Bird’s eye views of Grand Canyon are an awesome sight to behold, even if it is in the blazing heat of mid-afternoon on a record setting temperature day for the Las Vegas area.

Blogger Disclosure: Grand Canyon Airlines provides audio guide flights over the Grand Canyon from Boulder City Airport Nevada, about a thirty minute drive from hotels on the Las Vegas Strip. Transportation from Las Vegas hotels to the Boulder City Airport is included in flight tour price.

My flight was complimentary as an attendee of IPW U.S. Travel Association conference in Las Vegas June 8-12, 2013. This Visionary flight tour is currently available for $219 adult and $199 child.

Up, up and away. Read More…

The woman working the Valley of Fire State Park visitor center said bighorn sheep are usually standing around outside every morning lately when she arrives for work at 7:30am. Yesterday there were two adult males, two females and a juvenile. They come to the visitor center in search of water.

The desert bighorn sheep only require water every three days in summer when temperatures in Valley of Fire can reach 120 F degrees. In winter these desert creatures don’t need drinking water at all when there is green vegetation available to eat.

This Bighorn Sheep at the Valley of Fire visitor center was my only sighting in the park. Read More…

One of Toronto’s main attractions is a Harbour Cruise or ferry ride over to the Toronto Islands. Centre Island is the largest of the islands. Two facts highlighted on three different tours I made while in Toronto is Hanlan Point is where Babe Ruth hit his first professional baseball home run September 5, 1914 and Hanlan Beach is a clothing optional beach where full nudity is permitted.

Babe Ruth hit his first home run as a minor league professional on Centre Island at the Maple Leaf Park in 1914.

Who was Ned Hanlan? Read More…

Being a Californian I thought I was viewing the fattest squirrel I’d ever seen. Animal identification is a a skill I am still developing.

A groundhog or woodchuck is an animal I have only seen on television despite five years living in the northeast US in Vermont, Massachusetts and Maine.

Groundhog outside Toronto Metro Convention Centre.

This appeared to be the groundhog mother of two younger groundhogs foraging nearby.

Seeing Toronto the voyageur way.

Today I took a post-TBEX tour canoe paddling trip to the Toronto Harbour Islands in a large canoe with ten other explorers.

Voyageur Canoe.

Most of us were novice paddlers. There was some splashing and clashing of paddles, but we navigated Toronto Harbour and Lake Ontario without too much strenuous effort. Read More…

Driving across Panamint Valley I was greeted by Coyote. There are extensive stories about coyote in Native American stories and the symbolism is mentioned here and here.  I read several stories about Coyote in Paiute, Shoshone and Navajo folklore while touring Utah’s National Parks earlier this month.

Many years ago I had an intense encounter with a coyote in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada. We checked each other out for several minutes on a mountain trail. Coyote was close enough, probably only about 20 to 30 feet away allowing me to examine his eyes and body closely. Eventually I freaked out that I was standing in front of a large wild animal. Coyote walked off the trail and down the hillside toward the river.

Later that day I encountered a bear while walking alone in the woods. But that is another Canadian story.

Coyote on Highway 190, Panamint Valley, Death Valley National Park.

I wanted to get more photos of the coyote, but when I stopped my car the coyote started trotting towards me. I read last week about a Death Valley tourist taking photos of a coyote and the animal tried to jump in his car. I rolled up my windows and drove away. Read More…

Death Valley called to me again yesterday. I made my first ever trip to Death Valley National Park just two weeks ago. The mountains and valley did not have much appeal for me on a mostly cloudy, mostly 103 F degree day. My initial impression of Death Valley was a place with an abundance of mountain rocks, dust, hot wind and little unique beauty not seen in countless other locations of the Mojave Desert, like driving Interstate 15 to Las Vegas.

Furnace Creek Inn and Scotty’s Castle are attractive oases with captivating architecture, but that should not be the highlight of a National Park.

My four hour drive through Death Valley yesterday, arriving in the afternoon and leaving at sunset revealed much more of the park’s inspiration, majesty and wildlife to me.

