Category Archives: Picture Post

North Shore 2019

We visited the North Short this fall and it was a bit different than usual. First, it was kind of an odd fall in Minnesota so we didn’t really catch the fall colors. Second, we actually stayed in Canal Park of Duluth, MN, pretty far away from the nice, rural, North Shore that we’re used to. That said, it was still super enjoyable.

We visited Gooseberry Falls and hiked around the park, a first for us, and we finally hike Oberg Mountain! Oberg Mountain is a higher point in the Sawtooths and has a wonderful view of Lake Superior and the mountains to the west. We’ve attempted to hike Oberg Mountain in the past but it the parking area was constantly full. This year we showed up super early and had an absolutely beautiful hike. The hike itself was rather easy even though I was carrying about 30lbs of stuff and the trail had quite a few lookouts of the surrounding area. The hike was well worth the wait and I look forward to doing it again!

Otherwise, we visited our typical parks and lookouts and enjoyed the scenery of the North Shore.

We had a some pretty good food. We found the best BBQ restaurant we’ve ever visited in Minnesota not too far from our hotel and we finally had a chance to eat some donuts at the World Best Donuts in Grand Marais. For whatever reason we have had poor timing and never have had the opportunity to try their donuts – either they were closed for the season or we arrived too late. It’s not like we didn’t try, we’ve visited the North Shore consistently for the last 10 years or so. The donuts were certainly delicious and I can see why they have their reputation!

Enjoy the photos 🙂

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Spain 2019

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We decided to go visit Spain in February to avoid some of the dreary Minnesota winter. We were incredibly lucky – we missed -30F weather with 30MPH winds!

I think I could make a habit avoiding winter in Minnesota.

Terrible Minnesota weather aside, Andalusia in Spain was pretty incredible. The sights were pretty fantastic, the food was amazing, everything was super laid back, we chatted with some incredible people, and we had a couple of wonderful cooking classes! We had a brief stop in Gibraltar, a British colony, and it turned out to be a super strange experience. All-in-all, we had a fantastic visit and we were happy with our visit.

It was neat to tour around Spain and see an area where Muslim Moors conquered and set up shop for 700 years. The architecture and artwork of this period is similar to what we saw in India, Singapore, the Middle East, and the Balkan areas conquered by the Ottomans. It was strange to think the Iberian Peninsula is so far away from India yet shared a similar architectural language because of a shared religion! Besides Muslim architecture, we saw some oppulent churches and cathedrals. Spain hit it’s stride right after it drove all the Muslims out (1492) and soon found itself as a major world power and owner / ruler of the new world. All the gold taken from the Aztecs, Incas, and other indigenous peoples ended up lining the walls of huge churches and cathedrals in Spain. Of our all travels, the cathedrals were unlike anything we’ve seen. The blend between Christian and Muslim architecture was a bit schizophrenic – a lot of the buildings looked like the car Homer Simpson designed with all sorts of different styles and features just mashed together.

We probably ate our weight in tapas. It seemed like everywhere we visited we found extremely delicious food. I’m not huge in eating meat and it was surprisingly easy to find delicious vegetarian / vegan food wherever we went. We learned some new favorites, like paella and pisto, while engorging ourselves in olives and bread. If nothing else, Spain is 100% delicious.

No one really seemed to be in a hurry in Spain. In fact, we had to modify our typical eating times slightly to accommodate the issue of a lot of restaurants closing between 2PM and 7PM. We are not really night people so it was a bit strange to eat a large meal early and then try to find a snack in the evenings. In many ways, it was helpful the culture was so laid back. We were able to get around easily and see a lot of sites without being surrounded by people since folks were busy eating at times slightly different than what we were used to!

We had great conversations with folks but there is one experience which stands out – our English paella cooking instructor located in rural Spain. We had an incredible cooking class with her, paella is amazing, but most of all we had a great conversation about traveling, immigrating, Spanish culture, the Brexit, and all sorts of other topics. It was an incredible experience because she and her family went a step further than Jac and I when we were traveling: instead of returning to their home country they decided to lay down roots somewhere a bit more laid back. Anglosphere culture is pretty similar so it was extremely educational to get her perspective on Spain. She informed us of a side of Spain we couldn’t possibly know unless we lived in Spain.

