Chesser Island Homestead
The Okefenokee Swamp is a forbidding place and a place that I could not imagine living in.
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Wildlife Clearing on an old Appalachian Bald
Appalachian Balds are a historical mystery. But they are very man-made now. This one is one of my favorites. I’ll gatekeep the exact location (it’s up an old logging road in a Georgia State Park donated by a dedicated conservationist near Cleveland, GA), but it’s maintained by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources as a wildlife clearing. There are views in the winter, but birds and wildlife year-round.
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National Park Service Watching Out for You
One of my favorite aspects of the culture of the National Park Service is their commitment to the principle that every American is an owner of their National Parks. It’s a beautiful, democratic ideal.
However.
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Overlook at Providence Canyon State Park
Providence Canyon in Georgia is one of the most curious little areas in Georgia.
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The House at Hardman Farm State Historic Site
Hardman Farm State Historic Site is a very underrated Georgia State Historic Site. The house is this incredible bit of Italianate architecture built right around the Civil War. The entire property is lovely with well-preserved buildings that highlight the rapid economic succession of the Deep South from the antebellum era to the modern era.
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Cohutta Wilderness Trail Crew Work on Hickory Creek Trail
The Cohutta Wilderness Trail Volunteers spent a good bit of time in 2025 working on the Hickory Creek Trail. It is one of my favorite trails, but has been hit hard by storms in the last couple of years.
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Etowah River Looking Towards Cartersville
The Allatoona Dam on the Etowah River has some nice hikes with views across a small canyon. In the far distance, through the forest, you can see (ironically) the smokestacks of Plant Bowen, one of the largest coal-fired power plants in North America.
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The Grant Park Hawk
The Red Tailed Hawk that lives in Atlanta’s Grant Park is an absolute Boss. He’s also used to humans and will land incredibly close. In this case, he’s at the basketball courts – themed for the Atlanta Hawks – so I guess he loves a good pun too.
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Clear Conasauga River
I’m always amazed at how clear Georgia’s rivers run near their headwaters in the Chattahoochee National Forest. The combination of running across rocks and being filtered by forest instead of being silted with erosion is lovely to see.
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Marsh at Fort Morris State Historic Site
Fort Morris was an old fort that stood guard in front of Sunbury, one of the oldest European settlements in Georgia. The site is on the Medway River with beautiful views of coastal marshes.
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Ridiculously Perfect Eastern Hemlock
With so many Eastern Hemlocks dying, I’m always on the look out for a really good looking specimen. This one at Hardman Farm State Historic Site is one of the most symmetrical that I’ve ever seen.
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South Georgia Pine Forest
Even though they aren’t all Longleaf anymore, I still love the expanse of Loblolly Pines in South Georgia.
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Cloudland Canyon
Cloudland Canyon is one of Georgia’s most dramatic and interesting geological features.
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Start of the Atlanta Marathon
Most years, I get to run either the full or the half marathon in Atlanta. It usually takes place early in the year, in late February or early March. It’s a great event with a great course, but it’s always funny just being part of such a giant crowd that is out to…run.
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Waterfall in the Southern Appalachians
The Southern Appalachians are known for their waterfalls. There are tall, famous ones like Duke’s Creek, Amicalola, Ruby, Jack’s, etc but I also love finding smaller ones along an off-trail creek.
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Makeshift Bridge over a Swollen Jacks River
In the Cohutta Wilderness, the Jacks and Conasauga Rivers can rise fast after a rain. Due to a bit of poor planning, I woke up one morning to an uncrossable Jacks. Thankfully, this tall and otherwise healthy pine tree had fallen at just the right spot across the river. It provided a useful bridge and a bit of adventure.
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Lovely Madagascaran Flower at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens
I forgot to get the species name of this flower, but one of the most interesting things in the desert exhibit at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens is how colorful so many of the plants and flowers in the desert are.
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Granite Outcrop in Chattahoochee Bend State Park
The Georgia Piedmont is filled with so many interesting outcrops. The most famous is Stone Mountain, but they are all up and down the middle part of Georgia.
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Lake Conasauga Entrance
I’m not going to write too much about Lake Conasauga because I want it to be known enough to where it keeps getting maintenance, visits, and appropriate use without being overrun…because if you know…you know.
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Overlook near Hogpen Gap in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest of North Georgia
The Appalachian Trail in Georgia has a lot of granite overlooks in the mountains but especially on the Appalachian Trail. During winter, you can see a long ways off, and in the summer, they are often the only break in the green tunnel of vegetation.
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Childs Guide To Letters
Fort Morris State Historic Site had a small “children’s history” display that was fun for the family.
