Happy Trails for a Stress-Free Year

Kathleen Walls and David Leonhardt

Finding happiness is easier than you might think. Happiness is all around us, and all we have to do is hop in the car and hit the road to find it. Actually, there is more to true happiness than just jumping in the car, but for many people, self-actualization does involve discovering new places, new cultures, beautiful nature and secret little hideaways. Kathleen Walls, publisher of American Roads Magazine, and David Leonhardt, publisher of Your Daily Dose of Happiness share a few of their favorite "Happy Trails," hoping you, too, will find happiness there.

MOJAVE DESERT

For a Canadian, snow is no big deal. This year, weve been shoveling it since early November. But to find snow in a desert, that really made my eyes pop. It was noon, and it had rained in Palm Springs, California, the previous evening. But the famous Mojave Desert is actually quite high up in the mountains, and the rain fell there as snow. Just how amazing was it to see snow tucked up against the north side of a cactus Amazing enough that, through my jetlag, I delivered a mostly impromptu speech on the sighting at my Toastmasters club.

If you want to see snow sidling up to a cactus - what a photo op! - head for the desert in January or February, and make sure to choose a desert with a high altitude. The Mojave Desert proved most effective for this. Now, should I mention the Joshua trees

YELLOWKNIFE

It really is hard to fill ones eyes with wonder, what with Star Wars and The Lord of The Rings and so many special effects that make a person just want to yawn. Then, every now and then, one comes across something truly unique, something that actually does make your eyes pop with wonder. Such is Yellowknife, a town built on a peninsula of rock in the Arctic. What is unique about this town are the houses in the old city. There are some amazing mansions hoisted up on the rock. Well, at least some corners are on the rock. Others are on stilts one or two stories high. Each house is unique, and so are the various contraptions to keep them level on this uneven land. Why would anybody choose this spot to settle in the first place, with so much flat land all around

The second amazing feature is the shanty-town shacks scattered among the mansions. In every other city, the slums and the ritzy parts of town are separate, but not in Yellowknife. I found that a truly stereotype- shattering sight.

LUSK CAVERNS, GATINEAU PARK

Happiness is spelunking. Lets face it, youve done a million vacations on the road and in the air and on the water. How many have you done underground Two, in my case. Once in Pennsylvania on a boat, and once in Gatineau Park, in Quebec.

If you think of a cave as something cavernous, these dont qualify. The two caves are merely a passage for a stream that flows underground for a few yards. The first cave is just right for little children, who can wade in the gently-flowing water.

The second cave is a

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