What a fabulous bucket list! I live not far from the badlands, and have never been there. I need to do that! Tim, I agree with your choices! When I moved to Las Vegas for a year, we drove through Utah. Absolutely stunning scenery and wicked canyons! I would like to go to Yellowstone before it blows up. (Just kidding!). Had fun watching this! Great choices. ✌️❤️
Nice to see Kiki! I was naming a lot of the places you showed even before you said the name. I never did make it to Florida and if I ever got a chance, I would love to see the natural environment. I never made it to Maine, either. I would want to go hiking there, and also the Great Smokeys, which I have visited, but lacked time. Bits of Yellowstone are in Montana to the north and Idaho to the east. Very worthwhile. I was brought up in Utah. More than the Grand Canyon even, what I would recommend is Moab, and go see Island in the Sky and Arches. Shinobu and I had land there until it became clear that he would not be able to get health insurance under reasonable conditions, and it would bankrupt us. If you make it to the Grand Canyon, Moab would be a major side trip, but it is the first place I get back to whenever I visit the States. I recommend taking time and seeing all of southeastern Utah, the whole stretch across the Colorado Plateau from Moab to Cedar City. There are high mountains that are nice in summer, too. It can get really cold in winter, but the days are generally pleasant. I suspect my overseas travel days are through, though, as it seems to require a smartphone anymore, but the west coast of Australia from Geraldton to Exmouth, and especially Shark Bay is unparalleled. Bali is fantastic for the culture--music and dancing, in particular. My solo drive up to Yellowknife in northern Canada about 30 years ago was also particularly memorable, and the stretch from Banff to Jasper is also really worthwhile. My bucket list contains various mountain peaks in Japan and visiting Hokkaido and the southern Ryukyus again. Which reminds me: in your novel The Charlatan's Son (which I enjoyed immensely), the Voodoo shamaness was named "Satsuma," and I wonder how you came up with that, because that 's the old name of the province at the south end of Kyushu, now Kagoshima Prefecture.
Funny story about "Satsuma Creole." While writing that book, we were traveling on an interstate, amused by odd names on the road signs. She said, "You need character names. Here they are." There was a road sign reading "Jemison Thorsby." Further down the interstate was a road sign for the small town of Satsuma. Voila! Marina took a tablet and began writing the scene of Marshall's encounter with "Satsuma Creole." When we got home, I typed the scene almost wrd for word. It's my favorite scene in the book. Actually toying with a sequel to that book. I wrote about three chapers last year, then set it aside.
