Kailua-Kona, HI We started our Friday with a visit to the town of Pahoa. Lava from the Pu’u O’o vent of the Kilauea volcano had reached the town in October and had destroyed a house and almost reached the transfer station (a solid waste facility) in town. The lava is no longer active but visitors…
[Hood River, OR] The Columbia Gorge is famous for all of its waterfalls, and even though we’d covered two on our first afternoon here, including the famous Multnomah, there were plenty left to see. Our first stop was Elowah Falls. The trailhead was located in what’s called John Yeon Scenic Corridor at the very East…
[Hood River, OR] The Columbia River Gorge, which begins just a few miles east of Portland and stretches for nearly 70 miles along the shores of the Columbia River, is a dramatic landscape of mountains, cliffs and waterfalls created by massive ice age floods” – so read the first sentence of my Frommer’s guide to…
[Zion National Park, UT] Thursday was our last day in Zion. We had a flight to catch from Las Vegas that afternoon, so we figured we’d laze around in the morning and actually sleep in for once while on vacation! When we finally woke up, I went outside to see what the weather was like,…
[Yosemite National Park, CA] We entered the park from a different entrance today, from the West at Highway 140. Immediately we were greeted by massive granite rocks towering above us. Weaving through the valley, we passed several of the falls Yosemite is famous for – the 620-ft Bridalveil Fall and the 2500-ft Yosemite Falls, 5th…