the kids are all settled back in school. temps are cooling. it’s about that time to take some weekend camping trips. for my first trip this fall, i was able to line up my campground with a scheduled hike with my local hiking group. i headed up to rocky knob campground off the blue ridge […]
national parks
apostle islands.
our final big fat epic amazing adventure of our summer 2024 mostly michigan road trip was a boat tour of the apostle islands, which technically belong to wisconsin. we woke up extra early to get a spot at the front of the line, so we could have a good seat on the tour. well. we […]
pictured rocks, the hiking views.
as you probably know, if you’ve followed our little family story until now, whenever we go on a long vacation, derek is always sure to work in a day or two for me to go on a bigger, longer adventure, usually a hike. sometimes anna comes with me. sometimes not. on this occasion, she somewhat […]
pictured rocks national lakeshore
our first big really super epic (expensive) adventure on this trip was a sea kayaking tour of pictured rocks national lakeshore. on the day it was scheduled, the weather wasn’t looking so hot and we weren’t even sure it would take place. but the crew was optimistic, so we loaded up into the ferry to […]
sleeping bear dunes national lakeshore
our inaugural big michigan excursion took us to sleeping bear dunes national lakeshore. we started at the visitor center, collecting all of the ranger data, stickers, and merch, but sadly not junior ranger books because it appears those days are over. then we set out on a days worth of various adventures. our first hike […]
spring break 2023bryson city day.
our second day of spring break was a little drizzly and overcast, so we figured it was a good day to do some shopping and exploring in bryson city. you know, making sure we were close to shelter. but before we hit the city, we drove up “the road to nowhere” to walk through the […]
camping in the great smokies, sans family.
a long long time ago, derek booked us a long weekend at a campground in the smokies. during prime autumn leaf color season. it was to be our very first family tent camping trip since selling the rv. but then. isaac wanted to go to a homecoming football game. and anna had some sort of […]
some quilty decor for my stupid walls.
you may or may not know two things:1. i hate my stupid house and i have been hesitant to even bother decorating it because it’s so stupid and ugly.2. i have been slowly churning through a series of paper pieced national park blocks, with no real plan for a finished project. i have already blogged […]
atlantic beach week. cape lookout shenanigans.
as previously mentioned, the weather for most of our atlantic beach week was pretty windy. for this reason, the big epic adventure we had planned kept getting postponed. but, finally, on our second to last day, we received word that our adventure was ON! what adventure, you ask? well, two-ish years ago, during a trip […]
new river gorge day five.rafting the upper new with the girls.
on our last day at new river gorge national park, i took hazel and anna on a very chill white water rafting (floating) trip on the upper new river. i had already gone with anna on a slightly more adventurous trip on the lower new earlier in the week, but we had a leftover credit […]