Drawn the Road Again

Category: Off the Beaten Path

  • Four corners

    Four corners

    The Tailor and I make for an odd pair on a road trip. I’m likely to put enormous thought into the road tunes, to cue up the exact perfect song to play as we pass through certain landscapes (I am also usually the only one who notices or cares, no matter who’s with me on…

  • 40-watt bulbs

    40-watt bulbs

    Every year I head north to the Skagit Valley to catch the tulip fields in bloom. If you’re looking for good travel weather, spring is a tricky time of year in the Northwest. But if you manage to get there on a rare sunny day, you’ll be in for a treat. The whole valley lights…

  • Ka-bloom

    Ka-bloom

    The Tailor and I visited Big Bend in mid-April, our best chance to catch the cacti in bloom. When we got there, a park ranger warned us not to get our hopes up. He told us they’d been experiencing a record drought—the park had only received about three inches of rain, total, over the past…

  • Crack of dawn

    Crack of dawn

    Hitting the road two hours before sunup is never exactly my favorite way to travel. But with a cup of strong coffee, some loud sing-along music on the stereo, and a worthy goal to shoot for… …it can be well worth the effort.

  • Have sketchbook, will travel

    Have sketchbook, will travel

    You know when you’re on a road trip, and you see a highway billboard that says something like, “World’s Largest Two-Headed Calf, Exit Now!” and you consider stopping, just for a moment? And then your spouse looks it up on the map, and you discover that yeah, it’s this exit, plus maybe another 140 miles…