Gibraltar was an extremely strange place. We’ve been to a handful of places that used to be British colonies where driving on the left is the rule and the areas still have a lot of ‘Britishness’. For whatever reason, Gibraltar is right-side driving yet feels very British. This is different than Hong Kong where there is left-side driving there is a giant ‘unweave’ interchange between Shenzhen and Hong Kong to accommodate right-side driving on the mainland. Gibraltar is super tiny and has their own currency to boot so it was weird to pay cash for things and get Gibraltar pounds back. I guess regular UK pounds are valid currency in Gibraltar on a 1:1 basis but Gibraltar pounds are not really valid anywhere outside Gibraltar.

The cities were pretty neat and the Seville Cathedral Roof tour is one of the amazing things we’ve done but I think our favorite area of Spain we visited was the rural areas with the tiny white villages. We had a fantastic night in Zahara de la Sierra and enjoyed visiting the tiny white villages strewn across the countryside. The small towns were a welcome reprieve from the hustle and bustle of the city centers of Madrid, Seville, Granada, etc. The mountains were absolutely stellar and the countryside just smelled good! The streets were super narrow in the small villages. I ran into a building in Arcos de la Fronteria while trying to back out of a bad situation – the directions I received from a local would have required me to drive down some stairs so I decided maybe that I shouldn’t do that in a rental and ended up driving into a building. We had a new, black, VW Polo with 500KM and ran into a white building. Not great.

Aside from driving into buildings it was very easy to drive around Spain. Drivers were very courteous and pretty much everyone was driving below the speed limit. We were surprised with the narrow ‘highways’ in the mountains. It was incredible to see buses traversing the mountains knowing the road was barely wide enough for two small vehicles let alone a huge coach bus.

Spain was surprisingly cheap. Meals weren’t that expensive and lodging was a bit on the pricier side only because we picked some great views / great locations for lodging. Our rental car was super cheap and it was, in general, just crazy to see how far our dollars went. We were a bit surprised to learn Spain is kinda poor by American standards, especially the rural areas. Average wages are quite low to match the cost of living. There’s a lot of agriculture work and tourism seems to be the big industry in Andalusia so I guess it’s pretty logical wages are lower.

We were lucky to visit Spain when we did. It was neat to see ripe olives on the trees, see almond trees blooming, and enjoy local festivals like Christians & Moors in Madrid. Traveling in shoulder season is truly the best – all sorts of festivals and the earth is active with changes for the upcoming seasons. We also caught a Flamenco show in Seville and were completely floored with what we saw – the music, dancing, and singing was incredible.

We’d happily go back to Spain to eat tapas and hang out in the many white villages in the mountains :).

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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Three years home.

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Three year home. It’s hard to believe.

Time flies.

A bit over four years ago Jac and I decided to pack up and leave the US without really knowing what we were getting ourselves into. At that point in our lives neither Jac nor I had really traveled internationally, knew zero additional languages besides English, and had a very different understanding of the world at large. Instead of finding danger, confusion, and adversity during our travels we found friendliness, similarities, beauty, and differing ways of living life while still only knowing English. To date, it’s still likely the most risky and most rewarding decision we’ve ever made.

The last two years since my one year anniversary update haven’t been all that different. We were both fortunate to land at jobs where we are treated very well by our respective companies and managers, we go to work, come home, have fun when it’s not work, and make time for travel. One of the bigger differences has to be the home we purchased; we’re actually laying down roots, we’re part of a community, and we’ve turned about 1/3 of our backyard into a garden so we regularly have produce coming out of our ears.

We continually try to get an international flavor by attending local cultural festivals / events whenever possible. It’s not all that hard considering the twin cities has a rather large immigrant population from all over the world so it seems like there are always events to attend or places to visit like the Festival of Nations, Polish Festival, and Hmongtown. Jac and I enjoy attending these events since it gives us a helpful remembrance of our travels.

We reminisce often and chat frequently about a ’round 2′ trip. As time passes our memories of our experiences during our travels become less sharp and harder to recall while our desire to see strange new parts of the world increases. I vividly remember returning to the US with zero desire to ever be in a plane again and now we’re both interested in immersing ourselves into far flung places with new smells, new sites, and new voices. Since we still don’t have a strong desire to grow our careers at the expense of our time, our conversations about our future often drift towards travel and obtaining shared experiences in a new parts of the world.

