide is almost in full view. You can see storms up ahead signaling to me it’s time to head down the highest paved road in America. Opened in 1931, the road was originally intended to connect with Highway 285, an infeasible feat, as time would tell. Despite the impossibility, they kept this Continue Reading
Arches National Park, Utah Wishes You Were Here
Three women gossip on top of red rocks. They watch each car pass by as the cameras click, whispering in each others' ears in comment. At Arches National Park just outside of Moab, Utah, these women never seem to leave. However they might one day if erosion has anything to do with it. From the La Sal Mountains Viewpoint you can see these Three Gossips on the left, the Tower of Babel on the right and the Organ just in front on the right. The landscape appears not of this world, but another, so red, so creative in formation and so empty at the same time. Feelings of emptiness are short Continue Reading
Ely, Nevada Wishes You Were Here
Driving America’s Loneliest Road, Ely is bittersweet coming from west to east. It is the end of this road, the end of the loneliness and the start of something different. Coming into Ely on the eastern end of U.S. Highway 50, you wouldn’t expect to see a working museum in its streets. Ely wants to keep its history close and accessible to those who just pass on through the town. It does so through a series of giant murals. Along the sides of buildings and around unsuspecting corners, you will find giant works of art depicting Ely throughout the ages. A town that grew up quickly with the Continue Reading
Virginia City, Nevada Wishes You Were Here
Some places, like some people, get rich quickly, usually as a result of one or the other. Virginia City is one such place, a destination that probably wouldn’t be what it is today without the discovery of silver in 1859. Known as the Comstock Lode, you can still see traces of that discovery all over Virginia City. It is no wonder why as that silver found here produced $400 million by 1898. The 19th century mining boom gave Virginia City its importance, along the same lines as Denver and San Francisco. In fact, San Franciscans can thank Virginia City for its very existence. The riches of the Continue Reading
Lonely Travel Is Good For You
Looking up lonely in the dictionary presents several less than flattering definitions. Some will be blunt and define the term as “sad because one has no friends or company”. Others will be gentler and define lonely as merely “unfrequented, remote or solitary”. The adjective is not one we couple with travel often. Travel is filled with company, new friends, new places and new ideas on the world. Generally looked at negatively, I don’t think I am alone, ironically, in saying lonely travel is not what we strive for on our travels. I want to feel apart of a place and people, not outside of it. Continue Reading
Lake Tahoe, California Wishes You Were Here
I can hear the crashing of waves as I fall asleep. No wonder I was out like a rock after the long drive from Park City, Utah. I haven’t reached the Pacific just yet, but rather Lake Tahoe, falling in muddled territory between Nevada and California. The winds today have brought in the waves of America’s second deepest lake. As my ears burn, I walk out to the pier on Lake Tahoe’s North Shore. As my overly enthusiast waiter last night said it’s a calmer scene compared to the South Shore. He says this with a few extra “likes” and “mans”, so I will take his word for it. Snow is not far away in Continue Reading