Quadra Island
Greetings from Quadra Island, British Columbia, where we’ve been happily camped for the past two weeks.
Jasper to Alaska
British Columbia is bounded on the east and west by mountains, and the vast interior is called the Inland Plateau, a hodgepodge of coniferous and deciduous forests, gorgeous rushing rivers and some of the biggest mosquitoes in the western hemisphere. Our trip north took us from Jasper up the Yellowhead Highway through Prince George, on … Read more
Banff to Jasper
Here’s a brief update, with a bunch more photos, about our trip from Yoho National Park to Jasper, 250 km up the Icefields Parkway. Candy and I are sitting in a laundromat in Jasper as I write this. Whgen the laundry and blog are finished, we head over to Mt. Robson Provincial Park, our stopover … Read more
North to Alaska
Well, the long-awaited trip of a lifetime is upon us, or rather we’re upon it. We left Pennsylvania on June 23, spent three nights with our daughter Mariel and her family in Hudson, Ohio, and shoved off for the 49th state via the Canadian Rockies. Our trip across the plains and up to our Canadian … Read more
El Valle, San Blas and Cerro Azul
Our Panama sojourn ended with four days in El Valle, three in the San Blas Islands, two in Cerro Azul, in the mountains just northeast of Panama City, and a couple nights in Panama City itself. Since it is now three months since we returned, and since Candy and I are now enroute to Alaska … Read more
From the Beach to the Mountains
I know this title makes you think of Bora Bora and Kauai and other exotic places. In fact, the Panamanian Pacific coast is less exotic, and a lot less desirable. In contrast with the beaches on the Pearl Islands, the mainland beaches are huge, long, very flat, and gray to black in color in color … Read more
Bocas del Toro
After our adventures in Boquete and Caldera, we headed back over the cordillera to the north coast of Panama, in the province of Bocas del Toro. The ride over the mountains was a breathtaking change from the dry chaparral of the Pacific side to the cloud forest and finally to the Caribbean rain forest to … Read more
Off to the Highlands
The next phase of our trip took us to the western regions of Panama, where we are looking for a place to escape the Pennsylvania winters. Actually, we haven’t totally settled on Panama as our destination country, but it has eclipsed Costa Rica in our calculations, and we haven’t yet ventured to Nicaragua or Ecuador, … Read more
Las Perlas
Contadora Island, just twenty minutes from the cacaphony of Panama City by puddle jumper (or an hour and a half by ferry) is a world unto itself, a sleepy little getaway in the middle of the Gulf of Panama. Less than two mile long and a little over a half mile wide, the island is … Read more
Panama City
Like dutiful tourists, we spent our second day in Panama City seeing the sights: the ruins of “old Panama,” which date back to the earliest permanent Spanish settlements in this area; the newer “old city,” called Casco Viejo, the epicenter of Panamanian government and culture since colonial times; the fabled fish market (mercado mariscos) where … Read more