We were very lucky with our home purchase. We wanted a home that was in the middle of the cities with good access to the interstates so we could have more work options. We found a home that fit our desires for location, layout, and size, in a very small tier one suburb. We originally thought the house was in a neighborhood of St. Paul or Minneapolis and we didn’t realize until after we had placed an offer on the home that the home is in a tiny suburb with it’s own highly rated school district, police force, and local government. So, we actually live in a very small town in the heart of a major metropolitan area and it’s by far the smallest town I’ve ever lived in as an adult. The town truly has a small town feel and has all the small town shenanigans that go with it. I sometimes forget there two cities that touch our suburb that represent the 18th largest city in the nation and we’re part of the 16th largest metropolitan statistical area. Kinda weird.

We’ve traveled quite a bit since our world trip but we’ve chosen to stay in North America for a variety of reasons. We’ve been some incredible places: the Eastern Sierra’s in California, the Canadian Rockies, the Smoky Mountains, and the American southwest. We were lucky to find some new hikes that easily landed on our top hikes of all time:

the Gem Lakes / Mono Pass trail in the Eastern Sierras – incredible beauty
Eiffel Lake trail behind Moraine Lake in Canada – stunningly gorgeous with very few hikers with only one terrifying run-in with a bear
the Golden Wall trail at Red Canyon near Bryce Canyon Nation Park – a hidden gem with no other hikers with incredible scenery

During our travels we’ve also ran into some amazing seasonal, chance, or calendar events:

Canada Day on July 1st in Jasper was amazing
The Big Bay Boom in San Diego on July 4th was incredible
stunning fall colors at Smoky Mountains National Park
a desolate and serene bike ride through Zion Canyon
Spring bloom of field flowers in rural Texas
Rolling Thunder on Memorial Day in DC
Lava flow in Hawaii

It appears as though the pattern of Really Bad Things happening to people areas as we’re visiting or shortly after we visited has ended. I wrote about our luck in the post “End to Nomadic Life” where places we visited had horrible, horrible things happen to people around us, like:

the banks in Greece shutting down the day after we arrived in Greece – we were unaffected because foreigners were exempt from capital controls,
a human stampede in Shanghai occurring a block away from us on the Bund where 36 people died – we were safe because we were on a deck up on the fourth or fifth floor of our building, and
bad weather causing an avalanche killing quite a few hikers and guides while we were trekking – we were safe because we were in a valley over while we were trekking in Nepal.

The trend of Really Bad Things continued for a bit:

we pulled over while driving highway 1 in California to watch a small brush fire since Jac has ever seen a forest fire. Later we learned the fire turned into the Soberanes Fire where highways were closed for quite some time and people died,
we jumped a barrier on the Big Island to watch lava flow into the ocean and had a great time only to learn people were sent to the hospital a few hours later to recover from toxic air and shards of glass called “Pele’s Hair” falling from the sky due to a wind change,
part of Canada shut down shortly after we drove thru on our way between Banff and Vancouver due to fires,
and that’s about it that I can think of!

We’ve traveled to enough places without incident that I feel comfortable saying we’ve broken the trend. Our travels for about the last couple of years to the Smoky Mountains, Colorado, the American Southwest, Chicago, and San Diego have resulted in no mass injury or damage to the areas. A fresh breath of air :).

I decided to add a few photos to this post; just a handful of favorites from the last couple of years.

Enjoy the photos :).

Chris W.

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San Diego 2018

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I think it’s impossible to not love San Diego. Perfect weather, great food, wonderful sights, friendly people, and loads of sunshine.

The trip was off to a great start when we flew over the national parks we visits in the spring – Zion, Capitol Reef, Arches, etc. The parks were impressive enough from the ground so having the opportunity to see the parks from the air was nothing short of amazing.

Then, things became better.

