Posted on February 28, 2019, 12:47 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Congress redesignated Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore as Indiana Dunes National Park, our 61st, on Friday, February 15. I was initially hoping the reach the park before sunset on Monday, but Chicago International Airport and the park are located on opposite sides of Chicago, and I had landed just in time for rush hour. The Shore […]
Posted on February 13, 2019, 5:42 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Unlike all other national parks that are open 24 hours a day, Petrified Forest National Park’s gates close at night, an extraordinary measure necessary to prevent theft of petrified wood – a serious problem. Petrified Forest National Park, despite his sizeable area (146 square miles, 38th largest national park) is also one of a handful […]
Posted on December 3, 2018, 8:14 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
This year, I’ve written about quite a few national monuments. Some of them are larger and, in my opinion, more interesting than some national parks. However, they form a disparate collection with a huge range of resources, and Yucca House National Monument is a case in point. Yucca House was first described in F. V. […]
Posted on November 26, 2018, 7:30 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Of all America’s prehistoric civilizations, none left more visible traces than the Ancestral Puebloan culture, and nowhere else in the country can one find so many of their ancient sites, than at Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. The Anasazi or Ancestral Puebloan culture flourished between AD 300 and 1300 in the Four Corners area. […]
Posted on November 12, 2018, 12:00 am, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Wetherill Mesa is the quieter side of Mesa Verde National Park, but a few other cliff houses see even less visitation, even though they are some of the most visible structures in the park, like Square Tower House. Find out in this post about the most special tours in the park, which started only in […]
Posted on November 4, 2018, 3:00 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Wetherill Mesa, located on the west side of Mesa Verde National Park, is a long and narrow peninsula of land rising above deep canyons. Its rock alcoves are home to structures as impressive as those found on Chapin Mesa, however the experience of visiting is quite different. Many visitors rush through the landscape of the […]
Posted on October 29, 2018, 5:33 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
A few weeks ago, when I drove out of Montrose, Colorado, on the way to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, a sign warned of winter conditions. I wondered what that meant, but quickly found out as the nighttime temperatures dropped to the upper tens. The next day turned out cold and mostly cloudy. […]
Posted on October 1, 2018, 12:48 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Hanford Reach could the national monument with the most unusual history of all. Its lands, located in Eastern Washington, were initially set apart from development not for conservation, but as a security buffer zone for the top-secret Hanford Nuclear Reservation where the plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb – and many others during the Cold War […]
Posted on September 10, 2018, 10:15 am, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Observing natural changes is a rewarding aspect of revisiting a place, as I did for the Tinkers Creek Gorge of Cuyahoga National Park – obscure and far from California. The water flow fluctuated, and you can see in this post which conditions worked best for each scene and how I adjusted my composition in response […]
Posted on September 3, 2018, 10:54 am, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Mammoth Cave National Park is generally a dry place. I explore a few out-of-the-way watery places within the park, while discussing some of the compositional strategies I used in those relatively plain scenes. Sloan’s Crossing Pond Water has made the longest cave in the world. The karst landscape of Mammoth Cave National Park is characterized […]
