Exploring the American Landscape
Architecture and human creations
Well, so much for the trees. After leaving Cottonwood and its relatively leafy environment, we headed to northeastern Arizona, where the Colorado Plateau put us at relatively high elevation but in an arid desert environment with virtually no trees in sight. The flat, scrubby high plains just go on forever. We were scheduled to be … Read more
After our stop at Picacho Peak we skipped right over the Phoenix metro area and landed in the historic town of Cottonwood, nestled along the Verde River at an elevation of around 3,500 feet. That increase in elevation meant a few things: our arrival just days after a major snowstorm meant we encountered plenty of … Read more
Our month-long stay in Tucson has flown by, and we’re off to other destinations in Arizona. Staying in one place for an extended period of time helped us get through the coldest month of the year in a relatively comfortable spot, even though an unusually wet winter meant we saw a surprising number of cool, … Read more
After our lengthy stay near the redwoods, we made a very large (for us) relocation of over 300 miles in one day, which meant we took shifts driving down the scenic but narrow and winding route into the heart of Northern California. We passed through thick smoke in Mendocino County from the terrible Camp Fire … Read more
Boise’s population of around 300,000 and its role as the capital of the state make the city comparable in some respects to Tallahassee, Florida, our home-state capital. But unlike Tallahassee, which is a relatively small town in a state with multiple major metropolitan areas, Boise is also the largest city in the state by a … Read more