after our sea kayaking adventure, we took the posse inland, for a bit of hiking, waterfall peeping, and general tourism. i think we were still technically on national park service land, but it was all mixed in with little towns and such. and if i’m remembering this day correctly, there were some closures that prevented […]
vacation
pictured rocks national lakeshore
our first big really super epic (expensive) adventure on this trip was a sea kayaking tour of pictured rocks national lakeshore. on the day it was scheduled, the weather wasn’t looking so hot and we weren’t even sure it would take place. but the crew was optimistic, so we loaded up into the ferry to […]
up to the u.p.
for those unfamiliar with the geography of michigan, most of it is the big mitten shaped bit, north of indiana, tucked between three great lakes. that’s where all of our first few michigan excursions took place. but. the main destination of our trip was the upper peninsula, commonly known as the U.P., and that is […]
sleeping bear dunes national lakeshore
our inaugural big michigan excursion took us to sleeping bear dunes national lakeshore. we started at the visitor center, collecting all of the ranger data, stickers, and merch, but sadly not junior ranger books because it appears those days are over. then we set out on a days worth of various adventures. our first hike […]
travel day. two capitals, fabric, and an old friend.
after the rock house hike and otherworld, we made many more stops en route to our next accomodations, making this one day (june 12 to be exact) quite long. while still in columbus, we checked another state capitol building off our list. the kids are still such troopers about this. then we made the first […]
other world.
our travels from hocking hills to michigan took us through columbus ohio, where derek discovered the other world immersive art experience. it seemed similar to, though not quite as thought out and crazy cool as, meow wolf in santa fe. but first. we fueled up. then it was time to get weird. the outside of […]
hocking hills state park.
for our 2024 summer road trip, we took a three week tour up to and around michigan, mostly in the upper peninsula, a part of the country that we haven’t seen yet. and we managed to find a few cool spots to check out on the way up. the first such location was hocking hills […]
snowy spring break and the eclipse that wasn’t.
just after the dust settled from hosting easter in north carolina, we packed up and made our way north to spend spring break in beautiful, sunny, western new york. i used the road trip time to finish reading “the anxious generation” by jonathan haidt and it’s a must read for any parent navigating screens and […]
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 nine.godifoss and a whale.
it was always going to be pretty hard to follow up our day eight adventures in storurd, but day nine really outdid itself as probably the dumbest day in iceland. we kicked things off with an early morning awakening in myvatn, or “lake of midges”. fortunately, the midges are all late sleepers, so it wasn’t […]