Desert Heat

When people learn that I’m a traveler they often ask me what the most beautiful place I’ve been to is. When I reply that it’s the US they often look at me in disbelief, as if thinking “I didn’t expect him to be so nationalistic.” The thing is I’m not nationalistic. It’s simply that the natural splendor of the western US is really unlike anything I’ve seen before.

These past two weeks of biking through the desert have reminded me of just how true that is. Each day as I bike, I think there couldn’t be a more beautiful place to ride and the next day I relive the wonder as the landscape morphs into yet another new, strange and wonderful shape.

To think they change every day…

For those of you who have never been to the area, I can’t recommend it enough. Photos are nice, but the grand scale of panoramas like the one at Dead Horse Point , where the Canyonlands stretch out for a hundred miles 2,000 feet below you, simply cannot be captured by a flimsy two-dimensional image.

Biking adds yet another layer to the appreciation. 50 plus miles of untouched wilderness are passed so easily in a car, but on a bike the amazing scale of unoccupied land reveals its true significance. Of course riding through 100 degree weather isn’t always the easiest on the body, but even that grants a new appreciation to the stories of settlers and native Americans who explored and covered these lands, very often on foot.

Like nowhere else on Earth

We’ll soon be entering the Rocky Mountains, which have a beauty and challenge all their own, but even if the trip were to end right now I’d be grateful for the beauty I’ve been lucky enough to see. What a world…

A nice way to end the day

 

On the Road

Wow, where to begin? After three weeks on the road, this is my first much belated update. There’s already been a cross country drive and two weeks of biking through some of the most scenic places on Earth. In fact, as I write this, I’m sitting under a tree in Zion National Park, another place so blessed with beauty that I lament not only my own skills as a photographer, but the absolute limits of the art, which could never do anything but give a pale imitation of natures capacity for splendor.

I captured this just outside of Yellowstone. To think this was an area they decided wasn’t worth protecting…

So rather than do gross injustice to the places I’ve already visited, I’ll

Looking Back

Four years ago I began to plan for a journey, I thought it would last a month, but as 2013 draws to a close I can now look back at a four year odyssey that has been the greatest adventure of my life.  Of course, as with most things in life, this journey will never really be over.  Yet even so, a time of great change is approaching in my life and before I begin to share with you what’s on the horizon, I’d like to take this New Year’s to look back not only at 2013 but all the years of An Out of a the Way Place, years that we’ve all shared and that would never have been possible without you.  So sit back and enjoy a look at the last four years.  It’s been a crazy trip!

The night that started it all

Unlike in the movies, real turning points

Best Enjoyed Slowly

“Best Enjoyed Slowly” – so runs the new tourism slogan for Latvia, a country not well known for tourism, but which is the out of the way place I’m currently lucky enough to be visiting.  While I would venture to say that most of life is best enjoyed slowly, I’m happy to say that I’ve been able to follow this advice particularly well in a country that, while it may lack the well known attractions of a France, has plenty of its own to offer those with the patience to enjoy it.

The Latvian beach stretches for nearly the length of the country.

Among the many things I’ve found to enjoy here have been the Baltic Sea with miles upon miles of sandy beach, the immense

A Run and a Picture

Like most days, I went out for a run today.  I did make one small change though, I brought my camera along.  As is so often the case it proved to be a blessing, not because of the images I captured (although I hope you will all enjoy them) but because it forced me to actually look at what I was running past.

Most of the time I’m just watching out for a train.

Cameras, like so many other tools, are easy to abuse.  I know that snapshots