I’ve been working on this for weeks and it is about to start! Let me whet your picture appetite with some photos from “Nawlins” taken in May 2016. That’s New Orleans if you don’t speak southern.
And more importantly, let’s see if I remember how to do this! (Come on, JohnBoy, it’s like riding a bicycle…)
You can’t start a photo array about New Orleans without beignets and chicory coffee from Cafe du Monde.
No, that’s not me… I’m a few pounds heavier…. (where are my rolling eyes emoji’s when I need them)
I won’t tell you where I found this reverse image…
And to answer your next question….
So this is the type of thing you can expect from time to time. Flashbacks from past trips I took before starting the blog. These were taken using my Android phone which took very good pictures but don’t seem to be as big as photos taken with my various iPhones. And this was well before I had any of my digital cameras, the first of which I acquired in 2017.
I have downloaded 3,749 pictures from 2015, and 13,750 pictures from 2016, to my computer. I started the blog in 2017 but I traveled throughout the eastern United States and stayed mostly in Airbnb’s during those two years and other than amusing JohnBoy stories I have shared from time to time (like the Bike Gate fiasco in Memphis) I have just been sitting on them. I know, I know, COVID was the perfect opportunity to have used my isolation to post them but I am a terrible procrastinator.
My next post will spell out “the plan” as it stands right now, at 821 EDT on June 23, 2025. My life seems to be in a constant state of flux lately so we’ll all just have to muddle through this together…..
Those of you that get notified when I post something can probably figure out that something is going on….
I will be resuming new posts to the blog in the very near future. I promise. I pinky-promise. I know you’ve heard this tune before but I am a terrible procrastinator and various events prevented me from implementing this plan in 2022 ((things like COVID, the death of one of my brothers, various health ailments (none serious, fortunately, but time-consuming to diagnose) and the fact that there have been major wildfires in the northern portions of BC and AB the past three years)).
Plans are in the works to head to western Canada soon after the 4th of July (of THIS year). I am definitely going to the three western provinces – British Columbia, Alberta and the western part of Saskatchewan. I already have that all mapped out and it will take 3 months and 17 days (not that anyone’s counting).
I have also decided that I will probably fly to Alaska (!) from Seattle and do some running around up there using various modes of transportation (mush, you huskies, mush).
The post below was accidental but represents part of my efforts to catalog all 1,308 posts made in prior years (almost 10,000 photos posted!). The folks at WordPress have talked me through printing all the post’s titles in bite-size portions. I will create pdf files containing all the entries which I can send to anyone interested. It will then be easy and fun to revisit old posts or perhaps discover posts you haven’t seen.
I will update the header page above as soon as I can remember how to do it (DONE), and will include photos of my new-to-me wheels (a spiffy red 2018 Toyota Camry XLE. Only 79,000 miles on it now but that’s fixin’ to change…). My 2014 Altima served me well for my prior trips (except for that pesky problem returning to Nova Scotia from Newfoundland…), but with over 224,000 miles on it (I bought it with 60k on it) it was time for a newer ride.
Thank you for your patience. I will try not to let y’all down!
This is a work in progress. It represents only a small portion of the list of previous posts. I will create pdf files of all 1,300+ posts-to-date which I can then send to interested persons. Stay tuned!!
After visiting Arches National Park Saturday morning I headed south on Highway 191 to what I have been calling the “east entrance of Canyonlands”. Canyonlands is another big National Park in southeast Utah. I skipped it entirely the first time I was in the area and went in the north entrance a year later, seeing only a small portion of the Park.
From the entrance to Arches I drove south, through the town of Moab and would continue about 40 miles. I passed another arch, Wilson Arch, along the way, just off the highway to my left. To give you some idea of the size, there are people standing down near the trees just below the open area under the arch.
I eventually came to the road which would take me back to the “Needles Overlook”.
I would take that road 22 miles out into the desert. As my friend, Max, pointed out to me, the Needles Overlook isn’t in Canyonlands at all – and he’s right. The overlook is a high point which allows the viewer to look out a vast distance, most of which is the southern part of Canyonlands, but isn’t in the Park itself.
The “Needles” is an area in the extreme southern part of the Park, hence the name of the place I was going. The view took in a huge area and without knowing more about the terrain it was difficult to pick out landmarks, including the Needles. I met some people while I was out at the overlook who were camping down in the Needles and they pointed southwest from where we were but I couldn’t see anything that far out in the distance which seemed to fit the description.
Because everything was so far away the landscape didn’t lend itself to taking a panorama so we have to go old school and use multiple photos.
