The fall colors on the east side were a little spotty this week, although still beautiful. We visited Twin Lakes, Virginia Lakes, the June Lakes Loop, Convict Canyon, McGee Creek Canyon, Lundy Canyon and Rock Creek Canyon, taking short hikes on all but Convict Canyon. Not very many reds yet, mostly green changing to yellow, and in some places the ...

We’re just in from 3 nights on the June Lake Loop, looking for fall color. On the first night, Monday, we ate dinner on the deck of the Tioga Lodge on the shores (almost) of Mono Lake. I took these moonrise pics at 7:30 right from our table. Excellent food there, too.

After a month driving around France this June (we did the opposite loop direction in 99), we spent our 50th wedding anniversary in Paris, where we met old graduate student friends from the sixties for dinner and drinks. I’ll spare you most of the typical tourist shots of the Eiffel Tower, substituting toilettes and subways instead.

Chamonix, near Mont Blanc. We were pleasantly surprised at how attractive it was. I guess that’s because I had only read accounts by mountaineers and climbers, and they emphasized how touristy it is and how the French climbers are so sloppy and leave garbage all over the campgrounds. So here are a few pics, mostly of the architecture. We didn’t ...

A few nights in the attractive city of Annecy left us wishing for more. Sometimes called the Venice of France it has canals, a lake, castles, great food, dungeons and more.

Notice the barely perceptible figure in the bottom left of this shot of Mont Blanc with lenticular cloud. Here’s a closer view of the same climber. Nice rocks. Notice his belayer below him. As a Search and Rescue helicopter appears he seems to be signaling to it. A rescuer is lowered and the two of them are lifted off. We ...

Not just a catchy subject line. This was our classy two story decorative birdhouse on our front porch as of yesterday afternoon, although the photo was taken last year and the bluebird did not end up nesting there.

It was a dark and cloudy late afternoon when the GPS finally found our B&B at Plateau D’Assy, above Chamonix in the French Alps, and we wondered if we would ever see the mountains

On a wet june day, we visited the medieval walled city of Avignon on the banks of the Rhone, and one of the few French cities to have preserved its ramparts. We parked outside the walls and spent the day exploring the thriving town of 100,000.

A wild “boar” (sanglier) spots me in the mountains of Corsica: It moves in further for the attack: but fortunately decides to wallow a bit instead: Evidently these are free range pigs, because they were out in the middle of nowhere with no farm or farmer in sight: This real wild boar. Must have been a road kill for someone ...