Fall 2025

We had an incredibly beautiful fall. Like, this is probably the most amazing fall I’ve had in Minnesota. It reminded me a lot of fall in the black hills. Here is why:

– complete lack of wind

– lower humidity

– no rain

– stayed warm

Minnesota is a very windy place. The fall color season is usually pretty short because the wind usually rips the leaves off the trees in short order. One of the photos has a boat driving up the Mississippi on a completely still day – it is a very rare day for there to be zero waves / ripples in the Mississippi.

Minnesota is a very cold place. We have had years with a hard frost starting in early October and all the leaves, regardless of color, turn brown and fall off the trees.

Minnesota is a stupidly humid place. All these freaking lakes make it very humid which means the cold is really cold unless a person is wearing moisture blocking clothes / gear.

It was awesome driving around the cities with my windows down around November 20th, the warm weather had been incredible.

Alas, it couldn’t keep up. Frost and snow have started and true late fall / early winter has started.

I made sure to enjoy as much of the beautiful weather as possible. It was wild to see our raspberries fruiting until mid-November, our clematis flowering until early / mid November, and our grapes mature / fruit so late into the year. I’m not complaining, it was beautiful and delicious :).

This year we also had the most amazing northern lights I’ve seen. The northern lights were so bright we could see them from our driveway in the core / center of the twin cities metro. It was truly stunning.

Outside of the weather, we enjoyed a lot of fun fall activities like cider making and a Day of the Dead celebration. Fall events are the best events – the celebrations and traditions different cultures have made for the fall are absolutely the best because of the color, the sounds, the smells, and, the tastes. The twin cities is a fabulous place to experience allllllll the different traditions often for free or very low cost.

All in all, it was an amazing fall. I hope our falls continue to be so beautiful. It made Minnesota be that much more tolerable 🙂

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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SoDak – Fall 2025

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We made an impromptu trip to South Dakota and had an amazing time. The company was great, the weather was great, and, the scenery was great.

We actually drove this time, first time in a very long time, and it turned out wonderful. Usually, the drive is horrifically boring and extremely long. We broke up the trip a little and we had amazing scenery along the way – many rainbows and we actually spent a little time in the badlands! We also had a chance to stop at some of my favorite places like the Blue Line Truck Stop in Worthington, MN to get some of their amazing baked treats like Elephant Ears; there are places I’ve found and visited over the years that I was able to share on this trip – it was a lot of fun!

The government shutdown meant no one was collecting fees for the park and no rangers were out. Despite this, people were still being respectful and courteous in the park.

While I don’t ever want to drive to Rapid City from the twin cities again, I am glad this trip went the way it did!

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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Colorado 2025

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Colorado is an amazing place.

Once again I continued the tradition of going to Colorado to go hiking. This year was a bit different: I did multiple hikes, I hiked earlier in the year so I saw more mountain flowers, and, I went to bu-cee’s!

This year I hiked: to the top of the Flat Irons from Realization Point, around Panorama Point in Golden Gate State Park, and, hiked Mohawk Lakes. All-in-all, it was an amazing experience and hiking the Mohawk Lakes was one of the better hikes I’ve done – ever.

We had perfect weather from when I landed to when I left. My flight to Denver arrived a bit earlier than usual so much of Friday was open. It was decided we’d visit Bu-cee’s in Fort Collins and then hike to the back of the Flat Irons from Panorama Point. Bu-cee’s was amazing, like usual. Truly, it makes sense, Bu-cee’s is the Costco of gas stations and everything there is curated for a wonderful experience.

Driving to Realization Point and finding a parking spot was pretty straight forward. A lot of places in Colorado are overrun with people but a mid-day hike on a Friday proved to be a pretty good time to go. There was a brand new trail built by the City of Boulder to go from Realization Point to the back of the Flat Irons, Alltrails didn’t even have the trail on their app. Fortunately, Colorado state has an amazing hiking app called COTREX and the trail was on their. The hike was super easy and was mostly flat. We arrived to the Flat Irons to see multiple people hiking up from the bottom and even saw one dude hiking up the actual Flat Iron rock – without ropes, helmets, or any gear. It was insane. It was wild looking east from the Flat Irons; the incredible drop made for a fantastic view to the plains of Colorado.