Jac has family in San Diego, who are always wonderful to visit, and they happen to live near the beach. A short walk brought us to great restaurants, wonderful beaches, and extremely interesting people. We took advantage of our time in San Diego to get food that is hard to get in Minnesota – good classic donuts, Asian foods, NY style pizza from Bronx Pizza, and some great vegetarian food. I had something I’d never heard of: nitrogen charged coffee. I loved the coffee. It tastes a lot like a Guinness and since I don’t drink anymore it’s the closest thing I’ve had to a beer since drinking beer. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear as though this coffee related innovation has made it to Minnesota so I’ll have to deal :/.

We were in San Diego during the July 4^th holiday so we had a chance to see the Big Bay Boom fireworks. We had an absolutely incredible view of the fireworks because I found a random stranger willing to let us use her deck overlooking the bay. I had spent quite a bit of time looking for a good view of the fireworks and continually struggled to find a viewing location not overrun by people. The fireworks show is one of the largest in the nation and attracts people from all over the country so it was no surprise I had a hard time. In desperation I decided to use Google Maps / Google Earth and Airbnb to find an Airbnb host with an unobstructed view of the bay. I sent out a few requests and we were lucky a woman agreed to let us use her deck. She was so kind, asked for nothing in return, and had a $5mil view of the bay. We saw the best fireworks we’ve ever seen and is easily one of the greatest experiences we’ve ever had.

I miss traveling greatly, especially visiting lesser developed areas of the world. I feel an energy in open-air markets and communal gathering spots that is missing in developed countries. I thought it’d be great to visit Tijuana since we were close and had heard good stories. We decided to hire a tour guide since we had never been to Tijuana and don’t speak Spanish. We were completely surprised – we had great food, had a great time, and our tour guide was fantastic. Our guide was about our age, grew up in San Diego, went to college in San Diego for a liberal arts degree, and decided to move to Tijuana for better opportunities. Instead of entering the rat race for low wage type jobs for generic liberal arts degrees in the US he decided to start a walking tour business in Tijuana. Rent is cheap, food is incredibly cheap, and tourists are happy to pay $100 day in and day out for walking tours. While $100ish/day is nowhere near a livable wage in the San Diego area it is a phenomenal wage in Tijuana.

I’m an early riser and California is two hours behind central time so I was a really early riser. I found great enjoyment in drinking a pot and half of coffee while staring at that ocean and watching the world wake up. As others in the house woke up I further found great conversation and company. Complete relaxation.

San Diego-ians complain a lot about the “sunshine tax” with the high cost of living in the area. Wages for engineers in the area aren’t a whole lot different than wages in Minnesota but housing is way, way, way, way, WAY, more expensive. A one bedroom one bathroom apartment in San Diego is about the same, if not more, than what we pay for our entire mortgage, interest, insurance, and property taxes for a three bedroom, two bathroom, 2,000sqft house in a desirable neighborhood of the twin cities. Folks kept on telling us that we were lucky to live in a place with cheaper housing but I was quite to point out that they have a “sunshine tax” and we have a “quality of life” tax because going outdoors five months out of the year hurts our face due to the cold. No wonder things are cheaper here, why would anyone sane move here?

All-in-all, a wonderful trip. We had a great time and enjoyed every moment. Hard not to love San Diego :).

Enjoy the photos!

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Chris W.

San Diego Big Bay Boom 2018

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The San Diego Big Bay Boom 4th of July celebration was unlike anything we’ve seen before. We love fireworks, we’ve been to a lot of fireworks shows across the world, we actively seek out fireworks shows, and we’re really happy we had a chance to experience the San Diego Big Bay Boom.

We were extremely, extremely, fortunate to get help from a stranger; we came across an individual willing to share their amazing and unobstructed view of San Diego Bay just so we could see the incredible fireworks show in all of the show’s glory. Had we not received help from the stranger I’m sure our experience would have been severely diminished.

The fireworks show is large, four barges fire off fireworks for 18min across the bay and are synchronized with music. We were close enough to the fireworks to feel the ‘thud’ and hear the ricochet of explosions around the bay. There was an immense amount of fireworks used on the four barges during 18 minutes show and it was a visual delight. The backdrop of the San Diego skyline and the reflections on the water made the show all that much better. The Big Bay Boom is probably the best fireworks show we’ve ever been seen.