This was looking north (right) from the overlook, panning left-to-right. The first photo starts looking out towards the western horizon and the next two photos bring the view around to the right, ending looking slightly back towards the way I had driven in.
And looking left from the overlook wasn’t much different. These are again in a left-to-right sequence, starting looking “back” as I had driven in and working west towards the horizon looking, more or less straight out as I drove in.
As you can see, it is a huge, rugged rock and dirt area virtually devoid of trees. There are two rivers which come down from the north (right), the Colorado and the Green, and they meet in the southern part of the Park before continuing (as the Colorado) down to Lake Powell in Arizona. As you may be aware from news reports, the river levels are dreadfully low this year and Lake Powell is so low that authorities are hard-pressed to use the water for power generation.
According to the map legend, looking straight out from the overlook it is about 5 miles to get to the eastern Canyonlands Park border, then another 12 or 13 miles to get to the other side. It is about the same distance if you swing the ruler down to the southern end of the Park (past the “Needles”). There are very few roads out into Canyonlands (one the reasons it hasn’t been a priority for me) and it is best seen on foot.
I tried cropping the photos to eliminate some sky and a little of the foreground to try and help you see things better but it didn’t really help as everything is so far away.
Later in my trip I would attempt to get to the “Needles”, utilizing the southeast entrance to the Park, from where I was staying in southwest Colorado but I can tell you right now that attempt failed as a severe thunderstorm was developing and was heading right for the area I was planning to visit. I got as far as the entrance road from Highway 191 but decided not to go any further.
I posted some photos from Arches back in 2017 but it was a beautiful morning when I stopped there this year so here are some more.
This next photo is the main reason I went back to Arches this year. Delicate Arch. I got closer to it than I did back in 2017 but I still need to do the long walk up to the other side.
And this next photo includes Utah’s version of “Balanced Rock”. It is the one on the right and is bigger than it looks. From this angle it is off in the distance.
This was 4th of July weekend and from my base in Grand Junction I was planning to visit both Arches National Park, which I have been to at least twice, and parts of nearby Canyonlands National Park which I had not seen previously.
I was a little apprehensive about going to such a popular Park (Arches) on a holiday weekend and my fears were compounded when I saw a story on CNN Friday which said it was so crowded that Park rangers were literally turning people away, asking them to come back in 3 to 5 hours! For that reason I got an early start and arrived at the Park entrance at 830am – with only 8 vehicles ahead of me in line.
My main goal for this visit was to get closer to Delicate Arch than I had in my previous visits (when I had only taken photos from a distant parking lot). Well, there were quite a few people there when I actually got inside the Park but it is a big place and they were pretty much spread out. I was stunned, however, when I was ready to leave the Park at 11 am and there were NO cars in the parking lot for the first, and generally very popular, overlook visitors get to as they arrive. I will post my photos from this trip shortly but this is a shot of my car in that parking lot at 11AM on Saturday, July 3rd!!
This lot had been at least half full when I arrived and I was amazed there was no one there as I was leaving. I think one reason was the CNN report the previous day which may have scared lots of people away. Another possible reason was that it was already quite warm by 11am and the temperature would reach 106 by mid-afternoon. Welcome to southern Utah in July!
Saturday I got an early start as I had a busy day planned. My first stop was Arches National Park to try and wrap up a loose end from a previous visit. There are two ways to get there from Grand Junction – either the interstate west to Highway 191 which is fast but requires that you overshoot the Park and backtrack (and is a rather boring drive) OR take the interstate west to Highway 128 and take it to Moab. It is slower but is more direct and MUCH more scenic.
I have posted photos from this road before but I believe they were taken late in the day, after I had been to Arches. These were taken early in the morning and as you will see, it was a gorgeous, clear day and it got me off to a great start.
Friday morning I went to have my wheel alignment checked and get a part I needed from the Nissan dealer in town. After that I decided to revisit Colorado National Monument which is just outside of Grand Junction, Colorado. I had been here a few years ago but that was a last minute decision and I made a quick drive through before heading out of town to my next destination. It also let me utilize my new-found “panorama” skills on a few of the photos. It was going to be a nice day (only in the 80’s after a run of 100+ degree days) and I had the rest of the day since I was staying in town.
The Monument consists of a 23-mile drive around the top of a curved canyon (well, half a canyon – it is open on the other side). This lets the viewer look down into a variety of different sets of rock formations. I started my drive mid-day so it was ideal having the sun almost directly above me. The road along the top of the Monument curves along the southwest corner, facing the interstate highway to the northeast.
johnboystravelblog 