One of the least-known scenic areas in southern Kentucky is the Bad Branch State Nature Preserve. A sixty-foot waterfall in a deep hemlock forest is protected by holdings of the Nature Conservancy and the Kentucky State Nature Preserve Commission. With 1,640 acres, this is the largest nature preserve in Kentucky. Bad Branch, a tributary of the Poor Fork of the Cumberland River, drops over a thousand feet in less than three miles. A beautiful waterfall, several rare and endangered wildflowers, and a clear-flowing stream are good reasons to visit this remote preserve in the mountains of Appalachia.

Drive about seven miles south of Whitesburg, Kentucky, over Pine Mountain. Turn south on KY 932 and drive 1.7 miles to the Nature Preserve, on your left. It’s only a few miles north of the Virginia border. Several times along the trail, I climbed down to the stream to photograph the small cascades. It’s one mile from the parking area to a trail marker pointing out the right turn on the side trail to the Bad Branch Falls. Pick your way carefully across the driest rocks in the river and climb the winding trail up the other side to the base of the falls. Frame the whole waterfall from the side, a short distance away, with a 28mm lens. With a shorter focal length, move in closer and shoot straight up the stream, including the whole cascade. Spray blows down the canyon, so keep your camera and lens covered until you are ready to shoot.

​I shot this waterfall late in the afternoon on a cold and drizzly day in spring and then went back the next afternoon when the sun came out. The highlights on the wet stones were too “hot” and the details in the shadows of the woods were lost in the photos.

On your first day in Vermont, start with an overview of the Northeast Kingdom by traveling a ridge road loop from Lyndonville. Starting at the junction of Highway 5 and Highway 114, drive east on #114 just past the second bridge. Turn left on Darling Hill Road. About a mile and a half up the ridge is where the maples start. Lining both sides of the dirt road, the branches form a grand canopy of color. Try a 20mm wide-angle lens from the middle of the road.

Another mile-and-a-half north and you will pass the impressive old Darling family mansion on the right, and just beyond is the Darion Inn at Mountain View Farm (1883). After a stop to locate exactly where you are on the map, continue north through another long row of maples covering the road. Through an old fence, the maples frame the distant rolling hills, looking east to the high peak of Mt. Burke. Bear left at the first fork in the road, right at the second, then turn right over a small bridge into the village of Burke Hollow. This is only one of several hundred small villages in Vermont, but is worth a search for a good view of their white-steepled church.

Continue your journey north through the crossroads in the village center and up the hill to the left at the fork in the road. Soon you’ll come to a large grove of maples surrounding an old sugar shack where the sap drawn from the maples is boiled down to syrup each spring. Go left down a steep hill to the village of West Burke. Stop to photograph some of the old shops and buildings in the village and explore the west branch of the Passumsic River.

Continue on to Sutton, a small village about four miles west. There are several routes possible, but my favorite starts about one block north of Aldrich’s General Store where a side road heads west, just beyond an old green house. There’s a beautiful grove of bright yellow American beech along this road. In the village of Sutton, all of the rural lanes are lined with colorful trees. Check your map for the dirt road that winds to the southwest and crosses Calendar Brook. Stop for a beautiful view of the stream and then continue beneath another canopy of red maples.

​By now, you should have a pretty good feel for driving the back roads of Vermont. Some are paved and some are not. All lead to beautiful surprises in the autumn. Over a rise and around the next bend, you should see a hillside covered with blazing red foliage or a distant church steeple in a deep valley. As a photographer you will surely appreciate the complete absence of billboards on all the roads of Vermont, at least there were none in 2008.

The tall, white formations, called the “Towers of Silence” are located about five miles up Wahweap Wash, above the small town called Big Water, Utah, fifteen miles north of Page, Arizona, on Utah Highway 89. This is the spot where all the concrete was mixed for the Glen Canyon Dam, back in the 1950s. Today, their main industry is houseboat storage for Lake Powell boaters. A BLM Visitor Center is directly across the highway from the main street into Big Water.

