before we left the twin cities, and minnesota altogether, i was determined to squeeze in one more activity. derek had to work all day before he could make the journey to meet us in fargo, so we had quite a bit of time to kill. i settled on driving a little out of the way, […]
hiking
twin cities, partially explored.

our next stop on our epic (not so)post pandemic summer road trip was the greater minneapolis-saint paul metropolis, where we had four days booked, with big plans to do lots of things. but, on our way in, some of the same brake issues from the way out of chicago resurfaced, so we would end up […]
devils lake state park

when we realized we had a two day layover in wisconsin in our schedule, i reached out to some friends we met on the road who have recently settled in the area, to see if they wanted to meet up and/or if they had any hot tips for things to do. they answered yes and […]
indiana dunes. miller woods hike.

so, the thing about indiana dunes is: the hikes in the sand are pretty exhausting. and it just so happens that it was also unseasonably scorching hot while we were there. so, i planned only shorter-ish hikes that also happened to give us access to refreshing lake michigan. for our sort of epic last hurrah […]
intro to indiana dunes (national park!)

after our day in cleveland, we drove along the michigan/indiana border to indiana dunes national park, which is scattered along the southeast “corner” of lake michigan. it’s a relatively new national park, and i’m not sure i feel like it qualifies, but no one has asked me, so we just went along with things and […]
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 […]
my solo camping trip to hanging rock

One day, not so long ago, I determined that I needed a little me time, so I booked a couple of nights at Hanging Rock State Park. I packed up the tent, my new camping love seat, and a hammock that Derek surprised me with for early mother’s day. Also some food and camping supplies, […]
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 […]
stone mountain, attempt three.

Thanks to my new status as unemployed, on the first beautiful day after I turned in my equipment, the Lidkids and I headed for the mountains. We opted for Stone Mountain, which we have done a few times before, and is about 4.5ish miles and 1000 feet of elevation gain. Hazel had never gone with […]