one spring day, the stars perfectly aligned, and my day off from all responsibilities coincided with a day of beautiful weather, and i really had no choice but to oad up the world’s best dog and ride up to hanging rock to hit the trail. we opted for the moore’s knob loop, taking the counterclockwise […]
north carolina
spring break 2023the longest hardest hike.
as has become standard over the years, we planned for one of the days of our spring break trip to be a big fat longer hike for me (and a much needed day of doing nothing for my people who enjoy doing nothing and derek who was a little under the weather for the whole […]
spring break 2023bryson city day.
our second day of spring break was a little drizzly and overcast, so we figured it was a good day to do some shopping and exploring in bryson city. you know, making sure we were close to shelter. but before we hit the city, we drove up “the road to nowhere” to walk through the […]
spring break 2023. wesser bald fire tower hike.
for our first big spring break adventure, we dragged the kids out on a three-ish mile hike to the wesser bald fire tower. it was relatively uneventful. derek wasn’t feeling great and ike was nursing a sprained ankle, so they took their time, while i forged ahead with the girls. we started out a little […]
spring break 2023…
for spring break this year, we packed up and headed to an airbnb, in the wilderness of the nantahala national forest, on the tippy western end of north carolina. as the children grow, so does the volume of our “luggage” (reusable shopping bags, mostly), making packing the back of the subaru feel like the most […]
stone mountain with the best girl.
on one particularly lovely day, it was determined by ruby and i, that we would go up to stone mountain for a hike. we had a fantastic time. the only thing that went wrong was we took a wrong turn at the beginning of the big loop, which meant we ascended mostly via stairs and […]
grandfather mountain hiking adventure.
derek’s parents generously gifted us a weekend at a resort in blowing rock for the last weekend of october. my only request (demand) was that we plan one outdoor activity, and not just end up eating out and shopping the entire time. derek did the research and settled on a hike at grandfather mountain. before […]
camping in the great smokies, sans family.
a long long time ago, derek booked us a long weekend at a campground in the smokies. during prime autumn leaf color season. it was to be our very first family tent camping trip since selling the rv. but then. isaac wanted to go to a homecoming football game. and anna had some sort of […]
atlantic beach week. cape lookout shenanigans.
as previously mentioned, the weather for most of our atlantic beach week was pretty windy. for this reason, the big epic adventure we had planned kept getting postponed. but, finally, on our second to last day, we received word that our adventure was ON! what adventure, you ask? well, two-ish years ago, during a trip […]
atlantic beach week. the beachy times.
now that we no longer have an rv, we are forced to vacation like regular people again, staying in hotels and resorts and the like. for christmas last year, the grandlidboms gifted us with a week’s stay at own of their timeshare properties, so for our first such regular people vacation, we headed out to […]