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Visiting Laura S. Walker State Park
Laura S. Walker State Park is a very underrated state park in Georgia. It is in between Waycross and the northern entrance of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Life Refuge. The park has lovely cabins, a great day use area, a beautiful lake, and the landscape is enchanting with pine trees and South Georgia flatwoods.
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A Snowy Grant Park in Atlanta, Georgia
Snow makes everything look beautiful wen it first falls.
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Rice Camp Branch in the Cohutta Wilderness
Rice Camp Branch is one of my favorite little creeks running along the Rice Camp trail in the Cohutta Wilderness.
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Cove on Chestnut Lead Trail in the Cohutta Wilderness
Appalachian Coves are a beautiful, fascinating forest community, no matter the season. In the winter, you can appreciate the sheer height of the Tulip Trees and the passage of light during the day.
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Beeches on Rice Camp Trail in the Cohutta Wilderness
I love how beeches hold on to those leaves far past Fall.
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Old Railroad Cable in the Cohutta Wilderness
Whether you are hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Aprk, the Cohutta Wilderness of Georgia, or the Alleghenies of Pennsylvania, you’re probably going to run across some evidence of human civilization, even in deep forest that has been protected for 100+ years.
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Waterfall in the Chattahoochee National Forest
Waterfalls in the Southern Appalachians are rarely grand and tall. They are mostly stair-stepped and draped rhododendron. But they have a human scale and plant diversity around them that makes them so lovely.
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Trail at Lake Charlotte Nature Preserve
Lake Charlotte is an accidental treasure in the City of Atlanta. It’s a conservation tract right in the middle of a massive industrial area. But the tract is big enough and so dense with mature hardwoods that it’s a scenic oasis in the city. Love it.
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Conasauga River in Late Fall
The Conasauga River is especially beautiful in late Fall with floating leaves and remnant pops of color from maples and beeches.
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Ginkgo Tree Carefully Dropping Leaves
Ginkgo trees really are very different. I love how their leaves come in & then drop suddenly. There’s no slowly dropping them over time like oaks – it’s just like “drop!”.
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A Beaver Chewed Stump
I love seeing direct evidence of wildlife in the forest. This area had lots of evidence of beavers just working hard on their dams.
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Forest Service Road 68 in the Chattahoochee National Forest
Forest Service roads are incredibly scenic, especially in the Fall. I’m never surprised at the number of folks slowly cruising,…
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Autumn in the Cohutta Wilderness
The colors in the background are the focus, but the composition is deliberate here. The irony of the southern Appalachians is that it’s hard to photograph the trees, thanks to all the trees.
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Beech Grove at Atlanta History Center
Belying its name, the Atlanta History Center is mostly gardens & forest with so many nice walks & mature trees.
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Atlanta’s $23,000,000 Pedestrian Bridge
This pedestrian bridge crosses Northside Drive at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. It is one of the most controversial and irksome pieces of infrastructure in the city of Atlanta.
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Black Rock Mountain State Park Overlook
Black Rock Mountain State Park in Georgia has some of the best overlooks in the state. Looking south, you can see far off, almost all the way to Atlanta. And looking north, you can see Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina. and into the Tennessee River Basin.
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Morning in Grant Park, Atlanta
I love the autumn light in Georgia, especially in city parks like Atlanta’s Grant Park.
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Bunker Hill Monument in Boston, Massachusetts
I got to visit Bunker Hill in Boston. Like so many other historical markers, especially in urban areas, it’s almost surreal to see the the spot that you hear about since childhood.
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Beach at Red Top Mountain State Park
Red Top Mountain State Parks Beach has been recently renovated. It’s in a nice cove that is protected from boat traffic. It’s quite large with a very scenic area and a large beach area. Definitely a great amenity for a park with lots of trails, lots of cabins, and lots of other amenities.
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Murphy Ave in Atlanta
This spot in Atlanta looks abandoned, industrial, and a bit of a wasteland but it is right at the intersection of MARTA and the Southside Beltline. Hopefully, over the next 20 years, it will become a hub of commercial activity and affordable housing.
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Grant Park’s Summer Shade Festival
The Summer Shade Festival is one of the largest neighborhood festivals in Atlanta. It takes place in Grant Park in August every year. It’s always fun and well attended and very, very hot.
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Atlanta’s New Westside Park
Atlanta has a new largest city park at Westside Park. It surrounds a quarry which doubles as our emergency water supply.
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Better Than Lawns
The best looking front yards have butterflies in them.
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Fulton Mill from Oakland Cemetery
This view of one of Atlanta’s oldest factories is like a time machine in an otherwise fast-changing city.
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Cohutta Wilderness from East Cowpen Trail
East Cowpen Trail affords some of the best views of the interior of the Cohutta Wilderness.