Panorama Point and the hike around the area was stunningly beautiful. There were tons, absolutely tons, of flowers. It was a special treat to see so many flowers and hike in quiet solitude. We even saw some screwball pollinators I’ve never seen before. Golden Gate State Park is super close to Denver but doesn’t have any of the super tall peaks in the park. It does have some beautiful views of the mountains and is a very green, very lush, place.

Mohawk lakes hike was one of the better hikes I’ve ever done. We arrived right before sunrise and had a fantastic walk to a wonderful view of the sunrise. The first part of the hike was super hard; the hike started at 11,000ft so it was a bit difficult for this flatlander to get going. Unfortunately, the photos don’t do the area justice – the Mohawk Lakes and the hike up the valley was one of the more stunning hikes I’ve ever done; the mix between forest, alpine, lakes, flowers, mountain peaks, and, grasslands was just right. We started so early that we saw very few people until we started the return hike. The shear number of flowers on the hike was incredible, there were areas where tiny little purple flowers blanketed the grasslands, and, giant clumps of paintbrush flowers and sometimes even lupine. Like all other years, we hiked some donuts up and enjoyed a delicious treat in a tranquil area. All in all, it was a 10/10.

Like all other trips to Colorado, this trip was amazing. I can’t wait for next year 😊.

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Portland 2025

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We went out to Portland again this year! We had such a fun time in 2023 that we wanted to repeat the magic; it was fabulous, we found soooooo much to do.

We did a lot:

We toured a nuclear reactor at Reed College!
We hiked!
We visited the ocean!
We hiked through a lava tube!
We ate a ton of good food!
We ate an immense amount of fresh fruit from stores, stands, and, farms!
We went to multiple festivals including chalk art!
We saw a circus with no animals, just incredible human talent!
We saw a forest fire including tanker plans dropping Columbia river water on the fire!
We finally visited Mt. Hood!

There is so much to do in Portland it’s unreal. I feel like we could spend a few years out there doing new things every day. There aren’t a lot of places in the US that have the ocean, wonderful hiking, city stuff, wonderful restaurants, children’s activities, and, agriculture / orchards near a major metro area.

I spent a little more time trying to find the rare things to do and wrangled a trip to see the Reed College nuclear reactor. It was AWESOME. The director gave us a personalized tour and it was an incredible experience seeing everything first hand. The biggest surprise was that the reactor had a whole lot of stuff that looked original so it was like stepping back into the 1960s/1970s. Super cool experience.

We visited when Rainier cherries, peaches, and, other fruit was in season. We found out the peach season in the area is about three to four months long due to all the different varieties grown. We probably ate our weight in fruit and it was absolutely amazing. We hiked through a lava tube, which was a very fun experience, and stopped by a random fruit stand on the way back only to find deer eating fruit right next to the stand. The deer had impeccable taste – the fruit was amazing!

The Portland area is known for food. We ended up finding and visiting the very first Pronto Pup restaurant, it was good but I was told “it’s not the same as the pronto pups at the state fair”, and, we had an incredible amount of delicious meals. We even visited the Frying Scotsman, a place we visited the very first time we went to Portland 15 or so years ago. The same guy is running the food cart and the fish and chips are just as delicious as they were 15 years ago. It’s such a neat experience to say in downtown Portland and be within walking distance to multiple food truck corrals. The variety of foods offered was insane, I’m not sure it’s possible to go to one city block to get chicken katsu, tamales, and, something like shwarma anywhere else in the country.

The other activities / sights were just so much fun. It was wonderful to see a circus where no animals were used. I’ve seen a lot of things over the years but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that level of human talent all in one place. The incredible skill and strength needed to perform all the tricks was nothing short of amazing. The outdoors were wonderful, it was fantastic to smell the ocean, the forests, and, the mountains. Going up to Mt. Hood ended up being fairly interesting and it was fun to throw snowballs at each other in the middle of summer.

