Las Vegas Hiking Fall 2024

I love Las Vegas. Not because of the usual Las Vegas activities but because of hiking. Las Vegas is a wonderful place to go hiking simply because no one goes to Vegas to hike. Except during the pandemic. There are some other amazing benefits to Vegas – like authentic NYC style pizza, and Ethel M’s Christmas lights.

It seems like the world is finally returning to pre-pandemic trends. It was impossible to get into Red Rock with a time entry permit during the last four years. EVERYONE always wanted to go and there were never any slots available. This is the same scenario that has played out at nearly all the popular outdoor recreation areas since the pandemic. I didn’t plan ahead for Vegas this year so I decided I needed to be lucky: this year I was able to drive up to the Red Rock entry area, request an entry, and then drive right in. This would NEVER have happened in the last four years. It was wonderful.

Some of the ‘neater’ things about Vegas involve stuff off the strip. There are a lot of pizza-by-the-slice restaurants made by people from New Yorker in Vegas. The pizza is just as good as the pizza-by-the-slice I have had in NYC. It’s lovely. Some of the other neat things are Ethel M’s, the chocolate candy factory, and, the Pinball Hall of Fame. All are super cool and were fun things to visit when I wasn’t hiking.

This year I hiked around Red Rock and then found some slot canyons to hike. It was wonderful to hike in quiet solitude; the slot canyons were fabulous too. The bang:buck ratio was insane – all three slot canyons were super easy to get to and super easy to walk. In the early mornings I went down to the strip and to Fremont, more on that later.

The first trail was a sunrise hike just outside of Red Rock on a popular hiking / biking trail that gave a view of Red Rock while hiking up and Las Vegas at the top. I didn’t realize it would be in the 30s and windy but fortunately I was prepared. The alpenglow was magnificent and it was such a treat to see Las Vegas in the early morning hours. The second hike in Red Rock was Ice Box Canyon in Red Rocks and it was wild. It’s such a short hike yet there was a ton of scrambling and climbing. I ended up helping some women who were trapped because of an area they hiked to – they needed some assistance getting down from where they climbed.

The three slot canyons, Anniversary Narrows, White Owl Canyon, and, Spooky Canyon were all pretty close to Vegas and super easy to find courtesy of Alltrails. Anniversary Narrows was, by far, the coolest slot canyon I’ve hiked. It was an extremely large slot canyon and there were varying features along the way.

Years prior, I would visit the strip in the early morning hours while I wait for the sun to rise since I’m an early riser and a SUPER early riser when I’m on Pacific Time like in Las Vegas. Not a lot is happening on the strip at 4AM but the Bellagio conservatory, the Venetian, and, other places are still open. It’s fun to see these places with nearly zero people. Unfortunately, this year Formula1 is racing in Vegas and sooooo much of the strip is closed off; it really sucked. So, the next morning I went down to Fremont street only to learn that the clientele is vastly different between the strip and Fremont, and, Fremont street at 4-6AM is probably not a place I’ll be going back to anytime soon.

All in all, 10/10, 100%, would go back. I love Vegas :).

Enjoy the photos!

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Driftless 2024

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What a time! We went down to the LaCrosse, Wisconsin area for vacation again and it was amazing. The driftless is such a wonderful place filled with fun hikes, neat amish things, and, reasonably priced lodging and food.

I think this is the third year we’ve skipped the north shore. Far too many people. The costs were disproportionately high compared to what we received. I’m happy we found a new place for our fall trips!

Overall, this year was a lot like last year. Drove to Pikes Peak State Park in Iowa, visited a lot of Amish bakeries, swam a lot, hiked a bit, and, enjoyed the good weather.

Biggest conclusions this year: 1) we actually only like one Amish bakery located in Iowa. Next year I think we’re going to stay nearby, 2) the day of the dead celebration surrounded by farm fields seven miles east of the tiny town of Viola was amazing. How lucky we were to find such a place to have fun. It was surreal.