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Trains Everywhere in Atlanta
Atlanta’s city fabric is, to this day, defined by transportation systems. I love coming across views where multiple systems all cross each other. This picture is from Oakland Cemetery with a CSX rail line and MARTA rapid rail in the background.
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Muscadine Farm at Southern Belle Farms
Muscadines are highly underrated. They are really the only native grape to North America. I love that they grow so well in The South. They grow freely and everywhere in the forest, but they’re also cultivated like on this farm in middle Georgia.
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Pondon Ube Pancake
Ube is a fun cooking starch that’s popular in Southeast Asia. It is naturally purple and has excellent texture. I found an Indonesian brand at the Buford Highway Farmers Market outside of Atlanta in Doraville. The mix is a little bit rich, but it makes a really fun pancake.
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Baseball Never Gets Old
I miss Turner Field, bu the view of Truist Park is still incredible, especially when the home team wins.
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North View from Rabun Bald
Rabun Bald is the second highest point in the state of Georgia. It’s also one of the wettest spots east of the Mississippi River. I also love it because unlike Brasstown Bald, which has a parking lot, a paved trail, and a visitor center on top, Rabun Bald has only the remains of a fire tower.
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My Cows Just Chillin’
My cows are fascinating. They are such huge, docile animals. I now really understand why they were domesticated and are so valuable all around the world.
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Extra Tall Pine and Fir Trees in Mount Rainier National Park
One aspect about Mount Rainier National Park that I think gets taken for granted is that, because it is in such a remote, rugged area that the natural resources did not really get exploited by European settlers before it was named a national park.
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The Netherlands’ Symmetry
I had to fly through Amsterdam Schaipole Airport on my way to India. and on approach you can clearly see how symmetrically the Dutch have divided up their country.
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The Nisqually River Valley of Mount Rainier National Park
This photo is from June, and it’s amazing to me that there is still snow on mountains in Washington and around Mount Rainier at that time of year. The landscape is just the perfect stereotype of mountains, sky, trees. It’s all so epic with big sky and big views.
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Kubota Park in Seattle, Washington
Kurobata Park is a public city park in the southeastern side of the city of Seattle. It absolutely blew me away with how well curated and maintained it was, in addition to its sheer size.
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Walking on the Longmire Trail in Mount Rainier National Park
The Longmire Trail is a very family-friendly beautiful trail that winds around the Longmire Farm area. It goes past old cabins, wetlands, hot springs and has incredible views of both the Ramparts and Mount Rainier itself.
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Summer Flowers in Seattle’s Kubota Park
These flowers looked like some sort of azalea that surprised me when we got to visit Seattle. These were throughout the Japanese gardens at Kubota Park.
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Ruby Beach at Olympic National Park
Ruby Beach is an absolute gem (pun!) in Olympic National Park. It is a beach for sure, but it’s also a beach that does not want humans around. It is incredibly rugged, blustery, and powerful. There’s no swimming, but just being on the beach around the massive beach logs, rocky outcrops, and sea spray is invigorating.
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Atlanta from Stone Mountain
I love this view – even though it’s hard to truly capture without a lens on a proper camera.
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View Westward from Mt Rainier
The views coming off Mount Rainier in Mount Rainier National Park are almost absurd because they are so beautiful. It almost looks like a painting but it’s all real life.
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Watson Mill State Park
Watson Mill State Park is a small but lovely and underrated Georgia State Park in northeast Georgia. The river feeds into the Broad River system, and the shoals always make for a great place for kids to explore and have fun.
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Longmire Meadows in Mount Rainier National Park.
Longmire Meadows is a very scenic, low elevation area in Mount Rainier National Park.
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Pine Flatwoods at the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve
Florida’s Pine Flatwoods are a beautiful and serene landscape…but an absolute pain to hike in. They are definitely not welcoming to humans. But – when you have a nice boardwalk, they are a joy to walk through and observe.
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Champion Eastern Redcedar
On my trip to General Coffee State Park in south Georgia, I got to visit the largest Eastern Redcedar in the United States. It’s in an isolated church graveyard…and is quite a big guy. The tree has witnessed a lot of history since 1802.
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Mossy Creek on the Kalaloch Trail in Olympic National Park
Some parts of Olympic National Park look like they are straight out of a Disney movie set. I love all the mosses.
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Cottonwood Patch Campground
Cottonwood Patch Campground is a Forest Service Campground in far north Georgia in the Chattahoochee National Forest.
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Small Creek in Southern Appalachians
Sometimes hiking in the southern Appalachians can get brambly and overgrown, but I love spots where several forest communities are living close together. At this spot, there is dry, upland pine in the background and shaded, wet fernbank in the foreground.