We had a chance to safely see a forest fire and watched two tanker planes make loops between picking up water in the Columbia River and dumping water on the fire. It was a lot of fun to watch the forest fire and watch the tanker planes. Unfortunately, the forest fire was bad for those who lived near / in the fire, but for us visitors, it was pretty cool.

One of the bigger surprises was our lodging: we stayed at a hotel in the Pearl District and it went perfectly. Portland still doesn’t have the best reputation right now and some groups report roaming bands of drugged out zombie people creating mayhem wherever they go all day long in the Portland area. We found peacefulness and quietness in a typical downtown setting. We were surprised at what happened at night – we stayed near a boulevard where the roads were separated by a nice green space. Toward the evenings homeless people would set up places to sleep in the green spaces and rest for the night. This was extremely similar to our experiences in Cape Town, South Africa about a decade ago. At the time, I found the juxtaposition between our extremely comfortable lodging and people sleeping in a grassy field quite jarring and, ten years later, it’s still quite jarring.

We found most things weren’t too crowded. Hiking in Beacon Rock State Park on their most popular trail wasn’t too busy, going to the sidewalk chalk art show in Hillsboro wasn’t too busy even though it was a weekend, we were pretty much the only people at Bonneville Dam, and, even the random places we stopped for fruit were not busy. I went up to Pittock Mansion one morning for sunrise and was warned there were would be a bunch of people there with me. After a very peaceful walk to the mansion I found myself entirely alone for the entire time. The only place that really seemed packed to the gills was Tillamook Creamery in Tillamook. People were lined up to visit that place before it opened for some reason.

Overall, it was a 10/10 experience. I love Portland and I’d love to go back.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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San Francisco 2025

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What a trip. What a fabulous time. What an incredible area to explore!

I visited the San Francisco area about four / five months ago. I went back because I loved the first visit and wanted to spend more time in the area. Long ago, I went there and we just ‘visited the area wrong’ and left with a fairly poor impression of the area. My visit in fall 2024 made me think we traveled the area incorrectly long ago and this recent trip confirmed it. I also had the unique privilege of being confused as a homeless person, or, at the very least casting doubt on whether I was a productive member of society which was a hilarious experience.

I really wanted to spend time around the big trees. There are redwood groves all around San Francisco, to the north, south, west, and some to the east, all within 30min to two hour drive from downtown. Last time I went north to Armstrong State Park so this time I went south this time into the Felton to visit Henry Cowell State Park, Big Basin State Park, immediately after landing in San Francisco and found myself largely alone in redwood forests – it was incredible.

I was treated to a pretty big surprise – the area had some horrible fires and hiking around the burned forests and slightly recovered forests was amazing. It was wild seeing how redwoods recovered from such horrible fires and I was able to see my very first wild azalea in Big Basin State Park! The non-burned areas were amazing too, I loved my time in Henry Cowell State Park and greatly enjoyed meandering on the trail along a babbling creek as the winds rocked the towering redwoods wayyyy above back and forth. It was truly a treat.

The trip just got better. I’m an early riser so I found myself alone on the highway in the early morning the next day on the way to Santa Cruz. Normally this doesn’t matter but I was surrounded by MASSIVE redwoods so I dropped the convertible top down and putz slowly thru the forest. I visited the pier in Santa Cruz and then headed north along Highway 1. Last time I drove Highway 1 between LA and Monterrey Bay it kind of sucked – lots of cars, pretty drab, lots of winding roads, repetitive scenery for hours. This time was different because all the parks / areas I visited were flowering and super colorful, no one was really on the road since it’s not tourist season, and, it’s a rather short drive between Santa Cruz and San Francisco. This was a far better Highway 1 experience!

The state parks and stopping points I visited along the way to San Francisco had very few people. I found myself a long for quite a few of the visits in Natural Bridge State Park, Wilder Ranch State Park, Butano State Park, and, the numerous stops along the way. It’s strawberry season out there so I stopped by a farm stand and bought some freshly picked strawberries to eat in Butano. I had quite the surprise when I was the only person in Butano and had a chance to eat the the strawberries in solitude while sitting on a fallen redwood straddling a creek in an old growth area of Butano.

