Travel Theme: Waves

I love this week’s travel challenge by Ailsa: Waves. So many memories come to mind, but here are five favorites.

1. Smooth waves of petrified sand at Antelope Canyon, with its neighbors Owl and Rattlesnake Canyons easily the most breathtaking landscape I’ve explored, ageless and intimate

2. Sinuous streaks of lava on Hawaii’s Big Island — we could feel the heat as we flew above this unhurried force, destructive and land-building at once

3.  Mad currents of the Niagara River roaring toward Horseshoe Falls, best first appreciated from air

4. Deceptively tame ocean waves on a calm, clear day by the Devil’s Watchtower at Castillo de San Cristóbal — the largest fortification built by the Spanish in the New World — in Puerto Rico’s beautiful Old San Juan, the city of blue cobble stones, gorgeous sunsets, pampered pigeons, and friendly cats.

5. Swirling, jagged pinnacles of the Devil’s Golf Course, the lowest saltpan in Death Valley, a wonderland full of odd, desolate views

And, for extra credit, because this is still fresh in my mind, flowing billows of mesh at The Renwick Gallery’s WONDER exhibit, 1.8 by Janet Echelman, a mesmerizing, medidtative representation of nature’s terrible, disarming power

Read on:

• Owl, Rattlesnake, and Antelope Canyons: Where the Wind Lives
• Flying over Lava: Our No-Doors Helicopter Ride
• Niagara Falls, by Land, Air, and Boat
• Discovering Old San Juan: Two Castles and a Cemetery
• Old San Juan: Ingredients for a Perfect Sunset
• Pigeons of Old San Juan
• Cats of Old San Juan
• Death Valley’s Wonders
• Renwick’s WONDER