[sic]

I’ve only been to the 5,475-foot-high Dante’s View in Death Valley once (in 2002) but it is a spectacular place in a park full of spectacles that leaves an indelible impression. One not quite as indelible as the national park’s 11,049-foot Telescope Peak that I summited in 2006, but enough so that when I saw this advertisement in the April issue of a magazine, I had no doubt as to the vista in the final photograph (most likely a composite of a stock image taken at Dante’s View and a studio shot of the woman):

The ad’s headline “Let Your Worries Go,” could be the slogan for Death Valley what with its unmatched, beauty, solitude and serenity. Got to find a way to get back there this year.

Stumbled upon in the archives, and taken during the last Midnight Ridazz ride shortly before I opted-out of all the not-riding that was going on here and doubletimed it to a doublecheese at Tommy’s (click to quadruplify):

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Another one from the archives, this one taken near the midway point of Franklin Avenue’s Great Pico Walk from Central Avenue to the sea last November.

You don’t need me wasting keystrokes attempting to explain just vast and magnificent Tanzania’s most famous national park is, when this picture will do just fine:

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From 320 x 240 bluriffic pixels captured on the BirdBathCam to this overblown and heavily filtered piece of fartistic indulgification, ladies and gents I bring you the infinitely quadruplificable “Robin at the Wellspring.”

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Isn’t it funny how we forget about stuff. I was cruising through the back end of the ridiculous amount of photos I have online at Flickr, and these two Santa Cruz island foxes showed up, bringing back a flood of good memories of the days I spent in November 2004 with a crew of docents from the Los Angeles Zoo. We were there as guests of the Nature Conservancy and as part of their island fox recovery program our purpose was to assemble captive breeding pens for the island’s decimated island fox population.

In looking further around my Flickr stream I was disturbed that this was pretty much the only photo from the excursion. What had happened to the others? Had they been deleted? OMGWTF? Then, from the cobwebby recesses of my memory I pulled out the recollection that I never uploaded any to Flickr. I put them up on shutterfly.com because back then I was all into making keepsake books for my photos. Here’s the link if you want to check it out. Or you can view a slideshow of all the photos here.

It was a remarkable experience and I’m glad not only that I was reminded of it, but relieved that I was able to remember where I’d stored the memories.

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Once again, a little sumpthin’ from the archives, taken at the south rim of the Grand Canyon that was remarkably and gloriously lousy with one of my favorite creatures on the planet on the last day of our 4,500-mile roadtrip in 2006. Susan and I had seen condors via binoculars a long way off the previous day at Vermillion Cliffs, and I had seen my first wild one back in 2003 biking north of San Luis Obispo on our way from San Francisco to Los Angeles, but this was just jaw dropping to be this close to the majestic ethereal birds in such a soul-opening place.

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Just one from the archives, snapped late December.

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Just a random photo upload to break up the text monotony — this one being one of the first photos I took upon arrival with Susan at the Serengeti in Tanzania during our everything-we-could-ask-for African honeymoon odyssey in the summer of 2005. Their attentions were toward a solitary warthog whose scent this previously lounging hunting party of five had just picked up. The warthog was making its way over the bottom of a dry wash a couple hundred yards to the right and moving further away from the lions who made something of an effort to stalk and flank the creature but soon realized it would be too much effort for too little a meal.

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Actually the horizon pictured is more than two years old, taken from the last whale-watching expedition I went on with my friend Cybele back in January 2006. I offer it up mainly as a random grab from my archives, but also one very weather-appropriate: it was warm enough today to wish I’d been out there on the open water.