whelp. here we are. our final destination on the epic (not so) post pandemic summer road trip. after our time in st. louis, we rolled the lidbom rambling road show on over to kentucky, where we had a tour booked at mammoth cave national park. after wind cave and jewel cave, i was anticipating a […]
hiking
rocky mountain national park.day six. last hurrah hike.
whelp. it’s our last day in rocky mountain national park. and RMNP is our last epic spot on the summer road trip. the rest of the trip would be decidedly less hike oriented. so, i was determined to have one last hurrah, and for all those same reasons, anna was game to join me. after […]
rocky mountain national park.days four and five. low key. hike free.
our big planned rocky mountain national park event with the grandlidboms was a drive along some of trail ridge road, aka: the highway to the sky. the road crosses (winds) through the park, maxing out at 12,186′ elevation, with breathtaking views in every direction. we fired up one of the guided tour apps and piled […]
rocky mountain national park.day three. sky pond solo hike.
with two solid kid hiking days in the books, and the grandlidboms in town, it was the perfect day for me to ditch everyone and tackle a longer, harder, and maybe way more awesome, solo hike. i woke up early and went outside to get some water for coffee and discovered we had some friendly […]
rocky mountain national park.day two. emerald lake.
i wasn’t kidding. after our 5.6 or so mile hike to mills lake on our first day, we turned around and hit the trails again on day two. the grandlidboms were set to arrive that night for a couple of days, so i wanted to cram in all the things i could before they were […]
rocky mountain national park.day one. mills lake hike.
when we came off the road in 2019, one of our regrets was that we never made it to rocky mountain national park. it was the one big park out west that we missed, but when we were in denver (in may 2017) there was a giant snow storm and most if it was closed. […]
black elk peak hike.
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 […]
the black hills. custer state park.
when we booked our time in custer, south dakota, i knew it was close to wind cave, badlands, and mount rushmore, but i had only vaguely heard of the black hills. despite its gloomy sounding name, it turns out, the black hills are completely amazing. we got a little taste of them on our drive […]
badlands day.
our site in custer was pretty close to a lot of things, but badlands was still about a two hour drive away. thankfully, we had THE BEST neighbors, who also had a sweet pup, who offered to check in on ruby and take her for a few walks throughout the day, so we were able […]
devils tower. one hit wonder.
fun story. the journey to devils tower national monument passes through the tiny, little, stupid, pointless, sad town of moorcroft, just off the highway. i’m normally pretty good about observing speed limits in these sorts of situations because i know about the racket these small towns cops like to run, but i must have missed […]