The Amish items were still fabulous deals. An entire homemade apple pie for $10, 40lbs of honey crisp apples for $18, and so on. We were lucky we were able to find so many wonderful things to purchase!

La Crosse is an interesting town in of itself. The town is only 50,000 or so people but the metro area is 170,000, so, the services, lodging, and, restaurants the town offers is disproportionate to it’s size. We love visiting the La Crosse area!

Until this year, I had not realized one of the reasons why I like the La Crosse area so much – it’s because it’s another place that has the “this was something important at one time” feel like the South East of the USA and other post-industrial areas of the US I’ve visited. I really like visiting these types of areas because these places were once far more important than they are now and they have all the evidence to prove it.

Once again, we were too early for the fall colors and the fall colors occurring weren’t great due to the drought. Instead of turning beautiful shades of yellow and red, the leaves were just crumpling and shriveling up. Oh well, not a huge deal since everything else was so awesome.

Enjoy the photos!

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Colorado 2024

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We went on two hikes this year! The beautiful Loch Lomond trail and the extremely busy Aspen Alley Trail in Breckenridge.

The weather was perfect – absolutely still and sunny. We reached the lakes around Loch Lomond in the early morning and we had a fabulous time watching the alpen-glow reflections off the lakes. Colorado is the only place I’ve been where I can consistently take reflection photos and turn the image upside down while still having photos make sense – there is such a lack of wind and creatures that the water is completely still.

We had the Loch Lomond trail to ourselves, we were so very fortunate. We left Denver early in the morning and reached the trailhead quite a bit before sunrise. We had a chance to take some beautiful photos of the night sky with our iphones before astronomical dawn ended and the world started to brighten. The trail itself was pretty OK and had a ‘make your own adventure’ aspect once we reached the lakes above Lake Lomond. It was fun to traipse around and enjoy the sunrise & see the last of the summer flowers.

I felt very, very, very lucky that my visit corresponded to near peak fall colors in the Breckenridge area. The scenery was absolutely stunning and the hiking trail below the aspens was incredible. The Aspen Alley trail was very nice and we had a pleasant time even though we were joined by about 1,000 fellow hikers soaking in the scenery.

That night a large weather system hit the areas we hiked and dumped a bunch of snow. The hikes we did wouldn’t have been possible one day later than we had originally planned. We were very, very, very lucky!

All in all, this was another 10/10 trip to Colorado!

Enjoy the photos!

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Summer-ish 2024

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Summer is winding down in Minnesota and Minnesota’s fever seems to have broken. We’re finally starting to get some cooler weather and it’s become rather enjoyable to be in this state again.

We had a great year for flowers and pollinators including some new pollinators I’ve never seen before like the onion moth – a species adapted to pollinate chive flowers. It was cool! I have a lot of photos of pollinators. I thank them because we were able to make about 12 jars of raspberry jam from raspberries we grew, and, we have boatloads of peaches!

I snuck in some photos from early-ish summer / late spring showing the apple blossoms. It’s such a neat time of year, the entire twin cities area smells a bit sweet with all the blossoms around the area. We have some favorite spots we visit to see the blooming trees. Unfortunately, we missed the cherry blossoms at Como Park this year :/.

We’ve had some neat weatherish experiences: we were able to see aurora borealis from our driveway in early summer, and, saw a super cool electrical storm from the exact same location in late summer.

We managed to make it to waterski shows this summer. We had hoped for more but life got in the way. It was a lot of fun to see the extremely talented individuals doing amazing human tricks.

The last group of photos are of my travels two, from, and, in Sioux Falls, SD. Work commitments brought me to Sioux Falls quite a bit this summer. Even though I grew up in South Dakota I never really visited Sioux Falls. It was neat to have downtime to wander around and check out the sites. I would say Sioux Falls is a wonderful place to visit so long as the wind direction is right. There is a MASSIVE slaughter house in downtown Sioux Falls and if the wind direction is just wrong then the smell in the beautiful downtown area is unbearable. Besides the smell of death, Sioux Fall is a 10/10.

