Louisiana is famous for its swamps and bayous. And the gators that live within them. We took a sightseeing tour today with Cajun Encounters to the Honey Island Swamp near Slidell. And we saw gators!
Hi, I’m Eric.
I’m an avid world traveler, photographer, and digital storyteller.
I share new stories of my travels here and am gradually retelling old travel stories, either by moving them from other sites or crafting new articles about them.
I’ve been to over 70 countries and territories around the world and am looking forward to seeing many more.
I am also a software developer and an explorer of my home state.
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Louisiana is famous for its swamps and bayous. And the gators that live within them. We took a sightseeing tour today with Cajun Encounters to the Honey Island Swamp near Slidell. And we saw gators!
With the conference nearly over, we decided to take an evening walking tour of the French Quarter and to learn about the city’s ghostly history.
On Sunday, we mostly laid low and explored the immediate area around our hotel.
After a few days meeting with my team in our Bay Area offices, I flew to New Orleans to meet my partner who would be attending a conference here for a few days.
The plan was to spend the night in Seattle, have fun watching a friend’s band play, and then set out for a weekend of visiting more parks in the San Juans, ideally to use my kayak to visit a couple of the marine state parks.
All great things must come to an end. Today we parted company and I flew home to Seattle. I had a window seat and was able to capture a few nice landscape photos on the way home.
We made most of our way back to Utah today, but this time via the “southern” route (i.e. I-70 as far as was reasonable).
This was mostly a lay-low day, but we took a brief road trip through the mountains west of Denver. Local guides suggested that Guanella Pass, an hour or so west of the city, would be an especially scenic route. It was.
So, it turns out it’s a long way from Salt Lake City to Denver. We drove this over two days with a brief stop in Wyoming. Mostly it gave us a chance to catch up and talk and do some shopping. There were lots of wide-open spaces and we didn’t take much time to stop for photos.
I flew down to Salt Lake City today. I’ll work for a couple of days from there and then my daughter and I will embark on a road trip together for a few days.
On our last full day of the trip, we took off a bit early to enjoy the sun and scenery.
We took this evening to satisfy a curiousity about Stansbury Island, which is not entirely an island any more due to lower lake levels.
This afternoon (Memorial Day), we visited Great Salt Lake State Park a bit west of Salt Lake City.
I’m in Utah for a few days for a family visit. I had a few hours to myself upon arrival and decided to check out the Ensign Peak Trail, which offered some nice views from above the city.
And now to business …
Adobe’s offices are near Union Square, so what follows are a few pictures from my time in the city.
As I am so often inclined to do, I took the long way from Port Jefferson into the city.
I had all day today to explore. I decided to head up the Connecticut coast for a while and then take a ferry from Bridgeport to the north shore of Long Island.
I arrived this evening a bit early for some meetings at Adobe’s New York offices. As is often the case with travel, there were some misadventures and delays, but it all worked out OK. The highlight of this evening was a stay at the TWA Hotel.
Today we drove north across central Washington for a park visit and a stay in mountains at Sun Mountain Lodge near Winthrop.
We worked from Pullman Thursday and Friday and then headed out in the afternoon. Not much to share from this day, except that I got to introduce Lisa to a favorite place in Richland, The Lodge at Columbia Point.
Remember when I said I had to be back in Eastern Washington right away?
Today we explored Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island State Parks.
There are … more efficient … ways to get from Salt Lake to Park City. But … why? You’d miss out on some amazing scenery.
For something a little different, I drove across the state today before heading to Utah for a few days to visit family. (Why? I need to be in eastern Washington right away when I get back.)
My partner and I took an impromptu trip to Portland and Astoria this weekend. We discovered two great hotels and added three new parks to the 146 Parks project.
The plan was to head east and visit a bunch of new parks for the 146 Parks project. That only sort of happened, but a good time was had nonetheless.
It was going to be a long day in any case. But when our 2am flight from San Juan became a 4:30am flight, there was no longer a direct flight available for us from Newark to Seattle. So … we took the long(er) way home.
This morning, we said goodbye to the treehouse and started our journey home. We had a full day to spend on the island, so we spent our lunch time in the southern coastal city of Ponce and then made our way to the very northeast corner of the island for a night-time bioluminescent kayak tour before heading back to the airport.
