TONGARIKI, EASTER ISLAND – The hour of 7 a.m. is still a nasty rumour. To the east, in a distant sky, the sun is rising over a deserted Pacific Ocean. I’m carefully making my way through a thick field of grass wedged with bits of lava rock, my iPhone flashlight helping point the way in the pre-dawn darkness. Horses that appear to come from a nearby ranch nibble noiselessly in the black morning. I get too close to what looks like a chestnut-coloured colt and it bounds skittishly to its mother a few metres away. The horses aren’t aware of Read more
hiking
This item originally appeared on Canada.com. San Francisco is one of the world’s most popular cities, a free-wheeling, edge of the continent place that embraces diversity and has one of the most wondrous natural settings on the planet. It can get expensive if you’re not careful, so here are five things to do in the City by the Bay for less than $50 USD. A CABLE CAR RIDE Is there any city in the world where one single mode of transportation plays such a defining role as the cable car does in San Francisco? Not only are these US national Read more
If you love Kauai as much as I do, there’s great news. The Kauai Department of Land and Natural Resources says Ha’ena State Park, the incredible Kalalau Trail and Napali Coast State Wilderness Park will re-open in early to mid-June. They also say the north shore section of the Kuhio Highway is set to open May 1. The north shore of Kauai was hit by massive flooding in April of 2018, with significant damage to the Kuhio Highway west of Hanalei. In a story posted at www.thegardenisland.com, one local says the five landslides that took place on the 11-mile Kalalau Read more
PALM SPRINGS – We’re humming along a quiet suburban road outside this popular tourist destination on a clear, cool March morning. It’s only around 8 a.m., but already the dun-coloured mountains off to the northeast look like they’re already baked to a crisp. Our Desert Adventures Red Jeep Tours guide, Mike Groves, tells members of our tour group (my wife, Barbara, plus my Dad and his ladyfriend, Lucy) to look more closely at some of the small valleys and impressions on the side of the hills. Sure enough, we fix our gazes and begin to make out a series of Read more
SCOTTSDALE – The crack of a bat. The sun on your face. And hardly a Zamboni in sight. It’s spring training time in Arizona, where roughly half of major league ballplayers gather to hone their skills in time for the regular season. All big league teams have their spring headquarters in the Scottsdale-Phoenix area, which makes Scottsdale the ideal base. Scottsdale proper is home to three major league teams for spring training: the San Francisco Giants, Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks. You’re also within a few minutes drive of all the other teams in Arizona, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, Read more