This fireworks show is up there with our incredible, yet random, fireworks experience in Quebec City and Happy Valley Racetrack in Hong Kong. For the Quebec firework show our Airbnb host asked us if we wanted to ‘see some fireworks’ and brought us to a cliffside overlook of one barge in the St. Lawrence Seaway firing fireworks for 25 minutes. To date, that firework show was the longest show we’ve even been to and had some beautiful displays during the 25 minutes. The second incredible fireworks experience occurred at a horse race track in Happy Valley Hong Kong. With tall buildings looming around the track we were surprised to witness a fireworks show in between races. We were standing near the horse track and it seemed like the fireworks were exploding right next to us. While nowhere near as long as the Big Bay Boom or the Quebec City fireworks show, the experience was amazing simply because it was so close.

The Big Bay Boom was truly astonishing. We’re so happy we had a chance to see the show unadulterated from a perfect viewpoint.

Enjoy the photos 🙂

Chris W.

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American Southwest 2018

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We had a wonderful two week trip through the American Southwest and saw some incredible scenery. The American Southwest is one of the last areas we’ve wanted to visit in the US since we’re not big into red rocks or desert so we’ve held off visiting the area until now. After our visit, I’ve changed my opinion a lot and look forward to visiting again, hopefully soon!

We drove a giant circle across Arizona and Utah visiting a ton of parks along the way (Petrified Forest NP, Canyon de Chelly NM, Monument Valley, Goosenecks SP, Arches NP, Deadhorse SP, Capitol Reef NP, Grand Staircase Escalante NM, Kodachrome SP, Bryce Canyon NP, Cedar Breaks NM, Zion NP, Grand Canyon NP) seeing incredible sights, eating incredible food, and enjoying spectacular weather.

It’s hard to describe the enormity of the sights. Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument is the perfect example – it’s a national monument / natural feature that has grand mesas and incredible 1,500ft monoclines climbing stepwise nearly 7,000ft over many miles. The Grand Canyon is just that – grand, and the other national / state parks we visited were equally enormous. The slot canyons, hodooos, mesas, buttes, monuments, ruins, petroglyphs, arches, mountain peaks, desert valleys, goosenecks, orchards, and crystal clear night skies were all incredible. No photo is capable of capturing the sheer size and beauty of the area. I tried, I really did, but I know the photos I took are not representative of the area and fail to portray the area accurately. The area is one of those places a person has to see in person.

The national parks were busy. Very busy. To cope, we did one of two things: we either altered our schedule to minimize the number of people we’d be around or we’d figure out alternate paths / alternate activities. As an example of altering our schedule: we chose to do a lot of early morning hiking. Seeing sunrise on Peek-a-boo trail in Bryce Canyon was an experience I can’t describe and is easily one of the best moments in hiking I’ve ever had. We started hiking when it was still rather dark and had hiked in solitude for about 45min in the dark / shade of the hoodoos before we rounded a corner to see a very large valley filled with vibrantly lit hoodoos from the early morning sun. The colors were amazing and the full body experience was exacerbated by the early morning stillness, early morning animals, and early morning smells. It was stunning. As we finished up our hike we saw humanity pouring into the canyon and it was loud. Screaming, yelling, music playing, and selfie taking made it a bit harder to enjoy the trail. I’m confident we would have greatly disliked hiking in Bryce if we would have hiked at a normal human time simply because the crush of humanity would also be enjoying the trails. Renting bicycles and riding around the canyon floor in Zion NP is the other example of finding alternate activities. Humanity is overrunning Zion – people, people, people everywhere so the national park service runs shuttles to minimize traffic in the canyon. I know there is about a 0% chance I’d cram myself into a tourist shuttle so I looked for alternate activities and found we could rent bicycles and bike wherever we wanted; sounded like a great alternative! Not only was it a great alternative, it’s one of the coolest things we’ve ever done! It felt like we had the canyon to ourselves! Since there was very little traffic we could bike wherever we wanted, it was super quiet, and it was stunningly beautiful. It was surreal knowing that there were a ton of people in Zion NP but that they were relegated to shuttles and wherever they decided to get off the shuttle. Had we not rented bikes I’m pretty sure we would have hated Zion since there were so many people.