It’s actually hard to pick the headline image for this post. The aurora, Hennepin bridge with apple petals, and, the lightening are all beautiful photos and were awesome to see. All in all, that’s it. It’s been a good summer. I’m sad to see it go :/

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SoDak 2024

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Another trip to South Dakota in the books – once again a bit of a surprise. The Black Hills are still very wet so there were tons of flowers around, including flowers I’ve never seen before, and, I explored new-to-me areas of the hills. It was funny to find areas I passed by for years ended up having great hiking.

It was a bit surprised I could pick enough flowers to make a bouquet. Wild daisy, blanket flower, and, others were in abundance. It was wild to see. I really don’t remember so many flowers in the hills when I was younger. Maybe because it was a lot dryer?

There is a hiking area called the “Rock Maze”. It’s a lot like what it sounds: hiking between large rocks. I’ve driven by the area probably about 1,000 times and I had no idea the Rock Maze was there. I think the advent of hiking apps and social media has made it a lot easier to spread the knowledge of hidden gems and make everywhere a bit more accessible.

All in all, it was a fabulous trip out to SoDak :).

Sabbatical 2024

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We went on sabbatical again!

Our sabbatical was just under four and a half weeks and we covered a lot of different places! Trip breaks up into five sections:

The Carolinas from Charlston to Charlotte
Southern Appalachia from Ashville to West Virginia
Upland South from Louisville to Nashville
Texas from Houston to San Antonio to El Paso
San Diego

The reasons for the hap-hazard-ish route were pretty simple: I’ve visited the Carolinas, Upland South, and parts of Texas numerous times over the last 10 years for work and wanted everyone else to experience the semi-interesting things I have seen for a decade, and, some of the places are in the middle of nowhere. As examples:
– Congaree National Park in South Carolina is a National Park but it is largely a swamp. It’s a very nice swamp, nicest I’ve visited, but it’s still a swamp.
– Big Bend National Park in West Texas is near nothing. It’s a nearly seven hour drive from the nearest big airport. No way I’d spend that much time traveling to and from a destination on a week long vacation.
– West Virginia is West Virginia.

Our timing seemed very good, we traveled the Carolinas and a good chunk of Southern Appalachia during the peak of shoulder season so no one was around; there were a few activities and places we visited where we were the only people. Everything combined over a good chunk of time at a lackadaisical pace makes for a pretty remarkable trip and wonderful experience. We don’t know anyone who travels these areas for vacation unless it’s to go to the beach in the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico. So this meant the trip was geared toward the things I had experienced plus whatever else we could find along the way. It turned out great!

It rained on us nearly every day wherever we were and we drove through a storm which killed multiple people. We became pretty good at working around the rain. About a week and a half into the trip we figured out we weren’t going to be able to travel like what we had originally planned so we restructured the trip in the middle of the trip. I spent a couple of hours in rural West Virgina redoing all of our reservations like adding Nashville and taking time away from Texas since Texas was stupid hot and suffering from severe storms.