I think state parks are where it’s at. National parks are over run by people and my trips to state parks over the last couple years have been nothing but wonderful – far fewer people, decent enough facilities, reasonable admission fees. No one goes to visit state parks in areas with national parks!

San Francisco was a ton of fun too. Once again, I had perfect weather – sunny and 60-70 degrees every day, it was fabulous. The rest of the activities were fun:

Walking from Sausalito to Chinatown along the Golden Gate Bridge and Prominade was a cool experience – I had a lot of fun watching other people over the super long journey, and, it was nice to get the ocean breeze nearly the entire way.
Early morning walking in Nob Hill, Chinatown, Coit Tower, and, the pier areas of San Francisco was great. Eating a freshly made donut in a park in Chinatown during sunrise was 10/10. Seeing the sun rise through the buildings was fantastic and catching the Transamerican Pyramid shadow was super cool. I have a litmus test for whether I am in a safe area and it was clear the Nob Hill and Coit Tower area were safe.
I had a chance to walk some of the stairs and see the parrots! The parrots are LOUD. I heard them long before I saw them!
The cable car was made a lot more fun because I struck up a conversation with the car operator. She answered a ton of my questions about the cable car and life in San Francisco. She even asked me, “So, are you going to move here?”
It was a surprising amount of fun to take an autonomous Waymo and get a ride to the Golden Gate Bridge, there’s something a bit odd about being a passenger in a moving vehicle with no driver.
Overall, I walked ~15.3 miles in the Nob Hill – Chinatown – Pier 33 – Golden Gate – Promenade – Lombard – Chinatown walk only taking a waymo to get from Pier 33 to Golden Gate and a cable car from Chinatown to my hotel in the afternoon. I put an image of the journey in the album.
I also found out, quite hilariously, if a person is wearing hiking shoes, a big floppy sun hat, a sunshirt, long pants, and, wearing a backpack filled with extra layers of clothes and water (San Francisco has some wild temperature differences and there are very few public fountains), then, one can be confused for a local homeless person.

I found a few activities I’d never do again: Alcatraz wasn’t that great, and, the gardens in Golden Gate Park are nice but really small. Overall, the trip was a 10/10 and I walked around 45 miles over three days. On flat ground, that’s not too much but San Francisco and the surrounding mountains in state parks definitely aren’t flat but I would happily do it again 😊.

I have added a bunch of photos below including a lot of wild flowers. I cannot believe the shear amount of flowers I saw during my travels. It was absolutely fantastic.

Enjoy!

Chris W.

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Spring 2025

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Spring 2025 has been great! We have had quite a few fun activities and it’s been wonderful to see the end of winter and the start of flowers and green.

For as much as I complain about Minnesota, there sure is a lot of to love. This is a wonderful play to raise children because there’s so much to do!

One of the neat experiences was visiting a local park to learn how maple syrup is made. We had the opportunity to tap a tree and watch the sap boil down in a specially-made maple syrup boiling room.

We had a chance to go to a Diwali celebration and Saint Patrick’s Day event in the same weekend. The juxtaposition was hilarious, one dancing style uses only feet and legs and the other dancing style has an immense amount of gyrations using all parts and limbs of a persons body.

The spring has been eminently beautiful – overall it’s an actual ‘spring’ and not the very short period of nice weather before summer starts. We have had a surplus of upper 50s to low 70s days which makes having a campfire in the backyard a wonderful treat. The last few years have been tough, we’ve had some pretty hot weather right out of the gate once winter ends and this spring is not that. 10/10 spring!

I made two trips to South Dakota and saw a parahelia on one of the trips – I had absolutely no idea parahelias happened in South Dakota; in all the years living there I had never seen one! I was also lucky to see a “lucky charms rainbow” that was so vivid ALL colors of the rainbow were easily seen. It was fun to visit the hills twice! I also visited Mt. Rushmore and it was fun to see the snow melt on the faces.