Happy New Year! Today, we drove down to the southwesternmost point of Puerto Rico to see Cabo Rojo and its lighthouse, Faro Los Morrillos.
We left Salinas this morning and drove through the mountains to the town of Utuado and then on to a most amazing treehouse near San Germán, where we will spend the last two evenings of our trip.
We are staying again in Salinas. What to do with the day in between? Do we go east or do we go west? A coin toss decided it and we explored the coast to the east of us.
We left San Juan this morning, rented a car, and explored the tropical rain forest in El Yunque National Forest.
Today we walked through the old city and its historic forts.
Having spent our first two days of acclimating and relaxing on the beach, we’ve now moved on to the historic district of Old San Juan.
This evening, we walked among the colorful streets and then to the Paseo del Morro, a trail along the edge of Castillo San Felipe del Morro.
So excited to start my first major vacation in … yeah, that long … and to share it with fellow travel aficionado and sweetheart Lisa Rozmyn.
I am on a brief solo road-trip this weekend. I woke up, looked out the window, and got outside as quickly as I could to capture this morning’s sunrise.
I often hike Dungeness Spit when I need a moment to myself. On this morning, returning from one such hike, Mother Nature sent me this inspiring visual with the receding fog.
My partner and I visited the Grays Harbor Lighthouse in Westport recently.
I had the opportunity for a long weekend away and decided to make some progress on my parks project.
After Taos, it was time for some high desert plains and some mountains. I landed this next night in the ski resort of Telluride.
Leaving Lubbock, I decided to continue satisfying my Panhandle curiosity. I drove north through Amarillo and into the far western edge of Oklahoma’s Panhandle before turning west to my destination for the night, Taos, New Mexico.
I’d long been curious about the Texas Panhandle region, but never had a compelling reason to actually visit. That reason recently appeared in the form of a family matter that required me to go to Dallas quickly, but left me with time to come home slowly and thoughtfully.
Herewith, Day 1 of my sojourn from Dallas to Seattle starting in west Texas:
Today I took a brief driving and walking tour around Salvador.
Today I have arrived in Salvador, Brazil, where I will spend the next three days. I am absolutely thrilled with this last-minute historic hotel find in Salvador.
A delightful breakfast here at Hotel Santa Teresa and then it’s off to a new location in Rio. This was a great place to crash and rest up from the rigors of travel. On to the next place!
So it turns out that just showing up in Brazil without a rock solid-plan for what you are going to do and where you’re going to stay is … not great.
First impressions, while I enjoy lunch …
Rio is a study in contrasts. It wears its slums out on its sleeve. There is no escaping that part of the city as you are driven to wherever it is you’re going.
… and today brings me home. Mostly freeway miles, but the side trip through Harrington and Odessa on SR 28 was well worth it.
Today I explored the Columbia and Spokane River valleys on the way to Spokane. It was gray and snowy pretty much everywhere I went today, but that’s what I was looking for.
I had fun driving today, mostly looking for winter farm scenes in the high plains east of Wenatchee, before winding up in Omak for the night.
We hiked the Northrup Canyon Trail in eastern Washington today. Here are a few of the fun desert- and cliff-scapes we observed.
Today I went back into Yellowstone where I got stalled for a bit by a herd of bison in the road.
The idea was to drive from Red Lodge to West Yellowstone. Mission accomplished, but maybe not quite the way that was originally planned.
On this day, I trekked west across the rolling hills of South Dakota, Montana, and a small sliver of Wyoming.
So the plan was to follow US Highway 212 as far west as I could. On this first day, this led me through the sweeping plains of western Minnesota and eventually to the sleepy town of Redfield, South Dakota.
On this day, we toured the coastal communities of Katwijk and Haarlem and the ventured up to see the windmills at Zaansche Schans.
We spent the last two mornings at the famous Keukenhof Gardens, where Holland’s tulip growers gather to share their latest bulbs.
Today was the first day of a week-long photo tour of Amsterdam and the tulip gardens near Leiden. We took a walkabout through the city of Amsterdam today; tomorrow, weather permitting, we’ll be shooting tulips at the Keukenhof gardens. Stay tuned. Should be a great week on the photoblog!
I decided to take this weekend and drive to winter (i.e. that part of Washington that actually gets snow in winter).
After a week in New York City for business, I made some time to go exploring Long Island.
