we booked four days at indiana dunes, which may have been excessive, but worked out nicely in the end. the campground was pretty nice and actually had showers, so we timed one for our arrival and one before we departed for a few days of boondocking. our campsite was spacious and amongst a zillion ferns. […]
national parks
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 […]
indiana dunes. various beachy excursions.
even though it isn’t one of the most national parkiest parks of all the national parks, we were pretty excited to explore a bit in indiana dunes. the rangers suggested a short 1.1 mile hike on the succession trail, because it gives a little slice of all the elements of the park. there is also […]
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 […]
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 […]
junior ranger flair x 2.OBX adventure.
so. there’s a lot of history on the outer banks, which means there’s several national park sites to explore. we hit up two such places during our trip, first the wright brothers national monument and then fort raleigh. the wright brothers is mostly a museum, detailing the history of orville and wilber wright and their […]
four lighthouses.OBX adventure
while we were in the outer banks, we knew we wanted to add to our lighthouse collection. there are five outerbanks lighthouses, but one of them is only reachable by a ferry and not really from where we were staying and covid and all the things. so, we would only be adding four of the […]
three waterfalls hike.gsmnp.
for our final adventure on this trip to the smokies, we drove out and around to the bryson city entrance, for a nature and waterfall themed hike that derek found in a kid friendly hiking book he picked up at the visitor center. the three waterfalls hike is a loop made up of several other […]
the chimney tops. (almost).great smoky mountain national park.
once we moved to the north carolina side of the park, to smokemont campground, we had a long deliberation about what hikes we wanted to do. we had to take into account the length, elevation, danger, our kids level of motivation, weather. all the things. eventually we decided on the chimneys hike. it’s not super […]
townsend tubing.sort of gsmnp affiliated.
the activity the kids were most looking forward to on our trip to the smokies was tubing. our lazy river time in boone, nc has gotten them hooked. the tiny town of townsend, tennessee, just outside the park has several options, and derek booked reservations on our second day of the trip. and then it […]