The major highlights:
– North Carolina is a stunningly beautiful state and the western part reminded me a lot of the Smoky Mountains.
– South Carolina was wonderful to visit. Congaree National Park, a swamp, was surprisingly popular with everyone.
– West Virginia was beautiful, surprisingly so. The dilapidation and destitution next to beautiful homes surrounded by gorgeous scenery was discombobulating.
– Nashville was a lot of fun for all of us. I didn’t realize music would start so early in the morning and so many families would be out and about watching the various bands and musicians.
– Big Bend National Park is one of the few places I’ve been where I felt isolated from humanity. BBNP is not below a flight path and there were no signs of humanity other than the road or trail I was on. It was weird.
– We visited 10 caves. Jac’s favorite geographical feature is a cave. Caves in Texas are hot (70F+) and humid (95%). Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico was absolutely stunning followed by Natural Bridge Caverns. Mammoth Cave NP was surprisingly uninteresting.
– This trip allowed me to visit all 50 states in the union, my last state to visit was West Virginia!
– We went to so many children’s museums we became sick of going to children’s museums.
– We ate so much BBQ we became sick of eating BBQ. Best ribs were found at Skinny’s in El Paso, Texas. Very close second was at Mission BBQ in Louisville, Kentucky. Best pulled pork was found at Bu-cee’s Truck Stops in Texas (not joking). Best BBQ dessert was the banana pudding at Luella’s in Ashville, NC. Best brisket was at Noble Smoke in Charlotte, NC.
– Tex-Mex food is amazing. Best Tex-Mex was a tossup between the food we found in the tiny little town of Ozona Texas in someone’s house and Moreliana’s in Houston, Texas; a place that serves home made Tex-Mex of every type plus home made ice cream and other home made horchata.

I’ll write about five segments later. The album below shows the highlights from the overall trip. Enjoy!

Chris W.

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Sabbatical – Appalachia 2024

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We were surrounded by beauty during our time in Appalachia. Central-ish southern-ish Appalachia was remarkably beautiful and there were a surprising amount of fun things to do. We were super lucky to hike in areas where wild rhododendrons, azaleas, and other beautiful flowers were in bloom; what a neat experience! We also seemed to have found where Christmas trees come from? Despite being rained on pretty much every day we found ways to be outdoors and found enough indoor activities to do.

I always forget how neon green the scenery is in the Carolinas and Virginias. Minnesota is green but the Carolinas and Virginias are green. There is also a sweet smell to the air with the various trees and bushes in bloom. We stayed a few days near Sugar Top Mountain, NC, and it was fun to watch all the clouds go above and below us – it was easy to lose track of time watching the clouds. The place we picked is a huge building made in brutalist architecture built on top of a mountain which screamed: “I don’t care about nature or neighbors and WTF is a ‘zoning?'” but gave us a wonderful view and some fabulous sunsets and sunrises.

We drove a lot of country roads in the rural areas of the Carolina’s and Virginia’s. From what we could see, the locals are split between a lot of have nots, a handful of have somes, and, a tiny amount of have very much lots. There were many have nots and Miriam would call out “there’s another burned down house” while we traveled through the beautiful scenery and small communities of Appalachia. The dilapidation and destitution was remarkable and shocking. I had looked at real estate in West Virginia prior to our visit and I wondered how a four bedroom home on two acres could sell for $150k but it became immediately obvious once I visited. I’ve been to a lot of places and a lot of West Virginia reminded me of the reservations in South Dakota and other profoundly underdeveloped places we’ve visited around the world.

The small communities reminded me of where I grew up and what I’ve seen on the iron range in Minnesota – these places used to be something but whats left are the abandoned and shuttered buildings, Dollar Tree / Family Dollar / Dollar General, a small amount of folks supporting tourism, a small number of those who don’t need to leave for one reason or another, and, people who are vacationing. I was surprised with the similarities between the run down towns of South Dakota / Minnesota’s Iron Range and rural Appalachia, it felt like someone copy-pasted the communities.

New River Gorge National Park was interesting. I’m glad we didn’t make a special trip to see it, it’s terribly small and is kind of surprising it’s a national park considering there isn’t much to do or see. Around this area is were we started encountering park rangers who took the JR Ranger program very seriously and we spent a considerable amount of time completing the Jr Ranger home work to earn a badge. JR Ranger: very serious business, I guess.

The Blue Ridge Parkway ending up being a ton of fun. I’m not sure if it’s because we were visiting during peak shoulder season but it was very easy to get around and the views were fantastic. I grew up all around windy mountain roads and it usually takes about 10 seconds to get stuck behind someone going 15-20mph below the speedlimit; this didn’t really happen all that much on the Blue Ridge. Maybe it’s because commerical vehicles are prohibited too? The small taste we had makes me want to drive the entire Blue Ridge Parkway now!

