Another beautiful April day to enjoy walking the beach, swimming, jet skiing, parasailing, fishing, shopping and eating at Fort Myers Beach in southwest Florida.

Here are some of the photos I've taken at the massive Hot Air Balloon Festival, held each year in Albuquerque, New Mexico . . . hundreds of balloons participate every year . . . the cost for the fancy "specialty balloons" exceeds well over $100,000. The great thing about these events, is that they allow you to wander around EVERYWHERE as the balloons are being setup and inflated!

I’m back from another wonderful 3,300 mile, three and a half week motorcycle journey around the Southwest, so here’s the first video from the trip; I hope you like it :) To me, Oatman, Arizona is the most distinctive surviving “old west” town in the Southwest, so I always enjoy motorcycling through it whenever I’m in that part of the country. Oatman is on the famous old Route 66, known as “The Mother Road”, and when the “modern highway” (to ME, “modern highway” translates directly as: “BORRRING!!!” LOL) Interstate 40 was completed, negating the need to travel 63 miles on the narrow winding Route 66 via Oatman, one would THINK that Oatman would have gone the way of many similar small towns along Route 66, and would quietly have died away. The unique character of Oatman, however, has allowed it to continue to be a town frequented by other bikers, RVers, and those wanting to relive the old days via old Route 66. Often times you can still see old Model T Fords, and other vintage cars traveling slowly through town. About 30 minutes after I arrived in Oatman, a bunch of other bikers rumbled into town on their big V-twins, and it turned out they were travelers mainly from England, with some of the bikers also from Sweden and Greece, so they were all part of a tour that was biking the entire length of Route 66, from Chicago to Los Angeles. The mountainous portion of Route 66, with its tight turns and steep dropoffs, from Kingman, Arizona to Oatman was considered so intimidating to “flat landers” during the 1930s and 40s, that many of them would hire locals to drive their cars through that area, rather than attempt it themselves. (As you can imagine, most adrenaline junkie motorcyclists like me LOVE the challenge of that stretch of narrow, mountainous road LOL) One of the fun highlights of Oatman are the wild burros that roam around the town. These burros are the direct descendants of the burros that were used by Gold Miners as pack animals during the Gold Rush days. When the mines dried up, the miners released the burros to roam the arid Southwest. Here’s a website that talks about the burros of Oatman: http://www.oatmangoldroad.com/burros.htm and here’s a website describing the quirky nature of this interesting town: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/13961 The song for the video is “Run Mustang Run” by Lacy J. Dalton. The song is obviously NOT about burros, but is about the wild mustangs which also inhabit the Southwest along with the burros, but I like the sentiments in the song and how it goes with the video clips, and, at the end of the day, they’re all “equine” :) Here’s one final website link that talks about both the mustangs and the burros: http://www.gatewaytosedona.com/article/id/518/page/1

YouTubers “LifeJourneyGuy” and England’s “Ajdpadbury” (aka Anthony) headed out from Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago to check out “Grand Canyon West” and the “Skywalk”. We had a GREAT time!!!! Here’s the info on the skywalk from the official website (http://destinationgrandcanyon.com/skywalk.html): “The Glass Bridge Construction of the Skywalk began March of 2004 and will open March 28, 2007. “Upon completion, the Glass Bridge will be suspended 4,000 feet above the Colorado River on the very edge of the Grand Canyon. On May 2005, the final test was conducted and the stucture passed engineering requirements by 400 percent, enabling it to withstand the weight of 71 fully loaded Boeing 747 airplanes (more than 71 million pounds). The bridge will be able to sustain winds in excess of 100 miles per hour from 8 different directions, as well as an 8.0 magnitude earthquake within 50 miles. More than one million pounds of steel will go into the construction of the Grand Canyon Skywalk.” - - - - - To get to and from the Skywalk, it requires you to drive on 28 miles of VERY dusty dirt road with sections of fairly deep gravel and “washboard” surfacing, so after again reaching the “land of paved roads”, I pulled over and wiped the dirt off my SUV, and we visited with two really adventurous Harley riders from Alaska who had done the dirt road on their big Harleys! I’ve been a motorcyclist for 38 years, but would only wanna do THAT road on a off-road type DIRT bike!! No cameras of ANY kind are allowed ON the Skywalk, and it’s difficult (and becoming INCREASINGLY difficult) to even film the Skywalk while OFF the structure, so just be aware of that if you plan to visit this unique structure, because most of your memories of your visit will be IN your memory!! You can tho’ buy commemorative photos, taken by Skywalk employees, of yourself on the Skywalk, but, if I recall correctly, those photos start at around $26, so Anthony and I stood off to the side of the Skywalk, and used our camera zoom lenses instead! Also, it costs a minimum of $74.95 per person to walk on the Skywalk, so we considered it a “once in a lifetime” kinda experience, but the view FROM the Skywalk, and the view THROUGH the TOTALLY “SEE-THROUGH” type WALKWAY SURFACE of the Skywalk below your feet to the ground thousands of feet below was WELL worth it!, altho’ we noticed that quite a few people experienced a DEFINITE fear of heights once they’d look down and see “nothing” supporting them! LOL The song is “You Can Go Your Own Way” by Chris Rea.

<p><a href="http://www.star-telegram.com/business/story/233173.html">Flying too low: Airlines crack down on passengers' cleavage</a></p> <p><a href="http://consumerist.com/consumer/fashion-police/southwest-tells-a-second-woman-to-cover-up-299578.php">Southwest Tells A Second Woman To Cover Up</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.consumatron.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4">Join the forum and submit your theme song!</a> <p><a href="http://www.consumatron.net">Consumatron.net</a>

Here's 1 of my commercials

Chig , as usual, tried to thwart our fun by sending us to a nefarious website to book our reservations for a hotel room. When we arrived, the hotel administration, in recompense for our inconvenience, offered us an upgrade to the honeymoon suite. So,..once again, Chig's evil attempt at sabotage backfired and he was forced to roast in the fires of envy.

