for our last hurrah in the white mountains and our 2023 summer road trip, anna and i embarked upon the mount lafayette and franconia ridge loop, an 8.6 mile “challenging” trail with 3800+ feet of elevation gain, and three different summits. with several new england hikes under my belt at this point, i knew that […]
waterfalls
flume gorge and the basinfranconia notch state park
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 […]
ausable chasm and whiteface.ADK adventure #2
a long long time ago, when we were just starting to plan our trip to the adirondacks, i mentioned to a road life friend the dates that we would be there and we discovered that she and her family would be there at the same exact time. soooooo, we promptly scheduled an activity together, taking […]
stag brook falls.ADK adventure #1
well. there was a LOT of rain while we were in the northeast. like. record rains. and flooding. it was a mess. we had to plan accordingly and squeeze our outdoor plans into tight windows when the skies cleared up for a minute or two. we had originally planned a bigger hike for day one […]
hanging rock with ruby dooby.
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 […]
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 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 […]
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 two.cathedral falls, endless wall, the bridge.
for our second day in the new river gorge, we headed north to do some exploring. we had a few things planned around fayetteville, but we took the advice of an instagram friend who said the previous nights torrential downpours would fill up cathedral falls, and took a slight detour to check it out. slight […]
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 […]