Walking up Wahweap Wash is the most direct route to the towers. From Highway 89, drive north at the BLM Visitors’ Center and through the center of Big Water. Continue north onto the dirt road beyond the intersection of Smoky Mountain Road (that goes east). Follow the dirt road, which veers northwest. You will drive past a long row of man-made fish farm ponds and a single house sitting on a rise overlooking the ponds. When you come to the corral, turn left heading west. As you reach the wash, don’t drive across if the stream is flowing. Park and walk with your gear up the west side of the wash. If the wash is dry, drive up the center of the wash. At the barbed wire fence, about a half-mile north, pull out of the wash and park on the high spot on the left. Walk alongside the flowing wash or up the center of the dry wash for 4.7 miles. The Towers are on the west side of the wash. The tallest fluted column has a black cap rock. You can see it in the distance as you approach.

This journey is best made in the early morning for the best light on the towers and maybe a good sunrise. There are very few footprints around these formations. The off-white, fluted silt-stone columns that support black cap rocks are fragile. It is very important that visitors to this delicate area do not walk or climb on the formations or damage them in any way. A tripod leg can punch a hole in the brittle material. Once damaged, the formations can never be restored. Avoid harming the area and it may never be fenced off and “protected” from the public.

West of Gainesville, on the Gulf Coast, I headed south at Cross City, Florida, onto County Road 351 for eighteen miles to the small gulf-side community of Horseshoe Beach. The road through the town continues past the last house, crosses a small bridge, and loops around to return to the pavement. I parked near the bridge and photographed royal terns on poles standing in the surf. All the birds were facing out to sea, into the strong wind. Suspicious of me, the terns continuously turned their heads, giving me some better portraits. I had lunch at a small restaurant and watched a storm move toward the coast.

​This trip took me along the Florida Gulf Coast in Issue #78 of Photograph America Newsletter.

​The Oregon Coast is easy to explore. Highway 101 follows the shoreline most of the way. Make this trip from north to south and you will find the drive much easier. Fly into Portland, drive down the coast and then return to Portland up the Interstate. If you are driving up from California, drive both north and south on the coast. You may prefer to drive north on Highway 97, east of the Cascade Range, with a stop at Crater Lake along the way. Make a stop at the Columbia River Gorge to photograph the waterfalls, then head west into Portland, out to the coast, and then south for at least a one-week drive down the coast.

Driving north along this coast makes it more difficult to see the ocean, and you’ll always be turning left, into oncoming traffic. Quick decisions to stop and check out something you spot on the beach will be much safer if you are already heading in a southerly direction. Compare the pros and cons of renting a motor home to staying in motels and eating in restaurants. Having a kitchen in the back of your motor home means that you can buy the fresh salmon, local clams, crabs, homemade blackberry pies and all the other goodies you’ll discover along your way. In the summer, you can pick wild blackberries along the back roads.

After a long day of exploring, hiking, and photographing, you will want a good meal, a hot shower, and a comfortable bed. If you do your traveling in a motor home, you can be out there, ready for the sunrises, the sunsets, and the best light. With an RV, you can be even closer to the best photography. Oregon has some of the cleanest, best-planned campgrounds in the nation and most are located in the perfect places for photographers.

Driving north from Albuquerque on Highway 550 or south from Bloomfield on Highway 550 (about 25 miles) watch for Route 57 located on the south side of the old and abandoned Blanco Trading Post on the west side of 550. This old building with a yellow sign was once a gas station. Route 57, one of three routes to the badlands of Ah-shi-sle-pah, starts just south of the Trading Post. A sign at the junction will let you know you have found Route #57 and a BLM sign spells out the name of your destination–Ah-shi-sle-pah. A paved road heads into the distance, toward the West. Do not attempt to drive this road if has rained less than a week ago. After 4 miles of broken pavement the road turns to dirt and you will sink into sticky red mud. If weather forecasts predict rain, avoid this road. The eighteen-mile dirt road becomes a muddy nightmare after a rain. Watch for potholes in the paved road. When the pavement ends, a rough dirt road continues along deep tire tracks that have dried into miles of dried ridges, it’s hard to follow these and avoid the potholes. The worst I encountered was two feet deep.

There are many junctions and side roads leading off route #57. DO NOT turn unto any side road with a 4-digit sign, like 2974. Continue following the most heavily-traveled road. Route 57 eventually passes through an opening in a barbed wire fence with a small sign marked Wilderness Study Area. A sign marks the parking area, on the north side of the road. From there it’s about a one-mile walk to the trailhead. The trail drops a few yards into a caldera. Head northeast to find the giant boot where Mr. Flat Rock appears to be wading the San Juan River in new boots.

