Love to boondock, love photography. I drive all over the U.S. to do it, but I favor the West for its more dramatic landscapes and less humidity. Mike Walsh Photos is my business based in Boise; Travels with Amos is my blog; George T. Walsh Family History includes my life story before age 35.
The first and last time I visited Yosemite was in 1978, when my mother and sister and I drove through it during our tour of the West in my mother’s Chevy van, after my mother had settled in Boise a year earlier. We gasped at the stunning Yosemite Valley scenery when we emerged from the … More Yosemite: The Elephant in the Room
Ahh, the Tetons! After a long, 16-month hiatus from road trip journalism, I’m inspired to start writing a relatively short log entry immediately after returning from a fall foliage exploration of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks in northwestern Wyoming. I originally intended to include Montana’s Glacier National Park, which is my usual fall destination, … More NW Wyoming: As Luck Would Have It.
“I shall sit here, on and off, for days and days.” – Queen’s Footman in Alice in Wonderland I started my spring 2018 photo-blog later than usual. During the three weeks I was on the road I didn’t write anything until the day before I hit the road for home, actually wondering if I’d write a blog … More Four Corners Region: Fun under Sun, Moon & Stars
My first road trip through Death Valley, a little over two years ago, was part of a much bigger trip (see blog titled California, Land of Extremes) and only scratched the surface, that surface being mostly paved roads over three days. This time I dedicated a road trip exclusively to Death Valley, intending to take … More Death Valley: Hellish and Heavenly
Jasper and Banff national parks are arguably Canada’s most luminous crown jewels. The first and last time I drove through the Canadian Rockies was in July 1986, when I helped two friends, Valerie and Dave, drive a 1967 Chevy Malibu convertible from St. Paul to Anchorage via Fairbanks (see previous blog). We drove through Glacier … More Canadian Rockies: Best Scenery, Worst Road Trip
“Canada is the pocket of sanity in the Western Hemisphere.” – Bruce Cockburn at Vancouver Island Music Festival, July 15, 2017. “North to the Future.” – Alaska state motto. However much Canada might want to divorce the U.S. due to irreconcilable differences these days, the countries are joined at the hip. It happens that sane … More Alaska: A Helwan of a Road Trip
After a Boise winter with record snowfall I wanted a break from the cold and decided to try my photographic luck with a spring road trip to the Utah and Arizona deserts. I’d heard that some years produce just the right volume, frequency and intervals of rain that make the desert wildflowers go crazy. This … More Desert Diversity and Dissent
Halloween came early for me this month in several ways, which I’ll explain in due course. I had set goals for my annual October road trip: Shoot peak aspen colors in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains with old friends Gordon and his brother John; explore Utah’s La Sal Mountains with my photographer friend Greg Jahn, which … More Spooky Road Trip
There are 58 U.S. national parks and I’ve yet to see 19 of them. Of those 19 jewels missing from my crown I have a reasonable expectation to see up to a half-dozen, as most of those 19 are too remote, some accessible only by aircraft (the Virgin Islands, American Samoa and a few in Alaska) … More My Favorite Crown Jewel
“Great things are done when men and mountains meet.” – William Blake Last May I barely escaped a blizzard in the Lost River Range (see my previous post). It prevented my goal of fording the Upper Pahsimeroi River and shooting Mt. Borah, Idaho’s highest peak, “from behind” (from the east) so I went back on … More Mt. Borah: Idaho’s Everest
Travels with Amos 