Outside the national parks, the solitude was incredible. There were vast expanses where we didn’t see other vehicles or other people, didn’t see planes overhead, had zero cellphone signal, and didn’t hear or smell anything other than nature. For example: Red Canyon right next to Bryce Canyon NP. It’s not even a park but part of national forest surrounding Bryce NP. There are quite a few trails in the area so we decided to hike the area. We hiked in the middle of the day and chose a more popular trail, the Golden Wall trail. We didn’t see a single person, we didn’t hear any sounds of humanity, and only enjoyed nature. The sights were really similar to Bryce Canyon but no-one was around. The hike is one of the better hikes we’ve ever done in our entire lives.

We were chatting with the National Forest Service volunteer at the Red Canyon visitor center and she mentioned Highway 12 is “the second most beautiful drive in the world”. Highway 12 runs between Moab and Bryce Canyon NP and goes through Grand Staircase NM, Capitol Reef NP, and a lo of beautiful areas. We had driven on Highway 12 and thought it was quite pretty so we were a bit surprised to hear it’s the second most beautiful drive in the world. I asked her what the first most beautiful drive was and she said “Milford Sound in New Zealand”. Fortunately for us, we had driven that road when we could compare. I think Highway 12 in Utah was more beautiful only because we didn’t really like New Zealand :/. It’s interesting to think that Milford Sound is internationally known yet I had never heard of Highway 12 in Utah.

Speaking of national parks and national forests – I continually re-learn that there is a major difference in crowds visiting national parks and national forests. We’ve hiked, a lot, all over the country and I noticed a while back that the folks visiting national parks seemed to be more like city dwellers who wanted to see nature and have access to amenities like shops, rangers, informational walks, etc., and people who visited national forests for hiking seemed to be the type of people who, in general, want to enjoy hiking far away from others. It’s awesome people want to visit national parks; there’s literally nothing else like the US national park system we’ve seen in all of our travels. It’s truly a unique gem all Americans should take advantage of when possible.

This is the first year I’ve noticed something different about the crowds in the parks and other areas we were visiting. While extremely anecdotal, it seems as though the improving economy has brought a different part of society to the parks. Jac and I started visiting national parks in 2008 and witnessed firsthand the utter destruction the Great Recession had on the tourist areas around the parks starting in 2009. Seeing boarded up hotels, closed restaurants, and shut down tourist attractions was common place. This year I noticed far fewer shuttered businesses and noticed the parks were attracting families / individuals who looked different than the typical national park tourist and may have been a lower socio-economic class. It was exciting to see the folks – the recession was awful and disproportionately awful to the lower socio-economic classes so it’s my hope my observations mean the recovery has worked its way to all classes of society. If my observation is true then the recovery sure took its sweet time.

We were surprised to find out the area has a lot of homemade pie options. It seemed as though every local restaurant we visited offered some sort of homemade pie ranging from the classic apple, peach, etc., to the more adventurous mountain berry and summer fruits mix. This all started at Capitol Reef National Park. I had read that one of the gift shops sold homemade pie inside the park – which I thought was very strange. I had read that tourists needed to show up a bit early to make sure they were able to get pie, even in March / April, since they tended to sell out. First, I don’t recall homemade items ever really being sold inside a national park. Second, Capitol Reef NP is in the middle of nowhere, seriously, look at a map of the US to find a big city in the area and then look at a population density map, there’s nearly nothing in the area. So, we set off early from Moab and arrived in Capitol Reef NP a bit after 10ish or so. We found they were selling small personal pies in the park so bought one pie as a test quickly discovering we needed seven more. From there on out, I think we had pie with every meal and pie at night before we went to bed. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much pie!

Without planning, it seems our timing was right for a lot of things:

we weren’t snowed on, at all, unlike what happened to individuals we know who traveled the area a couple weeks before us,
the Milky Way was out in the early morning and we ended getting some great Milky Way photos,
our driver for the Monument Valley sunrise tour happened to know an incredible amount about photography and taught me a massive amount about night photography in about half of an hour,
the fruit trees in Capitol Reef NP were in bloom and it was beautiful,
the road to Cedar Breaks NM just opened for the year while we were in the area and the sunset we watched in solitude was incredible,
our gravel / dirt road driving went without a hitch since it hadn’t rained in some time and everything is solid,
we were able to get a tour of the Glen Canyon dam,

Despite having grown up in an arid climate I had forgotten how bad static electricity can get. I live in Minnesota now, rarely do I ever build up enough static electricity to shock myself or anyone else. Being high in the mountains and in the arid climate reminded me so much where I grew up; it only took a couple of days to get the metal touching habit back to top of mind so I could dissipate smaller amounts of static electricity frequently instead of getting a few doozies J.

