Suzanne Johnson

Writing about people and places, nature and adventure.


Find more at BluePlanetTravels.com

Writing about people and places, nature and adventure.

Five Ways to Make Virtual Meetings More Meaningful | HDESD

Five Ways to Make Virtual Meetings More Meaningful This holiday season, let’s be grateful for technology For most of us, this has been a year of challenges—and a year of finding silver linings, too. One challenge has been learning to communicate through screens instead of in-person. That process was often frustrating for both students and teachers. Zoom, Webex, and Facetime were barely on our radar a year ago. Today, these platforms are standard practice for work and school. As hard as virtual
Bend Magazine •

The old Scottish sport of curling slides its way to Bend —

On blustery Sunday evenings from November through February, most folks tuck into their cozy homes to wind down the weekend. That’s not the case for Bend locals Shawn and Joe Anzaldo. They’ll be bundling up and heading out to the Pavilion, Bend’s sole ice rink, to join a group of hardy souls with brooms over their shoulders, grippy-soled shoes on their feet and huge smiles on their faces. These are the curlers, and Sunday evening is league night. “Yep, it’s cold. Freezing, literally. Sometimes t

Start the New Year Strong and Hopeful | High Desert Education Service District

Start the New Year Strong and Hopeful One thing we can all agree on is that 2020 was a tough year. Between virtual learning, social distancing, risks of getting sick, and losing job opportunities, many transition students and their families experienced setbacks and frustrations – especially frustrating after working hard toward goals and dreams. We saw silver linings too: communities that came together to support each other, and a growing understanding of the need for diversity, equity and incl
Blue Planet Travels •

Bubbles by E-Bike in the Champagne Valley

When anyone mentions planning a trip to Paris, there is one gotta-go destination that bubbles (literally) to the top of my list of favorite spots. Of all the days we spent exploring around Paris, the most memorable was an electric bike tour of the Champagne Valley. We met our Bikeabouttours.com guide and group at the train station and rode through the rolling countryside to Epernay, where champagne production is an old-world way of life. The villages and champagne houses dot the rolling country
Bend Magazine •

Pushing limits and managing risk with Deschutes County Search and Rescue —

As Pat Mullens set out on a fat-tire bike tour last February, she expected some adventure. What she didn’t expect was to be saved by a search and rescue unit. The morning was cold and clear when Mullens, 60, and her friend Siobhan McNulty set out to ride the loop from Skyliner Sno-park to Tumalo Falls, returning via the Skyliner trail. Both women are experienced in backcountry adventures and were fully prepared with emergency supplies. “Several inches of fresh snow had fallen, so we were workin
BluePlanetTravels.com •

Beijing Daytrip: The Great Wall of China

Three hours climbing stairs and pathways of the Great Wall of China brought up many questions for me, but it only answered one. The one question that was answered went back to my childhood, when my Hungarian grandmother would refer to anything far away as being “practically in Outer Mongolia!” I never knew what she meant by that, but now I do, because I’d spent the previous week in Outer Mongolia (now known simply as Mongolia) rafting and fly-fishing with FishMongolia.com. We had a three-day la
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