Lastly, I had a chance to participate in DoorsOpen; we went to the Star Tribune, the Light Rail service center, and, a metal recycling plant. It was a 10/10 experience! It is so wonderful to see how the world works, learn how things are made / get done, and, learn why things are the way they are.

Overall, it’s been a wonderful spring!

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Brno, Czechia 2025

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I was in this area was a little under 10 years ago during our world trip but I don’t recall learning about Brno and I don’t recall meeting anyone who has traveled to Brno. I think it’s because Brno is centrally located between Prague, Budapest, Vienna, and, Bratislava. It’s unsurprising Brno is overlooked given that line up. I had a wonderful time playing tourist and I want to bring Jac and Miriam to the area sometime soon.

Brno has all the quintessential ‘Old European City’ features like: a castle, a river, at least one cathedral with many churches, and, at least one public square. I’m glad I was mailed here because the city was neat, the countryside was beautiful, and, the tourist activities were quite a bit of fun. I often found myself alone or one of a few people at the different tourist activities. Despite the solitude, I was told repeatedly ‘a lot of tourists come to Brno’.

Just like my trip to China a bit over a year ago, I was surprised with how much things have changed in the decade since I’ve visited the area:

Traveling was easier. I did zero planning due to my season of life and the short notice for this trip. The ratings feature Google maps, ‘open hours’ feature, and, step by step walking / driving directions in parts of rural areas simply didn’t exist last time. The younger American coworker I was traveling with was dumbfounded Jac and I somehow managed to travel AND have a good time without knowing exactly where things were located, what their hours were, or how much fun the activity / site may be.
There are wayyyyy more American brands around beyond McDonalds and Starbucks. I was surprised to see Popeyes in the Brno old city center and even stopped at a food truck selling “South Carolina Beef” which was neither beef nor tasted like anything I have had in South Carolina.
I was able to buy tickets online for the various tourist activities so I don’t have to wait or be surprised with which tour I purchased due a lack of translated tour information.
Cellular data and my mobile phones worked seamlessly. Setting up an esim took two seconds and was super easy.
I was mistaken for German more often than not and quite a few people seemed surprised I was an American. I wondered if it’s because Brno isn’t a common destination for Americans or if it’s because I’m quite a few pounds lighter than the last time I was in this part of the world and look more European-ish.

A handful of items remained the same:

People are still people despite the cultural differences. Americans can be a lot warmer / kinder to random people on the street than most places in the world but everyone everywhere is helpful to those in need (for directions, suggestions, chit-chat, whatever) and are warm / kind to strangers once an actual conversation starts.
Germanic orderliness is still present – I was in a hurry and tried to order my dessert with my meal in Vienna only to be told “no, you will order dessert after you eat your meal” by the waiter. I thought nothing of the comment but my younger American coworker was surprised since we’d never hear something like that in the US. Even crossing crosswalks out of turn is still quite the faux pas.
I, just like last time when I was a tourist, still did things that do not happen in other parts of the developed world, like, manually ring a 15,000lb bell in a cathedral tower for all the citizens of Brno to hear during a tour at 1:27pm, or, touch bats in a cave while on a tour in the Moravian Karsts. I’m not sure if ringing cathedral bells or touching bats are common tour activities, I just asked the guides and they said “sure”. These ‘extras’ make being a tourist in places like the Czech Republic even more fun.
The food was great and the costs were lower than the US. I was introduced to an amazing dessert called venecek which is sorta like a donut sliced like a bagel with a light whipped frosting between the top and bottom. I was very happy to see the Czech Republic is still a good deal.
Most processes are still hot garbage – getting rental cars, checking into / out of hotels, going through airports are still needlessly complex and time consuming. The various big companies in USA have streamlined sooooo much of those processes which makes traveling / checkin / check out / checking of luggage / rental cars 1,000% easier. We are spoiled in the US.

Overall, it was a great trip and I was happy I was mailed to Brno even though it was on fairly short notice. It was amazing to experience the differences and see what’s the same. I am excited to go back but this time with my family 🙂.

Enjoy the photos!

