we capped off our first week’s stay in the upper peninsula with a day in the college town of marquette. technically, we had already been there, thanks to a rainy first day in town that saw us hit up the movies and do a little shopping. but, on this day, we had a few outdoor […]
hiking
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 […]
hiking and exploring the U.P.
after our sea kayaking adventure, we took the posse inland, for a bit of hiking, waterfall peeping, and general tourism. i think we were still technically on national park service land, but it was all mixed in with little towns and such. and if i’m remembering this day correctly, there were some closures that prevented […]
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 […]
hocking hills state park.
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 […]
happy mothers day to me. </br>camping/hiking edition.
immediately after dropping off my cake donation, i loaded up the outback and rolled off to the mountains for a little solo mother’s day camping and hiking trip. derek gifted me some car camping gear, to see if that’s preferable to tent camping. for this first attempt, he booked me a hipcamp site near brevard, […]
hanging rock with jenn and brandy.
really the only thing left on the “cool things to do in winston-salem” checklist when brandy had a day off was hanging rock state park. so. that’s what we did.we decided on the namesake hanging rock trail, which had changed routes since our last visit, adding about a mile round trip. the day was 100% […]
winston salem tour guide.
while brandy toiled away, earning a living to provide for her wife and the glamorous road life, i showed jenn around town. we pretty much knocked out all of the cool winston salem things in two days. first up, obviously, was old salem. except it was a monday, so most things were closed. but we […]
hanging rock kidnapping.
i’ll spare you a long commentary about this day. basically, anna had a sleepover with her friend. in the morning, i gave them the option of me taking the friend home and going hiking alone, or them both coming hiking with me and the friend going home later. they chose the hiking. or were coerced […]
elk knob with hiking heather.
for several months (i think), my hiking pal heather has been talking about trying a trail she heard about near boone called elk knob. i’m game for almost any hike, so when she offered to pick me up and chauffeur me to the trailhead, i was glad to oblige. we were a little surprised to […]