Texas in the summer is like growing a hot, wet, sticky second skin. Where I live in CA it can get to be 110 degrees in the summer, but our dry heat really has nothing on Texas when it comes to torture. At night, however, when the weather cools it is the perfect time to do sightseeing.

In California, Yosemite National Park boasts the towering Dome of El Capitan. Over 3 million people visit Yosemite National Park each year, and much of the conservation effort is owed to John Muir, the naturalist who met with President Roosevelt to insist the land be turned into National Park.

Mount Rushmore in South Dakota features sixty foot tall representations of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln. The mountain got its name from Charles E. Rushmore, a New York lawyer. The project began in 1927 and ended in 1941.

Paragliding over the mountains of Southern California.

The drive into Owens Valley

The beaches of Hawaii are as beautiful as all of the postcards and commercials promise. From the peak of Diamond Head it is possible to see over the beaches of O'ahu.

The Byodo Inn Temple is a Buddhist temple located on the island of O'ahu in Hawaii. It is a replica of the nine hundred year old temple located in Uji, Japan.

The snowy peaks of Mount Baldy.

The British paintings exhibit at the Huntington Library. My favorite exhibit!

The Japanese Gardens at the Huntington Library.

The paths that wind through Huntington' gardens evoke an era when gardening was an English pastime for the wealthy. The Huntington Library also has a Shakespeare Garden featuring marble statues of Shakespearean characters.

The US Supreme Court was constructed in the 1930s and the marble friezes outside its doors depict Hammurabi, Moses, John Marshall, Napoleon, and many others. The artwork, designed by the sculptor Adolph A. Weinman, is supposed to convey the idea that, while the law begins with individuals, its principles never die.

The memorial spanning the sunken USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor remembers those lost during the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. The memorial is located in Honolulu, Hawaii and as you cross the bridge it is possible to see the remains of a ship in the crystalline waters below.

The Capital at night is a stunning view in Washington D.C.

The Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC is actually a facility with 19 museums, 9 research centers and over 140 affiliate museums around the world. There are so many fascinating exhibits to see in this museum, including the original shoes that Dorothy wore in The Wizard of Oz.

The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree has been a tradition in New York City since 1933. It began in the Great Depression during the construction of the Rockefeller Center complex when a tree, strung with 700 lights, was placed in front of the old RCA Building (now the GE Building).

The tree is almost always a Norway spruce, which means that every year gardens send photos to the Rockefeller Gardeners and compete to see whose tree will be chosen. Several of the top qualifiers are flown out and the best is then selected. The tree usually stands between fifty and ninety feet tall.

The RMS Queen Mary is reportedly a haunted ship. An ocean liner that sailed the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967, she was eventually used to transport soldiers in WWII. Her speed earned her the nickname "The Grey Ghost," and today, the ship is part of the National Register of Historic Places and is permanantly docked in Long Beach CA.

Around midnight, the ship gives ghost tours. Although we didn't see any ghosts, we saw many parts of the ship that were off-limits to most guests, so the haunted tour was well worth taking.

L'Auberge in Sedona, Arizona is one of the most peaceful and beautiful lodges in the state. In the winter, the wood fires burn all day and night, rich with the scent of cedar logs.

The red rock cliffs of Sedona.

Behind me, red holly grows bright and thick during the winter in Sedona.

The rocks in Sedona are deep red and orange in color due to the high iron content. They make a stunning backdrop for photos, particularly when they're contrasted with the vivid blue of a clear Arizona sky.

The Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona was created about 50,000 years ago. During the Pleistocene era, when woolly mammoths and sloths roamed the earth, a massive meteor impacted the earth 35 miles east of Flagstaff at what was probably 28,600 mph.

Humans would not have seen the impact, as they would not arrive on the North American continent for another 35,000 years.

A Hopi ruin. The Hopi Tribe has inhabited the area for 1500 years, cultivating corn, beans and cotton.

These bricks are many hundreds of years old. Masonry began for the Hopi Tribe around 700 AD.

This size of this door indicates that it most likely led to a storage room, possible for goods such as corn or beans.

Although of dubious provenance, these dinosaur prints are supposedly as fresh as they were hundreds of millions of years ago.

This is a Navajo hogan, built of red earth, logs and brush. Hogans typically have six or eight sides and the doors face east toward the rising sun.

We couldn't resist a small detour to Moran Point in the Grand Canyon.