Category Archives: Travel

The Rainbow Tree: A Real‑Life Fairy Tale

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“I think that I shall never see

A poem as lovely as a tree.”

A rainbow eucalyptus tree with multicolored bark in a lush tropical forest, showing bright patches of green, orange, red, yellow, and purple along its trunk and roots, surrounded by dense green foliage.

A Tree Too Magical to Believe

There are some things in this world that sound too whimsical to be real — the kind of things you’d expect to find in a fairy tale, or maybe wandering through a Dr. Seuss landscape. When I first heard about the rainbow eucalyptus, I put it firmly in that category. A tree with bark that looks painted? A trunk covered in splotches of turquoise, coral, lime green, lavender, and rust? Sure. And next you’ll tell me puffins do stand‑up comedy.

My Doubting‑Thomas Moment

I was a full‑on doubting Thomas about it. “Show me,” I said. And the world did.

Seeing My First Rainbow Eucalyptus in Hawaii

My first rainbow eucalyptus was in Hawaii, and I swear I stopped walking mid‑step. There it stood — tall, proud, and absolutely impossible. The bark peeled in long strips, revealing fresh layers of color underneath, like nature was repainting the tree in real time. No filters, no tricks, no tourist‑trap gimmicks. Just a living kaleidoscope rooted in the earth.

A Living Kaleidoscope of Color

Up close, the colors don’t blend like a gradient. They patchwork. They splotch. Their colors overlap in ways that feel accidental and intentional all at once, like the tree hired a team of abstract artists who couldn’t agree on a palette. Every inch is different. Every angle is a surprise.

Nature’s Reminder That Magic Is Real

There’s a kind of magic in standing beside something that looks imaginary but isn’t. It reminds you that the world still has wonders tucked into corners — things you don’t believe until you see them, and once you do, you never forget. The rainbow eucalyptus is one of those wonders. A tree that refuses to be ordinary. A tree that looks like joy itself decided to take root and grow tall.

And yes… it’s real. I’ve seen it. And it’s every bit as magical as the stories say.

 

The Cats’ Labor Day Travel Demands Have Arrived

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Labor Day Weekend: Should You Travel With Your Cats?

(A WMEO Special Report)

Labor Day weekend is creeping up, and plenty of folks are gearing up for a road trip. If you’re a cat parent, that means facing the annual dilemma: pet sitter or pack the furr‑babies and hit the highway?

Some cats are natural road warriors. Kurt and Gary? They’ll probably hop in the car, buckle their imaginary seatbelts, and enjoy the ride. The Oreo crew — Pudding, Olive, and Onyx — might be a little more dramatic about it. And Nanake? Well… he’s done cross‑country travel before, with results best described as “memorable” and “requiring emotional support snacks.”

But what about Banner and Balboa?

Two Cats, Two Very Different Travel Personalities

Banner and Balboa have never left the house since the day you brought them home. The vet doesn’t even get the privilege of seeing them in a clinic — Ross Veterinary House Calls comes to you. And even then, Balboa must be sedated or he’ll stage a full‑scale meltdown worthy of a Broadway revival.

His annual routine:

  • Receive his “calming potion”
  • Get gently escorted to the bathroom so he can’t hide in seventeen impossible places
  • Spend the next hour looking like a tiny, confused marshmallow

He’s a sweetheart, but he’s also a certified fraidy‑cat. A road trip? Absolutely not. He’d unionize before you even backed out of the driveway.

Banner, meanwhile, would probably try to take over the GPS and declare himself “Navigator Supreme.”

The Cats’ Official Labor Day Travel Demands

Since I couldn’t get a straight answer out of either of them, I asked what it would take for Banner and Balboa to agree to travel with me. They immediately produced a list — and I swear they had it ready in advance.

  • At least 16 nap breaks during transit (We’d be lucky to make it to the end of the street.)
  • Unlimited treats at all rest stops (I foresee two car‑sick kitties and one very unhappy driver.)
  • Mandatory belly rubs, pending mood (Their mood changes every 4–6 minutes.)
  • A proper travel litter box — the hotel bathtub does NOT count (Honestly, fair. The bathtub is not a sandbox, no matter how much they insist.)

They warned me that failure to comply would result in unionization, followed by a strike, followed by dramatic flopping and pointed glares. Honestly, I believe them.

So in my house, the answer is clear: I’m calling the pet sitter… or just staying home.

What about you? Are your cats road‑trip ready, or are they already drafting their own list of demands?

