Travel with Rolando Chang Barrero

 June 7, 2026 From Sacred Shrines to Hidden Falls: A Perfect Northern Michigan Day -Travel with Rolando USA Tour #5  A journey to see the US National Parks through "Storms and Sunsets". The day began with an impressive drive north from Campit Outdoor Resort, winding through some of Michigan’s most beautiful countryside. The morning air was cool, the roads were quiet, and the landscape seemed to unfold like a painting with every passing mile. By mid-morning, I arrived in Lake City for a well-deserved break and enjoyed a peaceful breakfast along the shores of Lake Missaukee. The calm water reflected the blue sky, and for a brief moment, it felt as though time had slowed down. Continuing north, I arrived at the Cross in the Woods National Shrine in Indian River. Walking the Stations of the Cross was a moving experience, leading ultimately to the shrine’s magnificent centerpiece. Standing before the enormous crucifix was humbling. The cross itself, carved from a single redwood tr...

  I Still Own Every Backyard I Walk Into A story of six, and every age that followed... I put the sunglasses on myself. Nobody had to ask me to. I just knew the moment called for them, and this one did. New yard, new fence, new everything. I planted my feet in the grass, put my hands on my hips, and decided: this place was mine now. I didn't know, of course, about the boxes packed in a hurry, or the conversations held behind closed doors that led to the morning we loaded the car again. All I knew was that there was a chain-link fence to press my face against, a rose bush taller than my head, and an orange flower — one single one — blooming right there in the middle of all that wild green. A good sign, I figured. Places with flowers were good places. There had been other yards before this one. I remembered them in pieces — the creak of a particular porch step, the smell of someone else's grass after rain, a neighbor's dog that barked every evening like clockwork. Each place...

Lisbon Aqueduct History – Hidden Gems! Águas Livres Aqueduct & Mãe d'Água Reservoir Portugal Series Rolando Chang Barrero It was my last day in Portugal, and I knew I couldn’t head back to the U.S. without seeing this. After days of being completely blown away—wandering through the storybook castles of Sintra , soaking in the coastal charm of Cascais , chasing dramatic cliffs in Lagos , navigating the contrasts of Albufeira , and ending with the golden shores of Faro —I thought I had seen it all. But Lisbon had one more quiet surprise waiting for me. Walking along the Águas Livres Aqueduct , I felt that same sense of amazement all over again—but in a completely different way. No crowds, no flash—just these massive arches stretching across the valley, built in the 1700s to bring water into a city that desperately needed it. And somehow, this elegant, practical structure survived the 1755 Lisbon earthquake when so much else didn’t. I stood there thinking about how something so...

Abandoned Building Lisbon: Stolen Tiles and a City in Transition On my way up through  Misericórdia  toward the ever-reliable beauty of  Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara , I stopped in front of a building that refuses to be ignored. On my way up through Misericórdia toward the ever-reliable beauty of Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara , I stopped in front of a building that refuses to be ignored. Three stories tall, its intricate iron varandas still stretch outward with a kind of quiet pride—delicate, detailed, and slowly surrendering to rust. They speak of a time when craftsmanship mattered, when even the threshold of a home carried intention. But below them, the story fractures. The original azulejos—those iconic Portuguese tiles that once wrapped the façade in rhythm and narrative—are now interrupted. Not by time alone, but by intervention. You can see where they’ve been stolen, pried out in patches, leaving behind wounds that expose the raw underlayer of the b...