When an Early Autumn Walks the Land: In the Cincinnati area we don’t experience fall until almost the first week of November, so here are some images from the mountains of Colorado (and a couple from Utah) where the end of September/beginning of October brings chilling breezes to the summer trees.

On the Joys of June Appal: One of the great historic archives of Appalachian music is now available digitally for the first time on Bandcamp. I share some of my favorites and a little history behind the organization.

Oh, and the thumbnail of a photo of mine from Colorado? It ties in neatly with this post! Click on the image to find out how!

Part V: Mirrors. Are we able to look past our digital portals and see the world (natural and otherwise) as it truly is, or are we victims of our own limited perception and civilizational myopia? I explore the answer to this question using a recent incident in Yellowstone National Park involving an unwitting victim while pleading his case in the face of the internet pile-on that followed.

Part IV: “Civilization good, Wilderness bad.” As the 150th anniversary of the Little Bighorn approaches, I examine the competing worldviews of the United States and the Lakota Nation and their respective imperial ambitions as they played out in the one of the last true wildernesses in 19th century America—the Yellowstone.

Part III: Cenery Superb.

For Earth Day 2026, a visual celebration of the beauty of the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone.

Part II: Shapes of the Past. Exploring the John Moulton Homestead in Grand Teton National Park recalls my tentative first steps in leaving the familiar terrain of childhood to enter a new and uncertain world.

Part I: Finding our Nature in Nature. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius writes that it should be in our nature to help other humans as it best aligns with furthering our common purpose on this Earth. In Part I on my mini-series about visiting our first National Park, I share a small moment where I hope to be my best version of being a human.

The America River Roots Festival and the words of Mark Twain helped me rediscover a bit of boyhood on the river.

2025 was definitely a year that met the chronological requirement of being 365 days. Only it felt much longer.

On October 10-11, 2024, the Northern Lights made another spectacular and spectral appearance across the United States. This time, I wasn’t going to miss it.

I return with a more serious attempt at the 10-minute deep dive challenge, along with an example for you to try.

Do I have what it takes to do the 10-Minute Museum Challenge? Read my first fake entry here.

The one year anniversary of “Illuminating Nature” is September 17, 2025. Here’s a little backstory as to its creation (with some creative liberties, of course!)