​From a distance, some areas across the landscape appear to be dark gray. Up-close, these are areas covered with tiny bits of coal, about the size of a pea. Don’t set your gear on the hoodoos and don’t climb on them. Up-close, you will find many fascinating distractions, great subjects for a photographer. The small blocks scattered everywhere, about the size of a candy bar, are petrified wood, over a million-years old, all the same shade of light pinkish gray. Resist the urge to collect anything you find here or you will be haunted by them for the rest of your life. Your camera can preserve their memory.

Six hundred thousand tons of copper were produced from the pit at the end of this block. Gold, silver, and some of the world’s finest turquoise was also found in the Copper Queen Mine. When the operation was shut down in 1975, the town of Bisbee was brought back to life by artists, crafts people and hippies from the sixties, and is now being kept alive by yuppies and the remaining old hippies. The town’s bank is now a gallery, as is the JC Penny building and the Woolworth building across the street. The business district now houses mostly galleries and coffee shops. The sunny side of the narrow street through the downtown business district reflects in all the windows on the shady side of the street. For the price of a cup of coffee, you can sit at a window and watch the locals go about their lives. I saw images everywhere – store fronts that were not quite right and grand department store interiors where motorcycle clothing was displayed. This incredible rebirth of Bisbee, once the richest city in Arizona, was made possible by the huge pit just south of town.

My Photograph America Newsletter #148 covers my favorite Southern Arizona locations for photographers.

The Carrizo Plain National Monument is located in southwestern California, one hundred miles northwest of Los Angeles and halfway between Bakersfield and the coast. It’s one of those places that few people visit and even avid nature photographers may not know about. Designated as a national monument in 2001, this remote basin has the largest display of spring wildflowers in California. The wildflower season usually starts in late March, peaks in mid-April and ends in mid-May. Twelve miles south of Wallace Creek, on the east side of Elkhorn Road, is a gate that frames a large silo or tank that once held grain or water. The tank has split open and the lid has collapsed. Park outside the gate, and pack all your lenses and your tripod for a spectacular photo of the Temblor Range covered with bright shades of blue, yellow and orange. Hike up the dirt road after closing the gate behind you. Watch for the first side trail leading off to the north. It starts with a short, steep climb for two hundred feet then levels off for a short break and then climbs again. This goes on for thirty minutes before reaching the halfway point where a long, slightly-inclined trail follows a narrow ridge. Along the length of that ridge are spots wide enough for your tripod. Looking up to the southeast is the top of a distant hilltop. When I arrived, it was covered with solid splashes of blue, yellow and orange.

When you hear reports of a great spring wildflower display coming, check my Issue #142 to improve your photo trip.

An unpaved mountain road climbs several thousand feet from the village of Hyder, at the southern-most tip of Alaska, and Fish Creek, which is almost at sea level, to the 4,300 foot summit above Salmon Glacier. About fifteen miles up the road are several small beaver ponds. Beautiful reflections cover these still ponds in mid-morning and late afternoon. This is a good spot to photograph hoary marmots whistling from the edge of their burrows to warn other marmots of your approach. The road to the glaciers continues to climb past steep mountainsides dotted with alpine wildflowers that bloom through the middle of August. Summer is short in this part of the Pacific Northwest.

A trip to Hyder is the easiest way to discover Alaska with my newsletter #65.

In the past, I’ve photographed the Everglades, Sanibel and Captiva Islands, the Big Cypress National Preserve, Fakahatchee Strand, the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary near Fort Myers, and Cedar Key, where I found these Willets. For this photo exploration of Florida’s Wildlife Refuges, I traveled up the Gulf Coast of Florida, across the northern part of the state, and worked my way down the Atlantic Coast, visiting and photographing in parks, refuges, and wildlife refuges for two weeks. Some of the places I explored were remote and a few were popular wildlife parks crowded with tourists. I tried to find the best places for photographers who are looking for birds, wildlife, and subtropical landscapes in northern Florida.

Florida is my favorite destination for bird photography. My newsletter #78.