Hotel Travel Pics

When I scan Dad's slides, there are lots pictures of the motor home. When I scan Mom's slides, there are lots of pictures of hotel rooms. I often take photos of the view from my hotel rooms, but I rarely photograph the room itself.

Well Heather Powazek Champ has a creative way to photodocument her travel accommodations. She has created very striking photopanoramics of her hotel rooms. You can see several examples at her blog. (This photo is from her Flickr pages where she has more than two dozen of these.)

So what are some other creative ways to document your hotels on a trip?

Fried Doughnuts at 14,000 Feet

The Food Network show Unwrapped recently included a segment on Pike's Peak doughnuts. I've read about them before, but the doughnuts at Pike's Peak are a tourist attraction in and of themselves. The doughnuts require a special recipe to rise & fry appropriately at that altitude (for example, they must use condensed milk since milk jugs would expand and pop). The result is a doughnut with a unique taste and texture.

You can print some coupons that are available online.

USPS Issues New National Park Stamps

The US Postal Service just issued two new National Park stamps -- Grand Tetons and Zion. The image here shows the current stamps from some of the parks we will visit this summer. The image on the Grand Tetons stamp is beautiful.

You can see many more images of Yellowstone and other geysers on postage stamps at my brother's website, JohnstonsArchive.net.

Garden of the Gods -- Top Free Attraction

TripAdvisor listed the top "unheralded" free attractions in the U.S. Garden of the Gods was #2 on that list.

To see their list, visit the link and scroll past the list of "germiest" tourist stops (a list that leaves of the Burger King bathroom in Victoria, Texas, for some reason).

What are your most memorable "free" stops?

• In our family, the continental divide is memorable (for good and bad reasons -- we had to visit the hospital in Jackson Hole after one stop to sled in the snow).
• The bats under the Congress Street Bridge in Austin, Texas used to be really spectacular in about 1992. You could see a stream of them heading off to the horizon. But over the past several years, development in the area has made it less impressive (and there are a lot more people there to watch them... some nights it's downright crowded).
• Public beaches (in Texas, the beach cannot be privately owned... this is not true in all states)