Exploring outside Portland: Columbia River Gorge, lavender farm on the Fruit Loop, and Cannon Beach
August 20, 2014 Before the Garden Bloggers Fling in Portland, Oregon, last month, my husband and I took a few days to explore the city and surrounding region. On our last day we rented a car and drove east along I-84 to see the majestic Columbia River Gorge. Vista House, ...
Portland Japanese Garden: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
July 25, 2014 The second day of the 7th annual Garden Bloggers Fling, held in Portland in mid-July, began in the renowned Portland Japanese Garden, often described as the most authentic of its kind outside of Japan. I had visited a few days earlier with my husband on a hot, ...
Nature Nights introduces kids to the Wildflower Center’s new Family Garden
June 17, 2014 My kids are teens now and well past playground age. But I’m not! Since the Luci and Ian Family Garden opened on May 4, I’ve been wanting to check it out. I previewed the garden before it was completed in mid-March and could see it would be ...
Fall hike at St. Edward’s Park in northwest Austin
November 18, 2013 We’ve been hiking at St. Edward’s Park — more of a greenbelt trail, really — for 20 years, enjoying the reliable flow of Bull Creek, the treetop views from the bluff that follows the creek, and the park’s relative solitude, especially as compared to Barton Creek Greenbelt ...
Visit to San Antonio’s Japanese Tea Garden
March 13, 2013 Day-tripping in San Antonio last weekend, my family and I made time for a stroll through the Japanese Tea Garden, located near the zoo in Brackenridge Park. Constructed in an old limestone quarry, the gardens are framed and accessed by fascinating and unusual stonework, including a pagoda-like ...
Visit to San Antonio's Japanese Tea Garden
March 13, 2013 Day-tripping in San Antonio last weekend, my family and I made time for a stroll through the Japanese Tea Garden, located near the zoo in Brackenridge Park. Constructed in an old limestone quarry, the gardens are framed and accessed by fascinating and unusual stonework, including a pagoda-like ...
Seattle Japanese Garden, a tranquil oasis in the city
August 25, 2011 In late July, after the Seattle Garden Bloggers Fling ended, my family joined me for sightseeing in the Emerald City and beyond. I convinced them to see one more garden with me, the Seattle Japanese Garden in the Washington Park Arboretum. At 3-1/2 acres, the garden is ...
Outdoors at North Carolina’s Chimney Rock, Sliding Rock & Lake Lure
June 30, 2011 Ever since my Carolina childhood, the mountains of western North Carolina have been one of my favorite weekend destinations. During a recent vacation I had the pleasure of introducing my children to some fun hikes and nature outings in the Asheville area. Pictured above is a view ...
Visit to Plant Delights Nursery and Juniper Level Botanic Garden: Hardy tropicals & pond gardens
June 21, 2011 Not everyone loves agaves as much as I do, I realize (shaking my head in astonishment). For you, then, these flowery images from the Juniper Level Botanic Garden at Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh, N.C., which I visited two weeks ago. Pictured above is an orange dahlia, ...
Hartman Prehistoric Garden is cycad-delic
March 31, 2011 One hundred million years ago, Austin looked a lot different. A shallow sea lapped across central Texas, and later, as the sea retreated, cycads, magnolias, ferns, reeds and other ancient plants colonized the humid marshes. A dinosaur like this one walked here, leaving behind footprints that fossilized ...
Visit to Westcave Preserve
November 30, 2009 On Saturday we returned to the Hill Country to see Westcave Preserve, a 75-acre nature sanctuary located about 40 miles west of Austin. Westcave is known for its beautiful grotto hidden at the end of a sheltered canyon “created more than 100,000 years ago by the gradual ...
Yellowstone National Park, an American safari
October 16, 2009 Before I ever went on safari in Tanzania’s national parks, I traveled with my family to Yellowstone in mid-May of 2000 and saw so many large mammals that I felt as if I were on safari in the American West. Winter had only just released its grip ...
High in Rocky Mountain National Park
October 13, 2009 Bierstadt Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado After Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which figured prominently in my childhood travels, Rocky Mountain National Park is the one I’ve visited most often. New Yorkers head for Florida in the summer, right? Well, Texans head for Colorado. If you ...
Visit to Hamilton Pool
May 06, 2009 Drive just 30 miles southwest of Austin to find one of the most beautiful natural areas in central Texas: Hamilton Pool Nature Preserve. Last Saturday we drove out for a hike, arriving about an hour after it opened, and found something we’d never experienced there before: no ...
A visit to Chanticleer: Pond Garden
July 22, 2008 The Pond Garden at Chanticleer lies at the bottom of a steep hill in a wide, open space backed by a stand of trees. Though manmade, it look completely natural thanks to its setting and the coarse plantings around its edge. Here’s an overlook of the Pond ...
Magical history tour
July 16, 2008 View Larger Map 4,650 miles. 20 days. One car. Two kids. A ton of luggage. We just returned from a three-week road trip—an early-U.S. history tour, you could say. We wanted our kids to learn about the colonial era, the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War, and ...
