The seat was 14B, a window on the wrong side of the engine, and the man across the aisle had already decided his phone conversation outranked the rest of the cabin. That was a Tuesday in late August, somewhere over Ohio, and it was the flight that finally made me get serious about noise cancelling. … Read more
The first real cold front of September rolled through on a Tuesday night, and by Wednesday morning the goldenrod field behind the farm stand looked like someone had shaken out a quilt full of embers. Monarchs — dozens of them, then hundreds — dropping out of the trees as the sun climbed, spiraling up on … Read more
The bugle started as a whistle somewhere back in the timber, thin and almost electronic, like a kazoo played through a pipe organ. Then it broke open into a ragged scream that rolled across the sagebrush and hit me square in the chest. I was standing on the shoulder of a gravel road in the … Read more
There is a stretch of the Sierra Nevada where the calendar stops mattering and elevation starts running the show. Every September, while New England is still arguing about whether October will behave, the aspens on the eastern slope of the Sierra turn gold in a wave that starts above nine thousand feet and works its … Read more
The first time I crested the hill into the Wallowa Valley, my photographer grabbed my arm before I’d even stopped the truck. Below us: a ribbon of river, a lake the color of glacial milk, and a wall of nine-thousand-foot peaks catching the last of the light. We had driven six hours from Portland and … Read more
Every August, without fail, my inbox starts filling up with the same question from friends and readers: when should I book my fall trip? And every August, I give the same answer — wait for the forecast. This year we didn’t have to wait long. The Old Farmer’s Almanac just released its 2026 fall foliage … Read more
There’s a moment on the last Monday of August when Grand Teton National Park audibly changes gears. I’ve now been there for it twice — once from a campsite at Colter Bay, once from a rented cabin outside Kelly — and both times it felt like watching a theater clear out after the matinee. The … Read more
The alarm went off at 4:45 a.m. and I almost talked myself out of it. That’s the first thing nobody tells you about the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta: the whole thing runs on a schedule that feels punitive until you’re standing in a field watching 500 balloons stand up at once. Then you understand. The … Read more