Almost to the day for me, it has been 3 years since I (we) retired. Oh, how I miss those days of quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily, hourly forecasts… And who doesn’t love a well-placed flaming email distributed to the world. After retirement, one is forced to forego the joys and luxury of business travel: cramped… Read More 3 Years Post Retirement – Mar 2017
Let me just start by saying that on Monday morning I will be checking myself into the Betty Ford Detox Center for Barbecue Abuse. Grab a cold beer or two and sit back – this was quite a stop on our journey. We made Austin a destination on our trip for two very good reasons:… Read More Austin SXSW – Mar 2017
It has been years but we revisited San Antonio, home to the Alamo, the Riverwalk – and the Pearl Neighborhood. We used this chance to meet up with friends, enjoy the Riverwalk, and test out a few craft beers and some excellent food. We had heard or been told that the Pearl neighborhood was a… Read More San Antonio – Mar 2017
Bubbling crude… oil that is… black gold… Texas tea… a few of us remember the Beverly Hillbillies. West Texas represents to me a microcosm of some of the many challenges we face today; the tension between growth, convenience, natural preservation and environmental protection. West Texas is an area that encapsulates these challenges perhaps better than… Read More West Texas – Mar 2017
We have checked the Guadalupe Mountains National Park box. Typically when we visit a national park we say to ourselves that we will absolutely have to come back to visit stuff we weren’t able to see. There is much (let’s call that most) of the park we did not see. But for whatever reason I… Read More Guadalupe Mountains NP – Mar 2017
I don’t really do campground reviews, and this is not a campground review. BUT, the Cherry Creek State Park is a most excellent urban oasis near Denver, CO. We were here to act as sherpas evaluating apartments for our son – a freaking abysmal experience I might add; it has been a while since the… Read More Cherry Creek SP – Mar 2017
We knew when good friends of ours gave us a US map that identified the national parks in this country that we were in trouble. Not bad enough, you could identify your personal weaknesses by seeing all the “un-visited” parks we had yet to darken. Carlsbad Caverns National Park, in Carlsbad, NM was on that… Read More Carlsbad Caverns – Mar 2017
This is our second time to see White Sands National Monument in Alamogordo, NM, although it is the first time we were actually able to see it (the first time it was so windy we blew it off – no pun). White Sands sits in the basin of the Chihuahuan Desert, and abuts the White… Read More White Sands – Mar 2017
For anyone who has ever traveled in the desert, you know that 98% of the effort to construct roads (or anything) is to manage flooding. We are talking about an area that might get 6 inches of rain – per year. Death Valley gets about 2 inches per year. Anyway, I mention this because we… Read More Desert Addendum – Feb 2017