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Chattahoochee River near the Headwaters
The Chattahoochee River is one of the (if not *the*) most important river in Georgia. It starts far up in the Chattahoochee National Forest in the southern Appalachians. This photo is a few miles south of its source where it’s gathering the flow of Henson Creek.
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Murray’s Lake in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest
Murray’s Lake is a small recreational lake in the Chattahoochee National Forest near the Conasauga River and near the Lake Conasauga Campground.
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GardenHood in Grant Park, Atlanta
There aren’t that many independent garden shops around. But GardenHood is one that is a hidden gem on the east side of Atlanta. For such a small space, they have a great selection of plants, trees, and shrubs. Their space is always fun to meander through, even you have no plans to purchase that day.
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Gwinnett Stripers at Coolray Field
There’s nothing like Minor League Baseball.
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Beach at Cumberland Island National Seashore
Cumberland Island is one of Georgia’s natural treasures. Most of the Georgia coast is protected, but Cumberland Island is not only *completely* protected, it’s also huge and intact.
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Forest Road in the Oconee National Forest
The Oconee National Forest does not have the mountains of the Chattahoochee National Forest, its northern partner, but it does have plenty of scenery and diverse flora & fauna.
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Old Beaver Lodge
Around Murray’s Lake in the Chattahoochee National Forest, the beavers have completely taken over. The wetlands upstream from the (man-made) lake have a series of dams with old lodges and lots of fallen trees. It’s so cool to see in person.
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Night Baseball Game At Truist Park
Baseball is so much anytime, but is especially fun at night.
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Constitution Springs in Grant Park
Atlanta is, curiously, the headwaters of two major river systems (Flint & Ocmulgee). The Flint starts underneath the airport runways. This spot is one source of Intrenchment Creek, which flows to the South River, to the Ocmulgee, to the Altamaha, to the Atlantic. It’s also a lovely spot to enjoy historic landscape architecture.
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Appalachian Trail, Southbound at Hogpen Gap, Georgia
The Appalachian Trail is such an incredible achievement in construction, planning, coordination, and *maintenance* – props to the many volunteers and Forest Service land managers who keep this trail wide open and wonderful.
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Redbud Budding Out
I never notice Redbuds until the Spring, when they really show out.
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Hickory Ridge Trail in the Cohutta Wilderness
The Hickory Ridge Trail in the Cohutta Wilderness in the Chattahoochee National Forest is a favorite interior trail of mine.
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Ruby Beach in Olympic National Park
Ruby Beach is beautiful, rugged, and powerful.
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Calm Gulf of Mexico on St George Island
The Gulf of Mexico is often calmer than many lakes.
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Canyon Floor at Providence Canyon State Park
The erosion that formed Providence Canyon just keeps on going.
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Michelle Obama Trail Through Kudzu Along The South River
Kudzu is the iconic invasive plant of the American South.
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Biking The Michelle Obama Trail along Georgia’s South River
The PATH Foundation has been building out an entire network of protected trails around Metro Atlanta.
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Fog on Chestnut Lead Trail in the Cohutta Wilderness
The Cohutta mountains in Georgia’s section of the Appalachians are not especially high, but their topography is unique enough to generate their own weather.
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Kubota Garden in Seattle, Washington
Looking over the pond at Kubota Garden in Seattle, Washington
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Ruby Beach in Olympic National Park
So lovely, peaceful, but full of energy, but also not the place to sunbathe.
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Mt. Rainier National Park Needs To Calm Down
Mt. Rainier has too much beauty for one place.
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Longmire Cabin In Mt. Rainier National Park
The Longmire settled the land around Mt. Rainier in cabins that still exist today.
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Atlanta Skyline From Grant Park
Why hello Atlanta!
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TIL That Beach Logs Do Kill
Mother Nature doesn’t want you goofing off on the Pacific Coast beaches.
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Murphy Ave, Beltline, and MARTA
Walking around Atlanta where there’s constantly changes coming.
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Creek in Olympic National Park
Some of the creeks in Olympic NP look like are from a storybook.
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Mt. Rainier
Mt. Rainier is one of those rare places that’s truly difficult to overhype.
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Chattahoochee River at Florence Marina State Park
At Florence Marina State Park, the Chattahoochee River pools into the Walter F. George Reservoir (aka Lake Eufaula).
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Watson Mill Bridge State Park
Watson Mill Bridge is a small, classic State Park with a huge covered bridge.
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Midtown Atlanta Skyline from Piedmont Park
There are so many angles in Piedmont Park to frame Atlanta’s Midtown Skyline.
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Historic Entrance at Mammoth Cave National Park
I had no idea that this is what the main entrance to Mammoth Cave looked like. It’s so insane.
