Southwest Airlines announced a fare sale Tuesday to celebrate its 39th birthday.
For travel up to 450 miles, sale fares are $39 one-way. Flights between 451 and 1000 miles are on sale for $79. Fares for flights that are more than 1000 miles are $119.
Category: travel
Thompson Rivers University – Kamloops
Shout out for our accommodation at Thompson Rivers University.
Not only is the best University residence I’ve ever seen, it’s one of the best University hotels.
I score it 10 / 10.
Yesterday I rode up the elevator chatting with coach Wally Buono. The B.C. Lions football team has just arrived for Training Camp.
… I’m loving the University, too.
back in Parksville, B.C.
Safely returned to my parent’s place on Vancouver Island after a 7wk road trip through the States.
Most of those travel misadventures I’m posting on my hiking blog.
My used Honda Civic is still ticking. No repairs (so far) aside from a $75 emergency windshield wiper fix.
The holiday is OVER, my June / July work calendar is filling up rapidly: Kamloops, Coeur d’Alene, Calgary, Baja?, Charlottetown, Newfoundland, Coeur d’Alene, …
north to Canadia
May 15th. …
Should be safe to start back up to the Great White North.
I’m going to miss the dry, sunny “snowbird” days of the American southwest.
On this long driving trip I’ve used only my iTouch as car stereo. Works great.
I should be in Kamloops by May 24th for the Canadian Gymnastics Championships.
hiking / biking the desert
I’ve been posting trip reports of my adventures on my hiking blog.
Navajo National Monument
I laughed aloud at the incredulous poor management of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park.
Signage says that 40% of the Navajo Nation lives under the poverty line. What do the entrance fees for that park go to? Not road improvement. Not campground improvement. Not signage … aside from the poverty sign.
The same day I traveled to camp at Navajo National Monument.
… it preserves three of the most intact cliff dwellings of the ancestral puebloan people (Hisatsinom).
The Navajo people who live here today call these ancient ones Anasazi. The monument is high on the Shonto plateau, overlooking the Tsegi Canyon system in the Navajo Nation in northern Arizona. …
Rangers guide visitors on free tours of the Keet Seel and Betatakin (Bitátʼahkin in Navajo) cliff dwellings. …
Superb. That attraction is perfectly managed. Congratulations.
It’s run by the National Park Service, but with mostly Navajo employees, by the looks of things.
One example of the government doing a better job than non-government managers.
in Monument Valley
Gorgeous.
I’d been to Monument Valley before. But the Valley itself was closed for the (very cool) Red Bull Air Race: Photo by Timothy K. Hamilton
This time I did the only independent hike allowed in the Park, the Wildcat Trail (3.2mi). I had low expectations, but it turned out to be superb. I felt like a Mormon trailblazer.
At dusk I tried finding a mountain bike trail just outside the Park. That was a FAIL.
It’s amazing how all this flat desert is mostly impassable.
… moseying off in the general direction of the Grand Canyon.
freezing in Utah
Kelley Durbin told me …
“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving.” — Lao Tzu
LauTzy is right.
That’s why I’m holed up in a “camping cabin” at The Thousand Lakes RV Park, Torrey, Utah. Instead of being huddled up in my tent. (As I was the night before.)
Forecast tonight is for 29° F, 60% chance of precipitation (rain or snow). Actually it was the howling wind that finally drove me indoors.
Hmm. … May is considered the best hiking month here.
Tomorrow hiking Navajo Knobs. And driving on to the Muley Twist Canyon tomorrow night. Wish me luck.
… now, where did I pack my snowshoes?
from St. George, Utah
I’m here pretending to be a competitor at their first annual IRONMAN race. (Of the 2,500 people on the 2.4mi swim, I’d be the only one to drown.)
Will run/bike some of the course today, just for fun.
And camp up near Snow Canyon. And, what the heck, try the Snow Canyon trail too, while I’m here.
from University of Florida, Gainesville
I’ve been here nearly a week.
The Women’s NCAA Gymnastics Championships brought me to Gainesville. An awesome competition this year. Florida did not win.
It’s an honour to finally get to such a prestigious centre of sporting excellence, though.
… The University of Florida’s intercollegiate sports teams, known as the “Florida Gators,” compete in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I and the Southeastern Conference (SEC). …
Florida’s athletic program has ranked among the top five in the nation in twelve of the past seventeen years, and it is the only Division I program that has ranked among the top ten athletic programs in the country in each of the last twenty-three years.
Florida is one of only two Division I FBS universities to win multiple national championships in each of the two most popular NCAA sports: football (1996, 2006, 2008) and men’s basketball (2006, 2007). …
… The university is also the sixth largest single-campus university in the United States by student population …
Great Spring weather. Plenty of pretty Florida girls. A beautiful campus …
The most memorable part of my week, though, was wandering the backstreets of historic downtown Gainesville. Dilapidated old shacks. Lovely buildings a century old. Folks playing gospel and the Blues in their yards. …
I stayed right across the street from the Hippodrome Theatre (1911).
Shout out to the zen center and Gainesville Florida hostel. One of the most unique I’ve ever seen. I recommend it highly.
Departing Tuesday for Lost Wages.
Rick McCharles 