Recently, Jayne and I visited the Spanish island of Majorca. As is usually the case with our travels, we went off-season. This time it also happened to be the rainy season which made it a bit challenging at times to drive on the island as well as walk around. Although many of the smaller towns […]

Jayne and I visited Palm Springs , California, recently. What follows are brief impressions of the desert-like experience. The first hike we did was exploring the Palm Canyon  at the Indian Canyons  preserve. As was typical of our desert experience, the rocky hills and mountains would give way to an incredible oasis of palm trees and […]

During a recent visit to Palm Springs, California, Jayne and I explored Joshua Tree National Park . It is here that the Sonoran  and Mojave deserts  meet… …containing a forest of strange Joshua Trees and a number of unique rock formations called Inselbergs . The famous San Andreas Fault  bounds the south side of the park. The […]

In this final look at our recent trip to southern Italy, I’d like to talk about a few miscellaneous topics. One of the other locations we visited was the city of Santa Maria di Leuca . Founded in the early 1st century AD by some monks, it is the southeastern extremity of Italy — traditionally considered […]

Our most favorite location during our recent visit to southern Italy was the ancient cave city  of Matera . This world heritage, UNESCO-listed , site is a gorge filled with ancient cave dwellings known as Sassi. The Sassi are houses dug into the rock itself. The ancient town grew up on one slope of the ravine created […]