turns out, that lovely ranger from yesterday was right, and the skies cleared up and the sun came out, and anna and i woke up to a picture perfect day for a hike to black elk peak. so, once again, we geared up and packed up and headed to the trailhead bright and early (the […]
dining
chicago. day two.sky high views, co-worker hot dogs, bean.

our second day in chicago was another looooong one. we kicked things off with a race against the clock to make it to our scheduled time for a trip to the top of the chicago 360 tower. between driving in downtown chicago, parking in the weird spiral parking garage, getting isaac situated in an allowed […]
chicago. day one.an old house, a museum, inside out pizza.

our drive from indiana dunes to chicago wasn’t all that far, but it was pretty stressful, as most folks who have driven in chicago traffic will attest. we parked the rv in a parking lot and then piled into the car to rush over to our first activity, a scheduled tour of the robie house, […]
indiana dunes miscellany.

we booked four days at indiana dunes, which may have been excessive, but worked out nicely in the end. the campground was pretty nice and actually had showers, so we timed one for our arrival and one before we departed for a few days of boondocking. our campsite was spacious and amongst a zillion ferns. […]
first stop. batavia, new york.

well. here i go. attempting to catch up on the backlog of some fifty or so blog posts, dating back to the end of may. i had high hopes of keeping up with it while we went on our epic summer road trip, but that turned out to be sort of laughable due to the […]
april generic stuff. 2021.

April was pretty great. The weather is lovely. We had a normal Easter. We took our first RV trip of 2021. I made a fun new epic pillow. And I went camping all by myself. Here’s what happened in the in between moments. Let’s see. Firstly, Derek has surprised me with a few fabric bundles. […]
congaree national park.south carolina with pals.

The driving factor for our trip to South Carolina was Congaree National Park. We have been in the area of it a few times, but knowing it was so close to home, not really a top tier National Park, and not RV friendly has had us put it off every time. But, we wanted to […]
march miscellany. 2021 edition.

In like a lion, out like a lamb. Or at least that’s the saying in Western New York. Pertaining to the weather. Well, it works here for me too. I started out March in a really bad place about teaching. And then, I quit. I gave my notice on March 3rd, spent the next two […]
febz 2021.

Other than a visit from my mom at the end of the month, February was rather uneventful around the parts. Teaching was slowly murdering me. It was cold and blah. We were still all living under quarantine. Good times, really. Let’s see. There was a Buffalo Bills-less Super Bowl. We watched. Ate wings. Ho hum. […]
mental health hike #2, with ponies!

After another dismal week of virtual teaching, Anna and I set off for Grayson Highlands State Park in Virginia, for another mental health day of hiking. I’ve seen so many epic pictures of this park, which is famous for it’s roaming wild ponies, but never any in winter. We knew that there would be snow, […]