WMEO Predictions for Fall- A Great Color Season this Year

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WMEO 9 Newsroom — We Meow, You Listen

Morning Edition: Fall Is Tiptoeing In (Even If the Calendar Says “Simmer Down, It’s Still Summer”)

Yes, technically it’s still summer. Labor Day hasn’t strutted in yet with its “last hurrah” energy, but the back‑to‑school chaos has begun, the A gray squirrel clings to the side of a tree trunk, its bushy tail arched behind it. The squirrel faces to the right, alert and wide‑eyed, with textured bark and soft green foliage in the sunlit background.final BBQs are warming up, and King Richard’s Faire is polishing its turkey legs for opening day on September 5.

Meanwhile, the squirrels have already declared it fall. They’re doing high‑speed acrobatics across the yard like they’re auditioning for Squirrel Cirque du Soleil. Banner and Balboa have filed several complaints with management.

Speaking of complaints…

Balboa’s Breaking News:

There was ONE sunbeam in the entire house this morning. Just one. And Banner took it. He didn’t just take it — he spread out in it like a smug croissant, soaking up every last photon while Balboa sat in the shadows, muttering about injustice and poor resource distribution.

Banner claims it was “first come, first serve.” Balboa claims it was “a hostile takeover.”

We report. You decide.

 

🍁 WMEO Fall Foliage Report 

Banner & Balboa, your feline field correspondents

Picnic anyone

Banner:

Good morning, leaf peepers. Last year’s foliage was… well… meh. Muted colors, blink‑and‑you‑miss‑it peak, and one maple that tried to turn orange but gave up halfway through.

This year? Oh, it’s looking much better. The forests got a long winter soak, and spring melt fed the roots like a spa day.

Balboa:

Also, we had those surprise all‑day rain events this summer. I hated them. My fur hated them. My emotional stability hated them. But apparently the trees loved them, so fine.

Banner:

All that moisture means the woods are primed for bright, dramatic, show‑off leaves that linger longer than last year’s sad attempt.

Balboa:

Red Tree

Watch the maples first — they’re the drama queens of autumn. When they start flashing those bright red leaves, the season has officially begun.

Banner:

We’ll track the color wave as it rolls from Maine down to Rhode Island. Get ready for nature’s grand finale.

Sponsor Message

This Foliage Update is brought to you by VSGO, camera gear for photographers who want clean lenses, crisp shots, and fewer “why is that smudge THERE” moments. 

WMEO Disclosure: Affiliate links ahead. If you buy something, WMEO earns a small commission at no added cost to you.  Banner says it keeps the newsroom lights on. Balboa says it keeps him from staging a coup. Both statements are technically true.

Stay Tuned

More foliage updates coming as the season progresses. Until then, please resume your regularly scheduled scrolling — preferably while sitting in a sunbeam, if you can find one. Balboa cannot.

End of bulletin. Please resume your regularly scheduled scrolling. Banner thanks you for your attention. Balboa would thank you too, but he’s still upset about the sunbeam situation.

Fall leaves

 

More Reality Behind the Shot- The One that Almost Got Away

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A small Atlantic puffin floating on calm gray-blue ocean water, holding several silver fish crosswise in its colorful beak.

Red fox kit Monday afternoonFinding Gems in the Tedious Work

This photo‑tagging project can be tedious, but every so often it hands me a little miracle. That special shot I thought I’d missed.

I’ve been digging through older folders — the ones full of “not bad, but not good enough” pictures I skipped over during my first sort — and I’m finding gems I never appreciated at the time.

Why I Take So Many Photos

When I’m out on a photography excursion, I take tons of pictures. Way more than anyone needs. Birds and animals don’t pose on purpose, and sometimes I’ll see “The Money Shot”… only for the lighting to shift or the subject to wiggle out of frame. It’s hard work, but it’s also exciting. My adrenaline spikes, my heart races, and I’m basically running on pure wildlife‑photographer joy.

The Not‑So‑Fun Part: SortingBreaching Whale

Then I come home, load 200+ images into Lightroom, and the real work begins. I do a quick pass to eliminate the truly blah or out‑of‑focus ones, narrowing it down to the handful worth polishing. This part isn’t fun, but I do get lost in the art of “imaging.”

Why I Keep the “Almost” Photos

The good news? I rarely delete those second‑tier pictures. Time changes my perspective, and sometimes one of those “almost” shots ends up being exactly what I need for a post.

And that’s how I found him — my little puffin with a beakful of fish.

 

 

Award Winning Photo from the Internet

The Inspiration Behind the Shot

This photo earned an international award years ago and was one of the inspirations behind my puffin photography trips. If you do a Google search for puffins with fish, the web is full of these photos. On Machias Seal Island, I saw puffins returning with their catch, but the best I managed was a mouthful of shrimp. That was my last puffin trip.

Shrimp, Its what’s for dinner

A Foggy Day, a Rocking Boat, and a Forgotten Puffin

But while reviewing older shots from the Egg Island tour — yes, the foggy day on the rocking boat — I found a picture I’d kept only because it showed how tiny puffins look in the vast open ocean. This time, though, something caught my eye. A tiny detail. A shape.

