Diane Lopez Hughes and Maya Evans explore Michigan City. For two nights, a campsite at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore was our home. It was not only home to us and a variety of other campers, it was also home to a large quantity of mosquitoes and other biting insects. The insects discovered Maya Evans […]

It rained all day on June 4th. The sky was a dull gray, as was the landscape. We walked past the decayed shells of former industrial plants. The heavy industry that had not been abandoned belonged to oil companies, mostly BP. Much of the housing had been abandoned and was boarded up. The air smelled

Stretching hands on a long bus ride. That was my view of the person sitting in front of me. On June 3rd, I arrived in Chicago, after riding on buses all night. Oh, that was one wild adventure. The bus to Cleveland was an easy ride but the bus from Cleveland to Chicago? Well, that

Betsy and Ann took me to the seashore on Monday, April 27th. We traveled west from Bend and descended from the snowy mountains to lower, greener ground. The view from the car window was spectacular. I saw tall mountains covered with snow and valleys. I saw large bodies of water and towns and farms. After

The Oregon Garden is an 80-acre botanical garden, located in Silverton, an historic town in Marion County. One interesting feature of Silverton, which I did not see during my visit, is the Frank Lloyd Wright house, located next to the Oregon Garden. It is known as the Gordon house. You can find more information about

Smith Rock was one of those places that I’d never imagined that I’d see. It is a huge rock formation, located just east of Terrebonne. Millions of years ago, it was an active volcano, but that was during the miocene epoch, when the climate of what is now central Oregon was considered semi-tropical to tropical.

Tumalo Falls is located just ten miles outside of Bend. It is quite an impressive sight: a waterfalls with an 89 feet plunge. Betsy and I hiked around Tumalo Falls but the walk ended rather abruptly because I started slipping and sliding on all of that snow! I did not think to bring along footwear

When I was living in the federal prison camp in Danbury, Connecticut, I was fortunate enough to receive lots of correspondence. It is one of the benefits of being a “prisoner of conscience.” Receiving all of those letters and postcard was a high point of my day, even though there were times when the multitude

Late last month, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to travel to Oregon to visit friends Betsy Lamb and Ann Havill. Flying cross country was an interesting experience. The view from my airplane window was really something. So I got out my trusty camera, turned off the flash, and started taking photographs. I

On Saturday, April 12th, I took a walk along the Niagara River. It was a warm day and people were outside, doing yard work and enjoying the relative warmth and sunshine. The water was a light shade of blue, reflecting the sky. The trees, of course, are still bare and show no signs of growing