Hello, our dear friends, family, and readers. We apologize for the radio silence on this blog, but we were busy getting acquainted with our new city. That’s right, we are (almost certainly if we can get employment) moving to Asheville (probably in August). Asheville is a delightful little blue crunchy bubble in a sea of …
On our last full day in the Great Smokey Mountains, we decided to hit up Mount Le Conte. We planned to do Charlie’s Bunion, but Ryan had already hiked it, and the Ranger we talked to recommended this one. As we drove to the trailhead, we passed the result of a forest fire that occurred …
On our first morning waking up in the Smokies we drove up to Newfound Gap and made the turn to Clingman’s Dome, the highest point of the Appalachian Trail and also the Park at 6,643 feet in altitude. We met a couple thru hikers on the lookout tower that always reminds me of the World’s …
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park was a bit of a homecoming for me. I walked the length of this park on the Appalachian Trail in 2016 from Fontana Dam to Davenport Gap, a distance of 71 miles. Gentle G and I spotted our first black bear here, climbed the highest point on the trail, …
Ryan and I had the honor and privilege of visiting the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. This place, where Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot on April 4, 1968, now traces the history of the Civil Rights Movement starting with slavery in America and ending with modern day …
We awoke to the beautiful blooming dogwoods of Oklahoma and hit the road for our next national park: Hot Springs, Arkansas. We would find this park most unusual, and overwhelming to my female constitution. The visitor center was definitely the most beautiful of all the ones we have visited thus far. Housed in the old …
We’ve got some catching up to do. We kicked off our time in Colorado with our fifteenth national park: Mesa Verde. It was different from most of the places we’d been recently as the focus was less on the natural world and more on the archeological, human world. Nature asserted itself though; as we spoke …
We packed up our tent on the Colorado River and headed for a day in Canyonlands and a night at Horse Thief campground. I would not miss this bathroom (pit toilet around the corner). With blue skies all around, we took in the views at the Shafer Canyon Overlook... ...and mentally prepared ourselves for the …
The adventuring life isn’t always as glamorous as it may seem. Sometime your phone stops charging and you have to get a new one unexpectedly (sorry for the blogging delay.) Sometimes things can get pretty gritty, literally. I spent our first night beside the Colorado River with my head beneath the blanket to keep the …
A new National Park, a new geology lesson. Buckle up, we’re visiting Arches. I’ll try to make it quick, we’ve gone over a lot of it already. Ancient desert dunes frozen in time and space as sandstone, lifted thousands of feet into the air when North America crashed into the Pacific plate. Water does it’s …
Beyond the Fold 