after the sunshiny, beachy, florida keys, we stopped at the muggy, buggy florida everglades for a bit of exploring and learning. i won’t lie, i wasn’t super excited about this park, but it ended up being pretty interesting. our first adventure was to head to the north side of the park, for an airboat ride […]
national parks
dry tortugas.moat wall chronicles.
so. the second coolest reason to visit dry tortugas (aside from the snorkeling) is the epic views. anyone who follows any national park type folk on social media has seen the iconic pics of the aqua waters and the moat wall. anna and i spent a lot of time on the beach and the moat […]
dry tortugas.snorkeling.
one of the main activities for visitors of dry tortugas national park is snorkeling. the islands take up something like 1% of the actual park, the rest is marine life. the waters around fort jefferson and garden key are normal crystal clear and filled with excellent coral reefs, especially for beginners such as anna and […]
dry tortugas.fort jefferson.
most of the little island (key) we were on in “dry tortugas” was consumed by fort jefferson, built in the early/mid 1800s, the largest brick structure in the americas, and left unfinished because of worries about the ground shifting or settling, as sandy keys are wont to do. when we first arrived, it was super […]
dry tortugas.ferry, camping, miscellany.
so. pretty much the main reason we came to the florida keys was so anna and i could take a ferry out to dry tortugas national park, for a few nights of camping and exploring. we were able to snag a two night stay, thanks to a timely cancelation, and began preparations. dry tortugas is […]
de soto national memorial.
while we were at fort de soto county park on the north side of the tampa bay, we pretty much laid low. but on one particularly beautiful day, we packed up for a trip across the skyway bridge to bradenton, to check out the de soto national memorial. it made for an easy transition back […]
colorado national monument.
finally. it was time to start our long trip across the country back to north carolina. derek and isaac took the rv with the plan to travel in small increments in the evenings after work, and the girls and i took a different route, with a plan to squeeze in some adventures and visit friends. […]
observation point. zion national park.(my last hurrah).
when i found out we were returning to the general vicinity of zion national park, i had high hopes for lots of epic adventures. but, while we were there, we first made the executive decision to head home to nc at the end of our stay, and then amended that to leave about a week […]
zion, with friends.
our cedar city-ish campground (from early november, yes my blogging is way behind) just happened to be about an hour from zion. so the big kids and i made plans with our st. george friends to meet up in at the visitor center for lunch and then a few small hikes and adventures. firstly, we […]
cedar breaks national monument. (fail).
our post salt lake city campground was just outside cedar city, utah. as we drove, i realized we were pretty close to cedar breaks national monument, which i had heard good things about. so, after we had settled in, we bundled all up and i whisked the kids away for a quick little adventure. maybe […]