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Florida 2025

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We ended up going somewhere completely different for our winter trip – Florida. It turns out we are a Florida family – wonderful weather, wonderful food, wonderful sites, and, just a wonderful time. I had no idea Florida would be so great!

We’ve been a lot of places in the USA and most of our trips revolve around hiking but we’ve struck out the last few winter trips due to bad weather: last year was the ‘atmospheric river’ that completely ruined our time in Las Vegas and San Diego. It rained for five days in Las Vegas, something I didn’t realize could happen!? It’s also been cold, hiking in 0% humidity in the 50s is sorta chilly. So we decided to do something completely different which was go to Florida!

The beaches were great. We went to Paradise Beach on the Atlantic near Cape Canaveral and Clearwater near Tampa. Both beaches were great for different reasons and both beaches were made FARRRRR better once we discovered we could rent tents and chairs. It was fabulous to lounge on the beach, swim, and, collect seashells. What was shocking to us was the fact that Clearwater had sooooo many shells. There was a nice fluffy / poofy layer of sand and about an inch below was solid shells. It was neat!

I was shocked at the amazing food in Florida. We found some hard-to-get items like Char Kway Teow, a Singaporean delight, that was actually delicious and not crap, and some really fun things like tempura banana with vanilla ice cream. Of course, no warm area of America would be complete without a bunch of NYC style pizza and Florida didn’t disappoint; we found a delicious NYC style pizza place near where we were staying in Tampa that had the tagline “I AM BROOKLYN”. Not “BROOKLYN PIZZA”, just “BROOKLYN”. The pizza was amazing. I think the person who was bold enough to write “I AM BROOKLYN” was not joking. We also had some delicious BBQ from a random trailer parked at a random corner in a distant Tampa suburb and finished with some amazing soft serve ice cream made from freshly squeezed local oranges. It seemed like it was impossible to get a bad meal in Florida.

We went to Disney EPCOT and Disney Springs and both were fun. Disney Springs suffered from the crush of humanity, holy buckets were there so many people there! We enjoyed the Irish dancing and music at Raglans but that was about it. EPCOT was a lot of fun, it wasn’t all that busy and a whole lot of fun. We hadn’t planned on going to EPCOT and did so on a whim. It was a pretty expensive impulse purchase :). I really enjoyed the different pavilions and we spent quite a bit of time near the China / Japan / Italy pavilions – the food and activities were wonderful.

The nature / natural parts of Florida were super cool!!! We saw a huge alligator and enjoyed walking through the mangroves / swamps. It was way cooler than I would have guessed. The weather was also quite warm, we had a couple of mid-80s days and it felt amazing, especially after leaving Minnesota in the middle of a snow storm.

Driving in Florida sucked. Like not a little bit, but, totally sucked. The number of people driving 10-20mph under the speed limit was equal to the number of people driving 20-30mph over the speed limit. It was a total mess. Add in the fact that there are a million stop lights that don’t seem to be timed to anything in particular and it’s a recipe for a very difficult driving experience. I don’t think I saw anyone pulled over by police officers at all.

There were some strange parts of Florida. SOOOOOO much of Florida reminded me of mainland China: lots of traffic, tons of stoplights, lots of gaudy decorations on things, and a whole lot of beautiful new buildings intermixed with complete dumps. The other thing that was strange was the fact that all the public spaces run by the government were oldish, antiquated, and, not super nice. A remarkable difference compared to Minnesota city and state parks. Florida definitely felt like the USA but it still felt foreign. The other part that struck me about Florida was that pretty much everything was ‘pay to play’: lots of toll roads, fairly expensive beach parking, nothing about Disney was low cost, and, so on.

Overall, it was a great trip. I had no idea it would be so great. I’m looking forward to going back next year!!

Enjoy the photos!

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Phoenix / San Francisco 2024

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I managed to engineer another break in my jobs and decided it would be a good time to make a solo trip to Phoenix and San Francisco.