Overall, I’m happy we took the effort to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway and spend time exploring rural Appalachia. We didn’t know what to expect since we don’t know anyone who travels to this portion of America for vacation – we want to go back!

Enjoy the photos!
Chris W.

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Sabbatical – Carolinas 2024

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The Carolinas were a treat!

We flew into Charleston and our path was through the center-ish of South Carolina before we ultimately ran into Charlotte, North Carolina. After Charlotte we headed to Appalachia. So, ultimately, we didn’t actually see that much of the Carolinas. The parts we did see were quite wonderful and we’re all excited to go back and see more.

Our time started in Charleston, South Carolina. I think the only way I can describe the actual downtown tourist area of Charleston is “weird”. It’s like higher end art shops, clothing shops, and, other similar type shops. People just kind of walk around. It’s these narrow-ish colonial streets with colonial buildings but higher end shops. It was just strange probably because we don’t really shop. The permanent city market was pretty interesting but was geared toward tourists.

The beaches outside of Charleston, Sulliavan Beach and Folly Beach, were fantastic and we had a fabulous time. Of all the beaches we went to on the sabbatical, these two beach areas were the best. They were clean, warm, and, the prettiest.

From Charleston we headed toward Charlotte, NC stopping at Congaree National Park along the way. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to walk the entire path in Conagree because of flooding but we were able to get a substantially different view than the last time I was there since the flooding on and around the boardwalk made for some very beautiful scenery. Once again, this area was neon green just like the rest of the Carolinas and Appalachia.

Charlotte was so much fun. It’s a biggish city with lots of amenities but it’s super easy to get around. There were an immense amount of things to do for the family. I loved bringing my family to the places I’ve been: Noble Smoke, Latta Nature Preserve, Tony’s Pizza and others while experiencing new places like the UNC Botanical Garden, Mint Museum, and, Daniel Stowe Museum.

We visited Chimney Rock which is a bit outside Charlotte. When thinking about categories, I’m not sure if it’s a ‘Carolinas’ or ‘Appalachia’ category since it’s the foothills. Either way, it was a lot of fun to visit and had a lot of things to do – like hike, activities, and, animal viewing. I deeply appreciated the elevator that brought us from the parking lot up to the top of the mountain. America :).

Enjoy the photos!
Chris W.

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Sabbatical – San Diego 2024

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Our sabbatical ended in San Diego and it was a wonderful way to end the trip. San Diego is paradise and the company we had while in San Diego was absolutely spectacular.

We arrived at just the right time – the Jackarandas were in bloom and the beautiful purple flowers were everywhere. It was wonderful to see and we were so lucky.

We went hiking and found a neat place, Potato Chip Rock, with a super cool rock formation. It ended up being a 10/10 rock :).

As always, Ocean Beach was a lot of fun, great donuts at OB Donuts, great burgers at Hodads, and amazing fish tacos at Johnny Mananas. Unfortunately, the pier is now closed due to disrepair and dilapidation. Maybe someday it’ll be repaired.

Enjoy the photos 🙂
Chris W.

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Sabbatical – Texas 2024

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We flew into Houston and flew out of El Paso so we drove across all of Texas and saw a bit of New Mexico to visit Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, and, White Sands National Park. We learned an important lesson: Texas is not very close to Texas, and, a lot of Texans driving lifted trucks seemed to want to drive over us. During our travels through Texas we had four-ish surprises:

– Caves in Texas can be warm and very humid which makes being in the caves quite hot and sweaty.
– During a long day of driving toward Big Bend National Park we needed to eat and picked a highly rated restaurant in the tiny town of Ozona only to find out the “restaurant” was in a house in a neighborhood. Food was 10/10, it was 100% worth the stop.
– Buc-ee’s is amazing. The merchandise, the foods, the size, and, everything else made it absolutely awesome. We visited as many Buc-ee’s as possible. The best pulled pork we had on the trip was from Buc-ee’s hands down.
– The biggest surprise by far was when we visited Big Bend National Park and I quickly realized there were no other signs of humanity other than the trail / road we used to get to where we were – no buildings, no signs, no power poles, no fences, and the big one that is everywhere, no planes or contrails overhead. I don’t know if we have ever experienced anything similar.

