Remain calm, be kind, and carry on regardless!
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Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
Panorama, Canyon, Slick_Rock, Iceberg_Canyon, Lake_Powell, Utah
Jan 31, 2026
Latest comic: Hollowed out shells #cartoon #comic #uspol #media #authoritarianism #minnesota
Birds Camping Everglades Galleries Nature Travel 2026
This was my 30th trip to the Everglades—different from all the others in several respects. First I was trying out new equipment (a sit-inside folding kayak). Second, I planned to just camp on a desert island, read, and take it easy. Third, I left from the Smallwood Store on Chokoloskee Island because the actual Ranger Station was closed for long-awaited hurricane repairs. I was also alone as there were no takers to join me this year.
Birds Flowers Galleries History Panoramas Road_Trip_2026 Travel 2026
We entered Arches National Park about 8am the next day. This was a great time for photographing the rock formations in the southern part of the park (near the entrance). Our plan was to take a leisurely drive north—exploring along the way—until we reached the Devil's Garden area. This is where the majority of the notable arches are. You might also like to view photos from My November 2024 Trip.
Birds Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Rock_Art Travel 2026
We left Green River heading north to Wellington and the Petroglyph megasite known as Nine Mile Canyon. The backway
road went over a small pass before descending into a beautiful flat-bottomed canyon. This is the best map I could find on the web. [source: National Scenic Byways Program]
Birds Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Travel 2026
The next day I had a three hour drive to my next destination—Petrified Forest National Park. The southern entrance is less used than the north but two of he major hiking trails are there: Crystal Forest & Blue Mesa. Unfortunately there is no trail to Newspaper Rock—a major Petroglyph site. It was cold and windy, but apparently I came at a good time to see the many desert flowers in bloom. 🙂
Birds Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Travel 2026
My target for this segment was inspired by a used book I came across while working at my local Friends of the Library Sinagua Sunwatchers
by Kenneth Zoll. At first I had a bit of trouble finding the site online because the name has been changed very recently to better reflect its Native American origins. [The old name was V Bar V
in reference to the now defunct ranch on the property.]
Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Rock_Art Travel 2026
I established my campsite and went for a walk about an hour before sunset. It was a magical time to be out in the desert. Some of the rocks are volcanic in origin. I think that may be a cinder cone in the distance. There is a large abstract petroglyph on the right (click to enlarge).
Apostle_Islands Galleries Travel 2025
This year we boated to Sand Island in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. It is the western-most island where camping is allowed. It also has a historic lighthouse and was the site of a small fishing village. We took the campsite overlooking Justice Bay and a small set of sea caves.
Birds Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Travel 2026
I planned to stay overnight in Flagstaff, AZ so I could visit the Lowell Observatory in the evening. Apparently they give tours during daylight hours and then setup smaller telescopes to view whatever's happening in the sky that night. Alas, dark clouds moved in and there was precip predicted for the early evening. So I went to bed early…
Art Galleries History Travel Turkey_2016 2016
In 2016 we had the privilege of touring the ruins at Ephesus and the associated museum a few miles away. The photo above is the symbol-rich Statue of Artemis, which at one time was the centerpiece of the temple to the goddess. That temple is now in ruins but it was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World!
History Medicine
James Guthrie (1888)
To Dr. Guthrie every word of that lecture was the living truth, a truth which found practical expression daily in his long professional career. And when, one tragic day in the dead of winter—when he was confined to his bed by illness—a patient needed him, he did not hesitate but arose and went to minister to him. Giving his last ounce of strength of this unselfish act, his own illness overcame him and he passed on in March of 1930.
Galleries Photography Southwest_2024 Travel 2024
Our first stop in Utah was Fisher Towers along the back road
to Moab. I had been here before on my trips to Canyonlands. These stark, vertical towers are popular with climbers and there is a small primitive campground on site. We spent the better part of our day hiking the main in-and-out trail. It did not disappoint! We decided to camp there in the late afternoon. There was frost everywhere when we got up the next day. From there we moved on to Arches National Park and Vermilion Cliffs!
