It was August 10 2003, the day an enormous blackout darkened the entire eastern United States and parts of Canada. People worried that another terrorist attack was upon us. People worried there would be riots and looting. One person I know sat on his front porch, deep in Long Island, sat there all night long with his shot gun.

A series of iconic landmarks and cultural sites shown side by side — one shot in HDR, and the other in classic B&W. Which do you prefer?IN MY HOUSE, it’s always been coffee with two sugars and milk, or straight black. No middle ground, no changing sides. So it is with photography, where lovers of High Dynamic Range (HDR) images and aficionados of the black & white image very rarely share the same bars.

Kyra Bramble learns a few lessons about travel amidst a haze of hash smoke and vodka.COUNTING SHEEP WASN’T WORKING so I switched to bottles of beer, but that just made me sick. Little lambs and bottles of booze spun in my head. I repositioned myself for the hundredth time, found that perfect way to squish my sweatshirt into a makeshift pillow, and stretched my legs out to get my feet up.

Tucson writer feels mortality at Wilko; pizza redeemsWilko, the ‘gastro-pub’ on the corner of University and Park Avenues in Tucson, AZ, is haunted. In fact, the building itself may be a paranormal trap.That said, the cheese selection is great and so is the veggie pizza.I walked through Wilko’s double doors feeling like Alice in Wonderland.

Morgan deBoer shows us 10 large marine animals to swim, dive or snorkel with and where to find them.SEVERAL YEARS AGO, I watched a television special on scuba diving with potato cod in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The show followed divers searching for the big fish, feeding them by hand and even tickling them under their giant chins.

Photo essay: Cycling Northern Argentina - Our SiteRegular contributor Jeff Bartlett documents everyday life in Northern Argentina via bike.I KNEW 2011 would be our last in Argentina. I’d been there since 2007, jumping across the border to Chile with such regularity that custom agents knew not just my name but also my favorite football team.