It was awesome to see NASA and visit the Gulf of Mexico near Houston. Seeing the Saturn V in person was AMAZING, so cool to see the loudest thing humans have ever created. The Houston area is also the first time everyone was able to visit a Buc-ee’s – an absolutely amazing place to visit with wonderful products. I think we settled on describing Buc-ee’s as the Costco of gas stations, absolutely a 10/10 experience. In the Houston area is where we came across a Tex-Mex place that also made all their own ice cream and horchata which was another wonderful surprise. Even though we have a large latin diaspora in Minnesota it is impossible to get Tex-Mex or anything similar to what we had in Texas.

After Houston we visited San Antonio. I was surprised the shortness of the riverwalk. A person can walk the entire riverwalk in like 30-40 minutes! The riverwalk was pretty. I appreciated the buildings, the water, and lighting. I walked the riverwalk in the evenings and in the early morning. Walking in the early morning was really neat because the lights were still on yet no one was around. The caves outside of San Antonio were beautiful, probably the most beautiful we had visited other than Carlsbad Caverns.

I’ve wanted to visit Big Bend National Park for some time but it’s in the middle of nowhere and takes forever to get to. Only because of something like the sabbatical did it make sense to take the time to visit the park. The park was pretty OK. It was hotter than blazes and the mountains were fairly pretty. Missing signs of humanity was pretty wild. Even in desolate places in the lower 48 and Alaska there were always planes or contrails overhead – pretty much everywhere in the lower 48 and Alaska is a flight path. I think the little part of Texas that is surrounded by Mexico on three sides makes it a bit more to be a flight path since nearby airspace is in a different country. All that said, if I were ever to go back it would probably be in the middle of winter when it was a bit less than 110F out.

After Big Bend National Park we headed toward Carlsbad Caverns National Park. We drove through West Texas oil country and it was surprising. Pop up cities, restaurants / groceries in the middle of nowhere, and oil fields as far as we could see in every direction.

Carlsbad National Caverns is probably one of the more incredible places I’ve ever been in my entire life. Just like Mammoth, we were able to have a self guided tour so we could take our time going through the incredible formations and massive rooms. I don’t think there is anything similar I’ve ever visited in my entire life, it was well worth the visit. Nearby Guadalupe Mountains National Park was interesting. Miriam picked up a random rock that had a fossil and shell imprint – she thought it was sooooo cool.

Before leaving Texas, we decided to add in White Sands National Park since we had enough time the morning before we flew out of El Paso. What a super neat area! It was crazy bright, I couldn’t actually see my screen on my phone because it was so bright out. It was hot. Oddly, we could dig an inch or two down into the sand and the sand was cold. After about 30min playing around in the dunes I noticed Miriam was laid out and Jac said she needed to rest. We decided to leave and it was clear both Miriam and Jac were affected by the heat. We later learned the sand reflects 90% of the heat energy, which explained why the underside of my widebrimmed hat felt so hot, and that the dunes are so dry it is easy to forget that it was like 115F on the dunes.

Overall, we’re glad we went to Texas. The sites were good, the Tex-Mex was amazing, the best BBQ ribs on the trip were found in El Paso, and, Buc-ee’s never disappoints. But, we’re happy we left and we’re happy we significantly shortened our time in Texas. I’m not sure we’d go back since there are other places we can visit that require less driving.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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