​DAVENPORT, California – Surf's always up in this tiny unincorporated beach town just north of Santa Cruz. I took lots of shots on the scenic drive down Highway 1 from San Francisco en route to an overnight stay at the Davenport Roadhouse. This detail of the local surf shop (shot early in the morning before it opened) is one of my favorites.

KENOSHA, Wisconsin – Originally coined by folks from Illinois as a derogatory term for visiting Wisconsin sports fans, the term cheesehead has now been thoroughly embraced by all but the most humorless and/or curmudgeonly Wisconsinites. Proving either our amazing good nature or the perverse knowledge that our neighbors to the south can never really fully embrace our term for them (which won't be revealed here in this "family blog").

​Fact is, Wisconsin is known for making cheese. That's the way it is. So what the hell. Get over it. Accept it. Welcome it. Salute it. Fly that flag, sister. And revel in the existence of such undeniably cheesy places as the Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

​LAKE LOUISE, Alberta – Located at an elevation of 5,741 feet in Canada's first national park (Banff), the water of Lake Louise has a transcendent turquoise color that if anything looks even better during the kind of rainy, overcast day I was there. Scientists say the color is produced by something called rock flour – particles of rock eroding into the lake from nearby glaciers.