What we didn’t expect was that the hoodoos made some pretty interesting formations like the one that resembled Scooby-Doo, the cartoon character dog…

It turned out that we happened to show up just in time for a parade that was going through the main road in Virgin. We might have missed most of the parade, but the long queue of waiting motorists…

The weather forecast had said we would face bad weather today. It certainly looked that way yesterday in Laughlin when dark skies and swaying trees seemed to indicate the arrival of a big storm…

As the high clearance monster truck was slowly making its way over some ledges and boulders, the tour guide Noah stopped the 4×4 and got out. Then, he said, “one of the wheels is going flat…”

Almost an hour had passed since we arrived by ferry from Moorea. With each “truck” that passed by that wasn’t bound for Taravao, I was beginning to think that maybe this idea…

Even at over 8000ft, the summer heat intensified, the breathing got heavier, and my nose kept bleeding. This was not the mountain high I was looking for…

It took a while to get the car shuttle set up for the one-way Panorama Trail. Plenty of drama as thunderstorms threatened to sabotage our planned hike. But even as we returned…

It was our first time in Hetch Hetchy. Greeting us were the sweltering early summer heat and full waterfalls. I wondered what that sign in front of the tunnel was far. We were soon…

…we then passed by a memorial providing us with a sobering reminder of how screwed we’d be if a flash flood were to occur while we were inside the slot canyon. Given the thunderstorms…

After hiking along the deceptively strenuous sandy trail for what seemed like an eternity, we could see the falls up ahead behind the foliage. Its sound grew louder as we got closer…

But just as we thought we could cruise effortlessly, we were stopped in our tracks by a deep-looking pool with a little waterfall off to the side of a seemingly impassable wall behind it…