for our 2024 summer road trip, we took a three week tour up to and around michigan, mostly in the upper peninsula, a part of the country that we haven’t seen yet. and we managed to find a few cool spots to check out on the way up. the first such location was hocking hills […]
tales of vacations and travels
snowy spring break and the eclipse that wasn’t.

just after the dust settled from hosting easter in north carolina, we packed up and made our way north to spend spring break in beautiful, sunny, western new york. i used the road trip time to finish reading “the anxious generation” by jonathan haidt and it’s a must read for any parent navigating screens and […]
a little fall trip to the mountains

we didn’t do a very good job of participating in fall themed activities this year. pumpkin patches and whatnot. but, we did manage to squeeze in a weekend excursion to asheville to get the heck out of winston-salem and see some of the color changing leaves of the mountains. we drove out after school on […]
iceland. day ten. and 10.5.glymur waterfall, reykjavik.

our last full day in iceland began bright and early when we awakened in our little patch of grass on the property of a local farmer. we had hoped to get some breakfast in a little reception/lounge type area inside, but it wasn’t open by the time we were ready to leave, so another day […]
iceland. day nine.godifoss and a whale.

it was always going to be pretty hard to follow up our day eight adventures in storurd, but day nine really outdid itself as probably the dumbest day in iceland. we kicked things off with an early morning awakening in myvatn, or “lake of midges”. fortunately, the midges are all late sleepers, so it wasn’t […]
iceland. day eight.puffins, storurd, dettifoss/selfoss

day eight. we awakened in our little campground on a fjord in east iceland, borgarfjörður eystri, hoping to avenge the previous evening’s failed puffin viewing attempt. we raced over to climb to the little cliff overlook viewing platform and settled in. we had big plans for the rest of the day, so we were hopeful […]
iceland. day seven.icelandic buffet, hengifoss, long drives

the southern section of the ring road around iceland is packed with lots of things to see and do. as we approached the eastern coast on day seven, and began to make the counterclockwise turn up to the northern section of our trip, the travel times would be longer and the things to do would […]
iceland. day six. glacier hike, a waterfall, and a glacier lagoon.

day six was one of our best days in iceland, jammed packed with cool stuff from start to finish. first up, we made the short drive from our campsite to a meeting location for a guided hike on an actual glacier. as with many of our more adventurous (and guided) activities, it took good a […]
iceland. day five.vik, black sand beach, lava show

on day five in iceland, we awakened (once again) to gloomy, drizzly skies in the southern port town of vik. this is pretty common in vik though, as it sits just south of a massive glacier and something about the wind and science and meteorology and blah blah. anyways, we bundled up, and made our […]
iceland. day four.waterfalls galore.

prepare yourself for an onslaught of waterfall photos, because the entirety of our fourth day in iceland was spent visiting numerous locations of various volumes of waters cascading over cliffs of assorted heights. some of the waterfalls are iconic iceland attractions, not too far off the beaten path, and with large parking lots and amenities. […]