MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACES #3: All Over the World

By tomorrow I will have the winners of our contest drawn. I go through this insanely elaborate process, giving each entrant a line on a spreadsheet for each point they've earned, and then I run them through a random generator twice. and take the top ones for the prizes. So it takes a little time.

In the meantime I have more wonderful places for you. Martha E sent us this marvelous picture of Madeira. Madeira is a magnificent group of volcanic islands off the Coast of Africa. It's on my bucket list of places I must go.


And this one of brilliantly sunny Cabo San Lucas. I've been to quirky Puerto Penasco on the Gulf of California, and someday I'll show you my pics. But I've never been to Cabo.


Here are some more of my own favorites. A tiny Caribbean Beach at Tulum, Mexico, on the Yucatan Peninsula. While I loved visiting the major Mayan ruins, the ancient ruins of the tiny commercial trading town of Tulum is my most lingering memory of the Mayan culture.


And on the Island of Kaua'i, Rainbow-colored Waimea Canyon. Kaua'i is the oldest of Hawai'i's major islands and is much more severely eroded. This incredible canyon cuts deeply into the island, to a depth of a few thousand feet. Someday it will likely cut the island into two islands.

At the top of the canyon, we found ourselves suddenly enveloped in dense fog- we were in the clouds, so dense that we could only now and then catch a glimpse of a nearby ridge. Then suddenly out of the clouds zoomed something as big as my fist: giant dragonflies! Everywhere! Then gone! No, back! I clicked and clicked my camera, trying to catch a photo of the elusive rascals, and all the while my hubby was laughing at my antics, saying, "You'll never get them!"

Oh yeah?

Just imagine my joy! Isn't it a wonderful earth?