Boats Camping Everglades How_To Projects 2024
In 2018 I acquired a used Hobie Adventure Island sailing kayak. It came with trampolines that fit between the outriggers. As I learned the particulars of the craft it became obvious that getting out of the cockpit and sitting in/on the tramps wasn’t going to work for me. They also make it impossible to paddle the craft in any meaningful way.
Flowers Galleries Hdr History Panoramas Travel 2010
This was only my second trip to Lake Powell with my friend Rick. We had made a multi-stop journey across western Colorado and Utah, stopping in Moab and Colorado National Monument. (I returned to the area once again for a houseboat trip in 2020.)
Critters Nature 2023
I was recently walking through a dense hemlock forest in upstate New York where I came across some chewed-up mushrooms and several little orange critters crawling around them. I instantly thought a) salamanders? and b) they must be eating the mushrooms. Turns out I was right on the first point and only half-right on the second.
Camping Galleries Travel 1986
We were three college buddies with lots of skiing and camping experience between us. So when I moved to Wyoming we decided to take a little winter trip inside Yellowstone National Park.
Camping Canyonlands Galleries Hdr Panoramas Travel 2019
It would be hard to top our 4WD/bike trip to the White Rim in Canyonlands last year, but entering the isolated subunit called The Maze was a strong contender! This immense National Park is divided into three major areas that are completely isolated from each other. The Maze lies mostly on the western side of the Green River with the southern-most Dollhouse area just below the confluence with the Colorado. As we did last year, we stopped at Fisher Towers and Moab along the way (see photo gallery below).
History 2025
In the late 1970s two friends and I invested in a three room cabin on thirty acres embedded in Superior National Forest in Northern Minnesota. That cabin and other buildings are no more after the Camp House Road forest fire swept through.
Bwca Camping Travel 2002
My Siblings and I took a three night canoe trip in 2002. We also brought along two of my Niblings (it's a word, look it up!). We started with a canoe from my parents house, then rented a car and took a side trip to pick up a second canoe from my place in Brimson. We had a layover in Two Harbors before proceeding up the North Shore to the Gunflint Trail. We did a loop starting and ending on Poplar Lake. The highlight was an almost perfect day camping on Winchell. On the way back we were forced to use the same campsite on Horseshoe Lake because all of the sites on Gaskin were taken.
Birds Galleries Nature Photography Travel 2015
I was the trailing spouse for a meeting on Amelia Island. I spent most of a morning taking these photos of the local birds—including some spectacular flying by a pair of Ospreys! Right at the limit of my equipment.
Art Galleries History Photography Travel Turkey_2016 2016
Hagia Sophia is one of the most historic buildings in the world! It is a strange palimpsest of Islam superimposed on top of Orthodox Christianity. Finished around 537 CE in Constantinople (now Istanbul), it was the largest building in the world for a thousand years. When we visited it was a secular museum and world heritage site. In 2020 a theocratic government turned it back into a functioning mosque. I do not know if the Christian art and iconography has been covered or possibly removed since then.
Books History Reviews
Albert Camus (1947)
The Plague by Albert Camus is a allegorical novel set in the modern city of Oran on the north African coast. The principal character is Dr. Rieux, who confronts a series of medical, ethical and moral dilemmas as an epidemic of bubonic plague breaks out and the city is quarantined. Rieux must overcome his fear, loneliness and despair in order to function while conceding that he is mostly powerless in the face of his microscopic enemy. He is not alone. A number of memorable characters share his sojourn, each of them responding to the crisis in different ways: escape, repentance, debauchery, suicide, work, fantasy...
Commentary Technology 2026
My Critique of: Your Voice, Your Choice
— A Guest Post by Claude Sonnet 4.5
The ELIZA Effect is a tendency to project human traits—such as experience, semantic comprehension or empathy—onto rudimentary computer programs having a textual interface.
This little book was conceived neither as a medical history nor as a technical discussion of surgery. It is instead a story of people, of friends with whom I have shared joy and sorrow, in short, bits of the day-to-day drama which is the life of a country doctor. Many of the incidents are trivial, in one sense of the word, yet each has had in it something which appealed to me enough to make me remember it as a highlight in my forty-five years as a country doctor.
