our first order of business in the white mountains of new hampshire was the flume gorge in franconia notch state park. it was sort of similar to the ausable chasm hike we had gone on in the adirondacks, both in expense ($$$$) and length and strenuousness. and since that hike was a raging success amongst […]
swimming
2023 summer road trip. week one. batavia.

summer in north carolina is super dumb. hot. humid. and dumb. this year, we escaped much of said dumbness by heading north for most of july. our first stop on the road trip took us to my homeland of batavia, new york. we piled into the subaru, which feels smaller and smaller each summer, but […]
august in western new york.

usually, we head up to western new york for our annual summer pilgrimage in june or maybe early july. but this year, my baby brother’s wedding was set to take place in august, so we planned our excursion around the wedding date. we arrived the weekend before the wedding, so we could get in some […]
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 […]
the semi-miscellany of june.

this june was a pretty good one. we had an epic last hurrah in the rv in west virginia (previously posted). and we took an inaugural camping trip with our new fancy tent and gear to hanging rock (future post). but here’s all the other fun stuff that happened in june. well. and not so […]
camping with the old step-aunt (and friends).

a few weeks ago, my step dad’s sister, karyn, rolled into town for a visit. she was on a two week rv trip with her youngest daughter, her friend, and her friend’s daughter. karyn is quite a bit younger than my step dad, closer to my age, so it’s always fun to refer to her […]
new river gorge day five.rafting the upper new with the girls.

on our last day at new river gorge national park, i took hazel and anna on a very chill white water rafting (floating) trip on the upper new river. i had already gone with anna on a slightly more adventurous trip on the lower new earlier in the week, but we had a leftover credit […]
new river gorge day one.sandstone and kate’s falls

we have always wanted to visit new river gorge, but it’s so close that it’s one of those places you just keep putting off until another time. then it became an official national park, so we pushed it up the list, and finally made it happen this summer, basically the minute school ended for the […]
may days. twenty twenty two.

here’s some stuff that happened in may. firstly, some cardinal eggs we found in one of my azalea bushes while we were hiding easter eggs finally hatched. i was able to stick my phone in and get good photos and we could sort of see them through the hall window, so it was a fun […]