We traveled with Tauck on their Canadian Maritimes tour which began in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The British military founded Halifax in 1749. The Welcome Dinner for our tour was held at the Citadel in Halifax. The Citadel, situated at the top of a hill – later known as Citadel Hill – was in a perfect position to defend the harbor. One of the first buildings constructed was a wooden guardhouse at the top of the hill. Settlers built their homes…
After leaving Sequoia National Park, we went to Yosemite National Park and stayed on the property at The Ahwahnee. The hotel was commissioned in the 1920’s in the hope of drawing affluent visitors to Yosemite. It was felt that affluent and influential visitors would encourage continued support of Yosemite as a national park. The Ahwahnee was named a National Historical Site in 1987. The Ahwahnee was positioned close to cliffs with a goal of making it “part of the scene…
As part of our Tauck tour, we drove to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. They are adjacent to each other but became national parks at different times so have different names. They have been jointly managed since 1943. Sequoias grow in both parks. Giant sequoias grow on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, between 4,000 and 8,000 feet in elevation. They are closely related to the coast redwoods we saw at Muir Woods, but there are differences….
I want to start this post with a bit of an overview of the three national parks we visited on our America’s Canyonland tour. Each of these parks are part of the “Grand Staircase,” an area beginning at the Grand Canyon, going on to Zion and ending at Bryce. Our itinerary was a bit out of order as we ended our trip in Zion. The Grand Staircase is a sequence of sedimentary rocks that ascend from the Grand Canyon to…
We traveled next to Bryce Canyon National Park, another highlight of our trip. On our way, we made a quick photo stop to see Balanced Rock. It is near Lee’s Ferry in Marble Canyon. The National Park Service explains how it came to be: Thousands of years ago a huge rock boulder broke from the cliff above and tumbled to a stop here. The hard conglomerate boulder compressed the softer dirt directly beneath, making it resistant to erosion. The boulder…
After leaving the Grand Canyon, we drove to the Glen Canyon and Lake Powell area, where we had a half hour flightseeing experience. We were on a small plane holding about 12 passengers, each of us with a window seat. The afternoon before, we had visited the Carl Hayden Visitor Center adjacent to the Glen Canyon Dam. The Visitors’ Center was named for Senator Carl Hayden who at the time was the longest serving member of Congress – in fact,…
We left Scottsdale and began driving to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. On the way, we made a lunch stop in Sedona, Arizona. Sedona is famous for its red rocks. I found this explanation of how these beautiful formations came to be. Before the red rock was turned into rock, it was all soft mud and sand. Over a 320 million year period changes in nature helped transform the sand and mud into something more beautiful than we…
We took Tauck’s America’s Canyonlands tour in October of 2022. On this tour we would visit the Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon, Lake Powell, and both Bryce and Zion National Parks. We arrived a day early for our tour and booked an independent, half-day tour that introduced us to the Scottsdale/Tempe/Phoenix area. We first visited Papago Park and the Sonoran Desert where we saw the iconic Saguaro Cactus. The Saguaro is a tree-like cactus that can grow up to 40 feet…
After leaving Vienna, we sailed to Bratislava, Slovakia. Originally known as Pressburg, it was annexed by Hungary in the 11th Century and served as the capital of Hungary for nearly 250 years. In 1919, the city was annexed to the Czechoslovak Republic and at that time its name was changed to Bratislava. The Nazis and then the Soviets controlled Bratislava until 1989. With the split of Czechoslovakia into two nations in 1993, Slovakia became an independent state with Bratislava as…
On our second day in Vienna, we toured the Schönbrunn Palace. Together with the Hofburg, the Schönbrunn Palace is the other major palace in Vienna. The Schönbrunn Palace and its associated buildings, gardens, fountains and statues are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Schönbrunn’s history extends back to Middle Ages. In 1569, Maximilian II acquired it for the Habsburg Dynasty. Emperor Matthias used it for hunting and, while hunting, discovered a “fair spring” which in German is translated “schoner brunnnen”…