Yosemite is my favorite National Park, and I’ve probably now been there over sixty times in my life, and I never tire of the beauty of the scenery there, so when I was motorcycling from the San Francisco Bay Area eastward on my recent trip around the Southwest, it was a no brainer type decision for me that I’d go through Yosemite once again, and take Tioga Pass Road over the summit, and on down to Lee Vining at Mono Lake, California. Tioga Pass Road had only recently been cleared of winter snow and opened for traffic again, so it was great seeing all the snow and seasonal waterfalls beside the road. The song choice is “Gravity” by Alison Krauss and Union Station, which I relate to really well, ‘cause I’ve had wanderlust all my life, and have always wanted to know what was over the next mountain, or around the next bend in the road.

Here are some of the scenes I saw along Route 66 in Arizona and California, during my recent wonderful motorcycle ride around the Southwest. The video also includes some examples of the Burma Shave ads. Here are a few websites that talk about these famous, highly entertaining ads, which were seemingly EVERYWHERE on the highways “in the old days”: http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/hpolscrv/mthomas.htm http://www.fiftiesweb.com/burma.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma-Shave http://www.signindustry.com/outdoor/articles/2000-02-15-giveusbackourburmashave.php3 The "Hollow Mountain" store and gas station is actually on a road that's north of Route 66, but it's funky nature fits right in with many of the quirky places on Route 66, so I included it in the video as well. There's an entire store carved into that mountain, with restrooms and storage rooms, etc. The store owner confirmed for me that the rock is a great natural insulator, so they never have to use heat during the winter, and only need air conditioning in the summer because of the heat that the refrigerator cooling units put out. The song for the video is three different versions of “Route 66”, one by Depeche Mode, one by Chuck Berry, and the final version by the Rolling Stones.

The Ringers perform at the Firehouse Lounge in Austin, Texas for South By Southwest 2006.

Amazing parks!

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=3486 On the plane from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City July 18, 2008, I interview a musician who accompanies the Shook Twins (ShookTwins.com).

http://www.theshak.adsonvids.com.au This fruit and veg shop Southwest WA offers fresh local produce. Dunsborough fruit and veg southwest gourmet food, organic produce and healthy food Western Australia. The Shak is a family owned business in the dunsborough shopping centre that has the finest and freshest fruit and vegetables in dunsborough and around the southwest of WA. Free range eggs, wide range of olive oils, organic jams, organic sauces, organic dressings, harvey cheese, mondo doro smallgood's, waggle dance honey, beerenberg savoury sauces and lots more available from our gourmet for section Fruit and veg, organic food delivery available

Ok, my first video from a bike. The camera sucks, the quality isn't that great, and my head shakes a lot. I hope you guys don't get too seasick.

I'm off on an adventure!! WOOT!!

Landing from the south Las Vegas McCarren International Airport on Southwest Airlines.

Just a test video :)

Welcome to the Naturally Florida Website. Get information about creating a quality SWFL lifestyle through sustainable and green living and achieving fitness naturally in the Sunshine State.

I just wanted to share a few of the many hundreds of photos of "Mother Nature's Work" that I've taken while wandering around the Southwest on my motorcycles over the years . . . the photos show such places as Monument Valley, Grand Canyon, Canyonlands National Park, Bryce Canyon, and Death Valley National Park. The music I chose for this video is the song "Invisible Friend", by a really talented Norwegian singer Christine Guldbrandsen, that almost nobody has heard of in the USA (we miss out on some BEAUTIFUL music over here!!; thankfully I’ve got great friends who can get it for me (you know who you are! LOL)) . . . maybe I’m kinda prejudiced because I’m half Norwegian, but I think a lot of Nordic and other Northern European music has a unique feel of antiquity, grandeur, vitality, and a hard-to-describe “haunted” quality to it, that evokes images of vast fjords, ancient castles, vistas that “go on forever”, etc., so to me at least, this type of music seems to go really well with these photos of “Mother Nature’s creations”, that were carved out long, long, long, long before mankind ever stepped foot on this continent . . .

This ALMOST pointless video was made to inform people about the name of a road that is listed LAST on any alphabetical listing of roads that includes the name of this road. The name of the road always makes me laugh, so I hope other video viewers will be similarly entertained! My apologies in advance, if you’re NOT entertained by this almost pointless video! LOL The name of the road, Zzyzx, was created in 1944 by an enterprising, albeit LAWBREAKING (LOL), entrepreneur named Curtis Howe Springer, who claimed the name had the lofty position of being the final word in the English language. Curtis decided to pronounce the newly created word as "Zai-zix", with the accent on the first syllable, rhyming the word with "Isaac's", not "physics". Curtis then went about establishing the Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Health Spa at the spot, which, coincidentally, happened to be on Federal land that he had no permission to USE!! . . . . . . a “minor” point that he conveniently decided to IGNORE!! during the ensuing decades!! LOL He used the springs to bottle water and to provide drinks for travelers through the hot desert. Curtis also imported animals from around the country, in order to attract more families to visit his ranch. He used Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Health Spa until 1974, when he was finally arrested by the United States Marshals for (DUH!!!) misuse of the land, as well as alleged violations of food and drug laws. Since 1976, the Bureau of Land Management has allowed California State University to manage the land in and around Zzyzx. A consortium of CSU campuses use it as their Desert Studies Center. Almost NOBODY has ever heard this word, yet there are “about 281,000” entries on Google if you search under “Zzyzx”!! The song choice for the video is “On the Road Again” by Canned Heat. The above information about Curtis was obtained via readin’ Wikipedia.org.