It wasn’t so much “How did I miss that?” as “How did I see it now?” Sheer luck, maybe. Or just the magic of looking at a photo years later with fresh eyes.

Zoom… Zoom… Zoom

I zoomed in. And zoomed. And zoomed.

There they were. Fish.

My little puffin had a mouthful of fish after all.

Polishing the Shot That Waited for Me

I sharpened, cleaned up the color, and cropped the heck out of it. It will never be a gallery‑sized 16×20, but a small 5×7 will work beautifully. And sure, it would never pass even the first round of a photo contest — I had to zoom in way too far — but I don’t care.

I love my little puffin. I thought this was going to be “the one that got away.” Turns out he was waiting for me all along.

 

50 Must Visit (Maybe) Places in America

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Good Morning, Dear Friends

Summer is winding down and we all try to squeeze in one more trip before vacation season slips away. Because of that, I’ve put together another fun list.. This time, it’s the 50 most famous places in America, The Good Old USA. . Now, I’m not saying these spots are good or bad — just famous. In fact, the article I read said most Americans have only visited five or fewer. So, I’ll note which ones I’ve been to, and then you can tell me your number in the comments. Finally, let’s see how many of these iconic places you’ve checked off. I’m not saying all of thes eplaces are great, no judgement here, they are just famous.

The Statue of Liberty standing on its pedestal on Liberty Island, with visitors below, an American flag to the right, and a partly cloudy sky overhead.

 

The 50 Most Famous Places in America

(My visits noted beside each one)

  1. Statue of Liberty (New York City, NY) — Yes
  2. The Strip (Las Vegas, NV) — Yes
  3. Times Square (New York City, NY) — Yes
  4. Disney World (Orlando, FL) — Yes
  5. Road to Hana (Maui, HI) — Yes
  6. Fort Sumter National Monument (Charleston, SC) — No
  7. White House (Washington, D.C.) — Yes
  8. Yosemite National Park (CA) — Not yet
  9. Central Park (New York City, NY) — Yes
  10. South Beach (Miami, FL) — Yes
  11. Liberty Bell (Philadelphia, PA) — No
  12. The Alamo (San Antonio, TX) — Yes
  13. Empire State Building (New York City, NY) — Yes
  14. Washington Monument (Washington, D.C.) — Yes
  15. Gateway Arch (St. Louis, MO) — No
  16. Golden Gate Bridge (San Francisco, CA) — No
  17. Chicago River (Chicago, IL) — Yes
  18. Hollywood Sign (Los Angeles, CA) — No
  19. Zion National Park (UT) — No, but I want to
  20. French Quarter (New Orleans, LA) — Yes
  21. Disneyland Park (Anaheim, CA) — Yes
  22. Pike Place Market (Seattle, WA) — Yes
  23. Yellowstone National Park (WY/MT/ID) — Yes
  24. Mount Rushmore (Keystone, SD) — Yes
  25. Niagara Falls (Niagara Falls, NY) — Yes

Hang in There — Halfway Through!

  1. Grand Canyon (AZ) — Yes
  2. Kennedy Space Center (FL) — No
  3. J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, CA) — No
  4. The Wave (AZ) — No, but very high on my list
  5. The Bean (Chicago, IL) — No
  6. Alcatraz Island (San Francisco, CA) — Yes
  7. Hoover Dam (NV) — Yes
  8. Biltmore Estate (Asheville, NC) — No
  9. Pearl Harbor (Honolulu, HI) — Yes
  10. Mesa Verde National Park (CO) — No
  11. Mackinac Bridge (MI) — No
  12. Mall of America (Bloomington, MN) — No
  13. Acadia National Park (ME) — Yes

    Colonial Williamsburgh 2018

  14. Arlington National Cemetery (Arlington, VA) — Yes
  15. Balboa Park (San Diego, CA) — No
  16. Cape Cod (MA) — Yes
  17. Denali National Park & Preserve (AK) — Yes
  18. Graceland (Memphis, TN) — No
  19. Mammoth Cave (KY) — No
  20. Atlantic City Boardwalk (NJ) — Yes
  21. White Sands National Park (NM) — No
  22. Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (Cleveland, OH) — No
  23. Cannon Beach (OR) — No, but it’s on my bucket list
  24. Savannah Historic District (Savannah, GA) — No
  25. Colonial Williamsburg (VA) — Yes

Now Wasn’t that Fun?

A list like that makes you think doesn’t it. It sure surpised me. Do you agree with the choices?

Final Thoughts

After all, I don’t know who decides what counts as “famous.” In addition, I’m not sure I agree with every pick. However, like Planet Fitness, this is a No Judgment Zone. As a result, if I counted correctly, I’ve visited 28 out of 50 places. Finally, how about you — what’s your number?