Half Dome from North Dome

Half Dome, July 2010

North Dome's a nice hike...about 9 miles out and back from Porcupine Creek. You get to see Half Dome up close and personal without going near Yosemite Valley and its hordes of summer tourists. We even saw a bear!

Arches National Park

Arches National Park (near Fiery Furnace), May 2009

The thing with Arches: it's all driving, all the time. Fiery Furnace is about the only place you can actually get out of your car and go for a decent hike (no, ambling up to Delicate Arch does not count). Unfortunately one has to plan ahead to hike in Fiery Furnace, so all we did was stare longingly at it from the outside and hide from the Arch Hogs (translation: tourists who hang out in the arches, thus preventing other tourists from photographing said arches).

Kinkakuji

Kinkakuji Temple, Kyoto, Japan

Kinkakuji is known as the Golden Temple in English...it's one of Kyoto's top tourist sites. I actually faded the color a lot in this photo to give it sort of an aged feel. It's hard to take a unique photo of something that gets photographed hundreds of times a day...