one of the main activities for visitors of dry tortugas national park is snorkeling. the islands take up something like 1% of the actual park, the rest is marine life. the waters around fort jefferson and garden key are normal crystal clear and filled with excellent coral reefs, especially for beginners such as anna and […]
beach
dry tortugas.ferry, camping, miscellany.

so. pretty much the main reason we came to the florida keys was so anna and i could take a ferry out to dry tortugas national park, for a few nights of camping and exploring. we were able to snag a two night stay, thanks to a timely cancelation, and began preparations. dry tortugas is […]
disney detox at fort de soto.

after our time with all of the millions of people and music and chaos and bright lights of disney, we were more than ready for a little detox. after a weekend moochdocking with my stepdad’s sister, karyn, and her family, we made our way to peaceful, tranquil fort de soto. originally, we only had a […]
ruby beach with the bigger two.olympic national park.

on our last day in quileute, i made the executive decision to take the big two kids to ruby beach, about an hour south of our campground. it’s part of olympic national park and is known for it’s pretty epic tide pools and haystack rocks. low tide was at 8:51 am, so we got on […]
a (mostly) rainy week in quileute.

so. it rains a lot in the pacific northwest. no surprise there. but it really really rains a lot on the coast near la push, washington. and we mostly chose this campground due to its proximity to the hoh rainforest, but on our hike to hole-in-the-wall, some friendly hikers informed us that a road had […]
hole-in-the-wall, rialto beach.olympic national park.

as soon as we moved from ocean city to our campground on the quileute reservation in la push, washington, we bundled up and loaded the kids in the car for a hike at rialto beach, which is part of olympic national park. our main motivation for rushing to this hike as soon as we arrived […]
ocean city times.

(warning. prepare yourself for a barrage of blog posts. i’ve got a lot of catching up to do.) when i last posted, we had just arrived in ocean city, washington. we only really had one main adventure while we were there, which was traveling into the closest corner of olympic national park and doing a […]
goonies never say die!

as a child of the 80s, i grew up during what will likely be looked back upon by historians as the greatest decade in cinema of all time. one such example of superior movie making is the goonies. so, when we found ourselves at a campground near the locations where the goonies was filmed, i […]
the amazing oregon coast, continued.

when we woke up in brookings to beautiful weather and changed our travel plans to move up the coast versus heading inland, i decided to have an extrended travel day, stopping often to enjoy the beaches, scenery and some historic lighthouses. since isaac has not interest in such things, he rode with derek, and the […]
from california to oregon and happenings therein.

well, when i last posted, we were in the redwoods area of way northern california. from there, we moved up the coast a bit, crossing into oregon for a week on the coast. originally, we had planned a bit more time in another part of the redwoods, but we were worried about the internet, so […]