Why? A few reasons:

To hike!
To get somewhere warm; San Francisco is warm even in the ‘winter’.
I have a boatload of American Airlines points and wanted to travel somewhere, anywhere, for free. Phoenix and San Francisco required very few points.
To get a decent bowl of ramen and other delicious, hard to get in the twin cities, Asian foods. This means heading west is best.

Phoenix:

I decided I wanted to hike Camelback in Phoenix which broke my rule: don’t do hikes where people die. I’m not the smartest person on the planet, and, I’m rather “accidenty” so I feel like I have an above average likelihood of injuring / dying while hiking dangerous hikes. Regardless, I’ve been told by numerous individuals that Camelback “isn’t that bad” so I decided to go for it.

Overall, it was a neat-ish hike. I started before sunrise and reached the top three minutes before sunrise. I was mostly alone on the hike and was surprised that I, a flatlander fresh off the plane a day earlier, was able to keep pace with a younger couple who hike the mountain multiple times per week. I found myself mostly alone on the top after sunrise and it was neat to sit and take in the sights / watch the color change even if the Phoenix metro area is a bit fugly. I finished the hike and fully understand why so many people need rescue. That hike was not easy, it felt like it was straight up, and, the danger is ever present.

The rest of my time in Phoenix was quite fun! There were lots of plants flowering and the air had a sweetness smell to it! I had a chance to hike around the Phoenix Preserve, one of my favorite hiking areas, visited the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum, had the most delicious donburi meal at H-Mart, and, went out to the reservation to eat some delicious flat bread tacos and dessert from a literal shack called “The Stand” that very much matched the types of places we bought meals in third world nations.

San Francisco:

I picked San Francisco because I wanted to go hang out with the redwoods outside of San Francisco, and, I wanted to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. It just so happened that the weather was near perfect and all the clouds / fog moved on the morning I arrived. Walking across the Golden Gate to Wagner Battery in the Marin Headlands was a wonderful experience. I was surprised by the shear number of people walking / biking / running across the Golden Gate on a Wednesday mid-day. The number of bicyclists hauling ass without regard for pedestrians was shocking. That said, there is something quite nice about the fresh smelling sea air on the bridge and the same smells mixed with the smell of the lush grasses and forest on the Sausalito side.

I originally planned to drive to Muir Woods National Monument but had a former coworker tell me about Armstrong Redwoods State Park. The state park was bit further drive but was absolutely worth it. I showed up well before sunrise only to find out the park doesn’t open until sunrise. While figuring out what to do, I encountered a park employee and asked him; when I asked him what I should do his reply was hilarious: “I don’t know, no one shows up this early.” I decided to go find a cup of coffee and wait for sunrise. Once I started hiking I found I was one of the few people in the park on an early Thursday morning. It was incredibly cathartic to walk amongst the towering trees on a foggy and calm morning. The smells were incredible, the sounds were incredible. It was wonderful to be in the forest by myself.

One very kind person recommended I head to the ocean since it was a 14 mile drive from Armstrong Redwoods State Park. I’m glad I did, I had the beach to myself and the sun was just right to make rainbows in the mist from the wave – I’ve never seen anything like it!

My hotel was in Chinatown and I spent the rest of the time in San Francisco walking around Chinatown, walking to Coit Tower, and, the very famous pier. The weather was fabulous. Finding a decent dim sum restaurant and ramen place was quite the treat. I didn’t realize San Francisco was so small, in many ways the walkability reminded me of Boston or Portland.

On the flight back I happened to sit next to some other travelers and we had a wonderful chat. One person asked me for recommendations on solo traveling and I was a bit surprised. I’ve never thought about solo travel being its own category of travel, and, since I’m a dude, the number of precautions I need to take is very different than a woman traveling by herself. It was a tough question to answer! After some thought, the only thing I could come back with is: “do you enjoy your own company?” I greatly enjoy and appreciate time alone and time spent in quiet areas. I don’t need to see people, I don’t need to interact with people. Pondering it further, it makes sense that solo travel is pretty easy for someone like myself 😊.

Overall: 10/10 trip. It was awesome.

Enjoy the photos!
Chris W.

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Las Vegas Hiking Fall 2024

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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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