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 […]
hiking
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 […]
pilot mountain with new gramz.mental health day #3 (fail).
In late February, my mom came down to visit. It worked out nicely, because I had a faux-long weekend from teaching. For some reason, there were two “remote” days built into the calendar on Friday and Monday, which technically meant that the kids who were doing in-person school would be remote that day, but because […]
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, […]
mental health hike #1.
In the first few weeks of my short-lived virtual teaching career, I was working both days of the weekends, just trying to keep afloat. That was obviously not a sustainable situation, so I began to carve out one entire day devoted to NOT anything to do with teaching whatsoever. And, if the weather was agreeable, […]
fall hike at the chimneys.
for our last fall leaves adventure of 2020, we decided to go for vista views over waterfalls. we deliberated between finding a new spot or revisiting an old favorite hike, but in the end “old favorite” won out and we returned to the chimneys in linville gorge. the drive to the hike is an adventure […]