Travel

Here it is in August, and it feels like the year has been a dumpster-full-of-doo-doo on fire, about to be hit by murder hornets riding an asteroid. So I started looking at my vacation photos from last October and so much awesome scenery in the Southwestern US get solace in the crazy times since. One of my favorite parts was my brief visit to the Navajo Nation. I drove up from Farmington, NM, a convenient and inexpensive place to stop and spend the night after visiting Mesa Verde National Park. The Four Corners Monument is a small side-trip from the drive to Navajo Nations Park and an opportunity to claim the four virtual caches marking this small, geographical oddity. Minor travel achievement: unlocked! ...

Solo Travel Breakfast of Champions With the Fiery Furnace trip scheduled, I juggled a few of my days there to maximize my awake time. The itinerary was not hugely different: **Day** **Overnight** **Original Plan** **Final Plan** Salt Lake City 1 Moab, UT Potter’s Pond, geocaching added hiking in Arches NP 2 Moab Arches National Park Canyonlands, Dead Horse Point; Arches 3 Moab Fiery Furnace, Canyonlands Fiery Furnace; get permit at Mesa Verde 4 Farmington Mesa Verde Mesa Verde, Aztec NM 5 Monument Valley Sunset tour of Mystery Valley added Four Corners 6 Torrey Dead Horse SP, Canyonlands NP Added stop at Natural Bridges 7 Salt Lake City Geocaching around SLC Bryce Canyon 8 Home! Geocaching around SLC Pocatello (Southern ID’s oldest cache) Logistical note: To save the hassle, and for crowd-avoidance, I pre-purchased annual National Parks ($80, from REI) and Utah State Parks ($75 online) passes, keeping both in the window of the rental Jeep. This let me get in super early, usually before gate was attended. Canyonlands National Park, Island in the Sky ...

One of the rare holidays we receive is Columbus Day. (Seriously?) I’d planned to spend a four-day weekend visiting Arches National Park, when I found some vacation “under the couch,” and extended it to a whole ten days, then added destinations onto that. The plan was to fly to Salt Lake City Friday evening, spend the night, then drive to Moab via a rare (one of four remaining August 2000 hides) geocache, Potter’s Pond. Located in Manti-La Sal National Forest, at about 9,000′, inclement weather is always a possibility. Once the snow accumulates enough, it’s extremely difficult for a tourist like me to access it until the spring thaw, mid- to late-June. I kept my eye on the weather. ...

The Seattle area is large enough that there are regular college fairs where throngs of potential students and parents wander aisles of a cacophonous hall of the Washington State Convention Center, seeking out schools they’ve possibly heard of and picking up brochures from (usually local) alumni volunteers. While the volunteers are able to answer generic questions, the venue is not conducive to having a meaningful conversation. Rather, these events are useful primarily to kick of the thought process during Junior year that, Z_OMG, it’s time to start thinking about colleges._ Dramatic reenactment of my reaction to “ZOMG it’s time to start thinking about colleges.” (Sculpture by the amazing Kimber Fliegler (artbykimber.com) ...

(Notes to self, Continued from part 1.) Whitefish Island Indian Reserve, Sault Saint Marie, Ontario Sault Ste Marie – I’d originally planned to spend a full day in Sault Ste Marie, but that fell apart when I opted to go to Mackinac Island the second time. Since I had to claim my Ontario geocaching souvenir, I crossed the border to hike on Whitefish Island Indian Reserve and see Soo Locks. Swing Gate ...

Happy Lighthouse is Happy Finding a time that all of the family schedules line up, and is not so last-minute that activities are sold out or excessively expensive, led to an over-accumulation of vacation time at the end of the year. As I’m less a fan of “losing vacation time” than “vacationing in winter,” I’d take a few days off, but we’d invariably sit around the house as everyone equivocated about what they didn’t want to do. ...

Well that was an enjoyable week! 88 geocaches in 6 states (DC, DE, MD, NJ, PA, WV) with 375 miles of biking (and some Ubering) over 9 days. Highlights were the guided tours of Gettysburg, PA (by a professional guide) and Washington, DC monuments (local, at night). Pre-trip: This was about as bad shape as I could be in for the ride. In June, shortly after signing up for the ride, I sprained my ankle on a hike. Then in August, I caught some sweet bronchitis for 4 weeks: I was in not-so-great shape for the ride. ...

The excitement of visiting colleges with my daughter, her applying to the short list, and waiting on the results has is over and I’m seriously craving a week unplugged from work. I’ll be taking an organized ride in October from Philadelphia to Washington, DC. Since these trips are as much about seeing different things as the Zen of cycling, I’ll also be stopping for geocaches (and other site seeing) along the way. And maybe butterscotch Tastycakes, Cheeseteaks and those legendary tomatoes I’ve heard about. ...

I was going through yet another hard disk of photos to find an appropriate “timeline” image for Facebook. Had a lot of fond memories of a geology-themed vacation through southern Washington and central Oregon. The first stop was at Mt. St. Helens, home of the ‘sploded volcano from 1981: Mt. St. Helens - needs a little TLC Very close by is Ape Caves, a really long, dark lava tube you can go in. We walked the south (easier) segment. I wanted to extend the trip to the north end with my more adventurous, younger daughter. We went about 500′ into the section before coming to a huge pile of rocks we’d need to climb over (and then back) — great stopping point. ...

After finishing my commercial pilot rating, I was really hankering for owing my own airplane to avoid all of the randomization with renting and, ultimately, _go someplace far. _That destination would be Oskhosh, WI, for EAA’s Air Venture. For various reasons, not limited to prolonged time being unable to use the restroom and wanting to spend more time with the grandparents, my wife and kids flew out commercially to Chicago. This meshed well with my evil plan of not actually flying into the controlled chaos of EAA Oshkosh. Bwuhahaha. ...