september was quite busy with life stuff. we managed to sneak away for the trip to see vance joy, but mostly we were settling another school year, with all new routines. let’s kick things off with a discussion about this guy. it’s his senior year, so we are navigating all of the stuff that comes […]
wildlife
summer beach trip. more beachy days.

after a day off of basking in the hot summer north carolina sun, the kids were game for driving to the point of oak island and taking a little sunset walk. we took lots of purple-y pics. ruby loved the more calm waters and the weird sand embankment. we met a crusty crab. and looked […]
lazy kayaking the au train.

we spent our first week on the upper peninsula in a little cabin on the au train lake. during that week, on every excursion to and from our cabin, we drove over two bridges that crossed the au train river, which lazily winds from au train lake to lake superior. on one particularly beautiful and […]
hiking and exploring the U.P.

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 […]
happy mothers day to me. </br>camping/hiking edition.

immediately after dropping off my cake donation, i loaded up the outback and rolled off to the mountains for a little solo mother’s day camping and hiking trip. derek gifted me some car camping gear, to see if that’s preferable to tent camping. for this first attempt, he booked me a hipcamp site near brevard, […]
bits and pieces of april.

first of all. let me tell you a tale of how, when jenn and brandy were visiting, we may or may not have gotten caught up with the idea of getting baby chicks and stopped in at tractor supply and made a complete and total impulse purchase of four baby chicks to add to our […]
iceland. day ten. and 10.5.glymur waterfall, reykjavik.

our last full day in iceland began bright and early when we awakened in our little patch of grass on the property of a local farmer. we had hoped to get some breakfast in a little reception/lounge type area inside, but it wasn’t open by the time we were ready to leave, so another day […]
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 […]
iceland. day eight.puffins, storurd, dettifoss/selfoss

day eight. we awakened in our little campground on a fjord in east iceland, borgarfjörður eystri, hoping to avenge the previous evening’s failed puffin viewing attempt. we raced over to climb to the little cliff overlook viewing platform and settled in. we had big plans for the rest of the day, so we were hopeful […]
iceland. day seven.icelandic buffet, hengifoss, long drives

the southern section of the ring road around iceland is packed with lots of things to see and do. as we approached the eastern coast on day seven, and began to make the counterclockwise turn up to the northern section of our trip, the travel times would be longer and the things to do would […]