a few weeks before mother’s day, unsure of what i wanted to do to celebrate myself (and the birthing of three children), i was poking around some state parks to see what camping options were available. much to my surprise, gorges state park had one last campsite opening, so i snagged the reservation, not really […]
mountains
impromptu to boone. (mostly a tale about another solo hike).
in an attempt to spice up our life a little, and not sit around all weekend in this stupid house, we made a semi-spontaneous decision to head to boone with the fam. and then we also made the decision to have me go up a day early to have some alone time without the fam. […]
spring break (in my late 40s).
my spring break at forsyth tech was a measly four days long and also did not coincide with the girls spring break from public school, so it seemed like another good time to make a dash into the wilderness, for a little solo, camping, hiking, rest, and recharge trip. since it was the first week […]
fall break recharge.
so, these days, community college operates on 8-week mini-semesters. i sort of got an explanation about why things are trending that way from derek’s sister who teaches at forsyth tech, but i’m not sure i agree with the reasoning. it’s pretty intense to cram an entire class into 8 weeks, and i definitely felt like […]
the porkies and me.
on these long summer road trips, derek usually has to work a few days here and there. on one such day, a beautiful one at that, we determined that it would be a good day for me to embark on a solo adventure, leaving him to work, and the kids to have a lazy day […]
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, […]
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 […]
a little fall trip to the mountains
we didn’t do a very good job of participating in fall themed activities this year. pumpkin patches and whatnot. but, we did manage to squeeze in a weekend excursion to asheville to get the heck out of winston-salem and see some of the color changing leaves of the mountains. we drove out after school on […]
iceland. day eight.puffins, storurd, dettifoss/selfoss
day eight. we awakened in our little campground on a fjord in east iceland, borgarfjörður eystri, hoping to avenge the previous evening’s failed puffin viewing attempt. we raced over to climb to the little cliff overlook viewing platform and settled in. we had big plans for the rest of the day, so we were hopeful […]
iceland. day three.landmannalaugar (highlands).
our third day in iceland also happened to be derek’s birthday. how did we celebrate? we woke up bright and early (a recurring theme) to catch a bus that would take us into the highlands for a hike in landmannalaugar, aka: a breathtaking spot that is featured in our apple tv screen saver. in order […]