CAMPING EAST – By Glynn Wilson – CATOCTIN MOUNTAIN, Md. — It’s only the first official week of summer and it’s already peaking out at 91 degrees, according to the official forecast in the nation’s capital today. But here, in the campground in the shade, it’s only 83 degrees, according to the New American Journal…
Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, Va. — Well, truth be told, it’s not exactly a secret. This is one of the well known national parks, one of two Crown Jewels of the East along with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee. Yet it always feels like an amazing…
Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – Back in the late 20th century, when the written word and truth still seemed to matter, I was hanging out in the Great Smoky Mountains and came up with a cool title for a travel-nature column for The Southerner magazine, something I still use from time to time…
Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – It’s hot as hell could be inside the Beltway again, with a projected high on Sunday of 96 degrees and a low of only 75 tonight, a harbinger of the future for cities along the Eastern Seaboard. As I hit the button to publish this…
Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – Lurking on a wooded little island in the Potomac River just across the water from Georgetown, there lie important lessons for progressive Democrats from the most progressive president in American history. In continuing our exploration of the U.S. capital region, not just the partisan politics,…
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — So you’re a patriotic American or an international admirer of the United States and you’ve always wanted to visit the nation’s capital city? The Neo-classical architecture? All the buildings, memorials and other sites related to the United States federal government? All the Smithsonian museums? Maybe you’ve hesitated, thinking…
By Glynn Wilson – PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — When Benjamin Franklin founded the American Philosophical Society in 1743, 33 years before he signed the Declaration of Independence as a member of the Continental Congress, he recognized the need for an organization that would bring together the brightest thinkers of the day to share their scientific experiments…
This is one of the first digital photographs I took in the early days of digital photography on a trip to photograph autumn color along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. This was taken with a Nikon D70. I was visiting a cousin in Marion, North Carolina and caught the color line timing just…
A leaf, a flower, a stone – the simple beauty of nature filled John Muir with joy. Born April 21, 1838, Muir has become America’s most famous naturalist and conservationist. He shared his love of the outdoors through writing and inspired people to protect our country’s wild places like Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Sequoia and…
Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – Who knew Herbert Hoover was such a great guy? About the only thing most Americans know about former President Hoover is that he was in office when the stock market crashed in 1929, leading to the worst Great Depression in U.S. history. He was defeated when seeking reelection…
Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – ELLICOTT CITY, Md. — It is almost too cold here to type. It was spring in Mobile, Alabama, last week when I had to pull out and head north for the season in the area around Washington, D.C. Upon arrival in Patapsco Valley State Park, which you may…
By Bob Wells – I just got back to Arizona after visiting my mom for three weeks in Florida and while I was there I went to a small gathering of East coast vandwellers that are all on the cheaprvliving.com forums. I was delighted for the chance to meet them and see how East coast…
Watch the Video – By Glynn Wilson – SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, Va. — The Shenandoah salamander is no endangered polar bear, cuddly panda cub or playful dolphin the American public may warm up to in the cause of fighting global warming from the burning of fossil fuels. Yet it is the latest poster child from…
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” – L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables – Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – As of September 29, the Virginia Department of Forestry was still reporting that while the calendar may say it’s fall, Virginia’s forests are still mostly green. “Nature’s…