Heading North

Read More…

East to west California Highway 120 travels up the steepest gradient of road in the first ten miles gaining 3,000 feet in elevation from U.S. 395 at Mono Lake at around 7,000 feet to the Tioga Pass gate for Yosemite National Park at 9,945 feet. Tioga Pass Road is the highest road of the highway passes across the Sierra Nevada. Read More…

Yesterday I completed my objective of visiting all five Utah National Parks on this road trip. Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches and Canyonlands. Last week I hiked in snow showers at Bryce Canyon on a day when it was 35 degrees at 9,200 ft. Yesterday I hiked for miles in Arches National Park on a day when it was in the low 90s.

Read More…

One of the BAcon bits that was made clear to me over this past weekend is most readers find the slideshow image on Loyalty Traveler of the hot tub with rose petals ‘creepy’. I heard that word a lot over three days.

This photo is from the Holiday Inn Express in Yreka, California November 2008. The newly opened hotel had an open house for the community.

I arrived on a road trip from Portland, Oregon heading south back to Monterey in November 2008. The hotel stay was a Priority Club 5,000 points PointBreaks award night. Besides a cheap room using points, the hotel was serving complimentary Sierra Nevada beer for the two hours of Open House.

There were several hotel rooms open for visitors to see. The hot tub with rose petals was in one of the open house rooms at the Holiday Inn Express, Yreka.

There was no hot tub in the room where I stayed the night.

The slideshow will soon be gone from Loyalty Traveler

My website was reviewed by Andy Hayes in a seminar session for BAcon, the Boarding Area conference in Colorado Springs May 10-12, 2013.

Andy recommended the entire slideshow be removed since the reader has no control to stop and gaze at any photo and there are no captions to the photos.

Andy also said the rose petals around the hot tub were creepy.

My mental association with the hot tub photo is remembering a cheap hotel night drinking free beer with the great people of Yreka, California. I wonder if the community members from Yreka thought the hot tub room was creepy at the time?

What association do you make with the hot tub and rose petals that makes it so creepy?

The hot tub image has been removed from the front page, although still visible if reading an older post from 2012 or earlier. The entire slideshow will be removed from Loyalty Traveler soon. The changes have to be made by BoardingArea technical staff. I do not have control over that plug-in which is why it has not been changed to date.

Another hot tub photo

Today I photographed another hot tub on my BAcon to KPIG road trip from Colorado Springs back to Monterey.

No rose petals.

Is this hot tub creepy?

Sheraton Mountain Vista Villas, Avon, Colorado hot tub on 7th floor with view of Beaver Creek ski area.

Chinatown and There Will Be Blood are two Hollywood movies about California’s turbulent history around water and oil.

There Will Be Blood is based on Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil, published in 1927, and that story was based on Edward L. Doheny who struck it rich in oil in Los Angeles, California in 1892. The Doheny Estate is owned by the city of Beverly Hills and the Greystone mansion has a haunted story to tell.

Just south of Monterey County in San Luis Obispo County is Highway 46, the road that takes travelers from Cambria on the Pacific Ocean coast a few miles south of where Hearst Castle is located to the Central Valley of California.

James Dean Memorial Junction is the spot where James Dean died at the age of 24 in a car crash September 30, 1955 weeks after completing the movie Giant.

Highway 46 was known for years as blood alley for its 60-mile long stretch of straight two lane road between Highway 101 and Interstate 5, the two main north-south freeways in California.  The road was only expanded to four lanes in the past three years.

Highway 46 in California Central Valley.

After driving 40 miles into the Central Valley the road passes through the town of Lost Hills.

Oil country of Lost Hills, California.

There is oil all over California. Monterey County has oil wells in the San Ardo oil field in the upper Salinas Valley. Oil rigs are in the sea from Long Beach to Santa Barbara. As I passed through Bakersfield there are several vineyards with oil pumpjacks right in the middle of the grape vines.

Have you wondered what those indescribable subtle flavors are in the fragrant bouquet of that Chardonnay?

Lost Hills is also a town where the California Aqueduct passes through on its way to Los Angeles.

California Aqueduct is a 700 mile canal transporting water from the Sierra Nevada mountains to the Central Valley farms and cities along the coast.

The exploitation of California’s natural resources: Gold, oil and water made the California we see today.

California Central Valley orchards east of Bakersfield.