A Long Weekend on a Lake Without a Plan
I took a long weekend on a lake without a plan. This is something I had not done in a year or two and it turned out to be exactly what I needed and I want to recommend it carefully, because the trip works...
Away
Places worth the drive and stays worth a night, for when curiosity turns into a trip.
Three Mornings at a Gulf Coast Inn
The Gulf Coast in early May is a place where two migrations meet. The trans-Gulf migrants are coming off the water, having flown across the entire Gulf of Mexico in a single night, and the shorebirds along the beach are passing through on their...
A Slow Loop Through Driftless Backroads
The Driftless backroads in April are some of the best driving in the country and almost no one knows them. The hills are still bare enough to read the geology, the streams are full from snowmelt, and the small towns along the bottom roads...
A Weekend at a Desert Edge Hotel
The desert edge of Las Vegas, half an hour out from the strip, is one of the better birding destinations in the western United States, and most of the people who fly into the city never see any of it. I have made this...
Driving Out to Where the Cranes Land
The sandhill cranes stage in the Platte River valley of central Nebraska every spring, and the staging is one of the great natural events of North America. Around half a million birds funnel through a stretch of river roughly eighty miles long, between late...
A Night at a Lake Resort in Off-Season
The lake resort in February is a different place than the lake resort in July. The water is locked up under three feet of ice, the rental cabins are mostly empty, and the people you see on the main lodge porch are wearing more...
Three Days on the Mississippi Flyway
The Mississippi Flyway runs from the boreal forests of Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico, more or less following the river it is named after. In winter, the middle stretch of it, where the Upper Mississippi turns through Iowa and Illinois and Missouri,...
What a Resort Destination Holds Beyond the Room
Some places are built to be a whole trip on their own. A look at what fills the modern resort destination, floor to floor.
A Slow Weekend in the Driftless
A pocket of the Upper Midwest the glaciers missed, full of bluffs, trout streams, and towns that reward an unhurried visit.