[1401.03]  

Iceland Trip, February 2004

(this article first appeared in our 2004 holiday newsletter)
2004 was an amazing travel year for us, starting with a trip to Iceland to view the aurora borealis (northern lights). Read...

[1401.10]  

Venus Transit and Namibia Trip 2004

(this article first appeared in our 2004 holiday newsletter) On June 8, 2004, a rare astronomical event occurred. The planet Venus crossed the disk of the sun, a small dot barely visible to the naked (solar-filter-protected) eye. Read...

[1401.21]  

Record Showers Bring 2005 Wildflowers

(this article first appeared in our 2005 holiday newsletter) 2005 started off wet, ending up just short of 1884’s record 38.2 inches. Newspaper articles, TV reports, and dozens of wildflower websites extolled the magnificence of this year’s wildflower blooms. Read...

[1401.22]  

Wisconsin Road Trip 2005

(this article first appeared in our 2005 holiday newsletter) In July we took a weeklong road trip through Wisconsin and environs. We found a guidebook in the library called "Oddball Wisconsin, A Guide to Some Really Strange Places." Read...

[1402.03]  

Solar Eclipse over Libya 2006

(this article first appeared in our 2006 holiday newsletter) A total eclipse of the sun is one of nature’s greatest spectacles. On March 29, 2006, we joined thousands of people in Libya in the path of the moon’s shadow. Read...

[1402.05]  

California Adventure 2006

(this article first appeared in our 2006 holiday newsletter) We missed Disneyland’s 50th anniversary celebration last year, so when it was continued through mid-2006 we decided to see both it and the neighboring California Adventure theme park. Read...

[1402.10]  

Hawaii Adventures 2007

(this article first appeared in our 2007 holiday newsletter) We ended 2006 and started 2007 in paradise, Maui to be exact. Norwalk Kendo Dojo also made a whirlwind tour of Oahu and Maui in August. Read...

[1402.14]  

Gobi Solar Eclipse 2008

(this article first appeared in our 2008 holiday newsletter) Solar eclipses have a tendency to occur over water or some inaccessible place on land. This year we traveled to the southern part of the Gobi desert to see one. Read...

[1402.15]  

Korea, China, and Mongolia Trip 2008

(this article first appeared in our 2008 holiday newsletter) One of the great things about eclipse touring is having the opportunity to visit places that are really "out there". For the Gobi trip we visited Mongolia, after touring Korea and China. Read...

[1402.22]  

China Solar Eclipse 2009

(this article first appeared in our 2009 holiday newsletter) We were seriously considering skipping this eclipse trip, but several items pushed us into going. First, this eclipse, lasting about 5 minutes in eastern China, would be the longest one of this century. Read...

[1402.23]  

China and Tibet Trip 2009

(this article first appeared in our 2009 holiday newsletter) Although we had already visited China several times, on this trip we were able visit many new places, including Hangzhou, Chengdu, and Tibet, culminating in a trip to Everest Base Camp. Read...

[1402.24]  

White Mountains Trip 2009

(this article first appeared in our 2009 holiday newsletter) In May we took a 300-mile trip to the White Mountains to see bristlecone pines, the oldest living trees in the world, some almost 5000 years old. Read...

[1403.05]  

Solar Eclipse and Moai 2010

(this article first appeared in our 2010 holiday newsletter) In July we went to see a total eclipse of the sun. Yes, another one! But this truly was one we could not miss, as it passed over Easter Island, home to the mysterious moai (huge stone carvings of human heads). Read...

[1403.06]  

Easter Island Trip 2010

(this article first appeared in our 2010 holiday newsletter) Easter Island (Polynesian name Rapa Nui) is one of the world’s most remote inhabited places, located about 2200 miles west of Santiago, Chile. It is shaped like a right triangle with an extinct volcano at each vertex. Read...

[1403.07]  

Santiago and Valparaiso Trip 2010

(this article first appeared in our 2010 holiday newsletter) Prior to flying to Rapa Nui (Easter Island), we stopped over in Santiago, Chile’s capital, as well as the port city of Valparaiso, about an hour and a half northwest of Santiago. Read...

[1403.20]  

California-Nevada Loop 2011

(this article first appeared in our 2010 holiday newsletter) After exotic travels in recent years, we stayed totally within the United States in 2011. A trip in October took us in a huge loop through much of California and a bit of western Nevada. Read...

[1403.22]  

Segway Tours 2011

(this article first appeared in our 2011 holiday newsletter) We have written in previous newsletters about the segway, a two-wheeled self-balancing personal transporter. This year we had a chance to take two more awesome tours, in Griffith Park and Atlanta. Read...

[1403.25]  

Aurora Lapland Trip 2012

(this article first appeared in our 2012 holiday newsletter) We really had not planned to leave the country in 2012, but we didn’t want to miss seeing what may be the best Northern Lights activity this decade. Read...

[1403.26]  

London Trip 2012

(this article first appeared in our 2012 holiday newsletter) Prior to Abisko, we spent several full days exploring London and its surroundings. Hotels were shockingly pricey in the city, so we stayed at a hotel at Heathrow and used public transportation to get around. Read...

[1403.27]  

Annular Solar Eclipse 2012

(this article first appeared in our 2012 holiday newsletter) Last year, we wrote about scoping out observing sites for this year’s May 20th annular eclipse. We decided then on the general region east of Reno, Nevada, and on May 19th we spent many hours searching the area. Read...

[1403.28]  

Transit of Venus 2012

(this article first appeared in our 2012 holiday newsletter) In our 2004 newsletter, we wrote about seeing the transit of Venus from Africa. Venus crossed between the earth and the sun again on June 5th, the last time it will do so until the year 2117. This time we saw it from Maui. Read...

[1404.07]  

Death Valley 2013

(this article first appeared in our 2013 holiday newsletter) All year long we had planned to visit Death Valley in winter, to attempt to get a good view of Comet ISON. Unlike the comet, Death Valley did not disappoint! Read...

[1404.08]  

Washington DC 2013

(this article first appeared in our 2013 holiday newsletter) In March we spent a week touring Washington, D.C. I had never been, so we tacked it on to a trip I was making to attend a kendo seminar in Annandale, VA. As usual, we crammed everything possible into each day. Read...