As fall settles over Southcentral Alaska in a brief burst of gold, birches gleam against the dark spruce that cover the lower slopes of the Kenai Mountains. It’s a fleeting season, and I was fortunate to be rafting 17 miles of the Kenai River when the colors were at their peak. Flaming trees lined the […]

Fog Lifts “In this weather, you’d step on a moose before you’d see one.” Larry Benz was standing with his hands on his hips, squinting out the glass doors of his hand-built cabin at the northern boundary of Chugach National Forest, Alaska. The usual, sweeping vista of yellow and chartreuse pines was veiled in a […]

Erik and I recently returned from a desert and Death Valley vacation that included sailing on Lake Mead at sunset, enjoying the sights, sounds and zaniness of Las Vegas, and experiencing the profound quiet, haunting beauty and splendid isolation of Death Valley National Park in California. It really was like visiting two different planets on the same vacation, and […]