Lastly, the food was great; not just the desserts, real food too. We had some extremely delicious Mexican food and it was awesome to get Indian tacos again. I had Indian tacos a lot in school growing up and I’ve come to find most folks in Minnesota have no idea what an Indian taco is or where to get one. One of the best meals we had was an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet in Moab after a long day hiking around Arches NP; we made out like bandits on that deal.

Overall, this trip went well above our expectations. I can’t wait to go back!

Enjoy the photos –

Chris W.

Short album:

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Long album:

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Texas Spring 2018

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My work sent me to Texas at the right time of year – the spring wildflowers were in bloom! It was amazing to see fields and fields of flowers. I had no idea spring bloom was a thing in rural Texas and it was serendipitous I was in the region at the right time. In many ways it felt like all the different places we’ve been in the world at the right time to see once-in-a-year or rare events – like cherry blossoms in Japan and Washington DC, fall colors in the Smoky Mountains, Canada Day in Jasper, being in Alaska for the once nice week of beautiful sunny weather, visiting Romania when elderberries are in bloom so we could drink elderberry lemonade, International Fireworks Competition in Quebec City, the banks being shut down in Greece, being in Hawaii for the Jacarandas in bloom and the lava in flow, and so on. It was really special to see the bloom!

Rural Texas is a strange place. It’s flat, generally not interesting, kinda run down, but there are surprises. From amazing food located in the middle of nowhere to interesting archeological sites, Texas seems to have something for everyone. There’s a new-ish national monument in Waco dedicated to the Columbian Mammoths. We had a bit of downtime so a colleague and I went to the site – it was pretty interesting!

All in all, it was a good trip.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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Smoky Mountains 2017

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The Smoky Mountains were spectacular. Of all our travels, of all the places we’ve been, of all the cool things we’ve seen, the Smoky Mountains in fall is up there with some of the most beautiful scenery we’ve ever seen. I think the photos turned out well but really didn’t do the area the justice it deserves. Absolutely stunning.

Jac and I have never been big fans of the southern US so we’ve never traveled to the area. My work sent me to Tennessee so I figured I’d bring Jac along and we’d hit up the Smoky Mountains. We spent most of our time in small towns and were pleasantly surprised to a point where it didn’t really feel like we were in the US. For example:

Walking at my normal speed I found I was the one walking the fastest and it seemed like most everyone deferred to me and moved out of the way. It was weird to see people clearing out of my way while walking on sidewalks, thru doorways, and even in Dollar Generals. It was strange!
Being called ‘hon’ or seeing my wife called ‘sweetie’ by waitstaff was strange. That type of pleasantry would never be extended in Minnesota and would likely result in very cross-looks if it occurred.
The general niceness – I pulled into a McDonald’s parking lot early in the morning and the person in the vehicle next to me greeted me and told me, ‘good morning’. Some random guy. Weird!
The food was fantastic. We had a chance to try some fantastic BBQ, wonderful cajun, and other local specialties. We had great NY style pizza from a pizzaria of a former New Yorker – it was awesome to say the least. Since I don’t really eat meat I was relegated to vegetarian options on the menus which usually contained an immense amount of cheese.
Things seemed to be cheaper. Whether it was admission prices, food prices, or general activity costs, it seemed to be cheaper in the Smoky Mountains versus elsewhere in our travels.
We’ve been on a lot of cave tours around the US and the world and there are universal rules: don’t touch stuff, don’t eat stuff, don’t drink stuff. That universal rule didn’t apply at Tuckalechee Caverns where the staff encouraged visitors to touch the formations, swim in the cave water, and even drink the cave water!
The LTE was the slowest LTE I’ve ever experienced – shockingly slow, unlike everywhere in the US.
The Smoky Mountains National Park takes the cake for worst labeling of features, trail heads, and other points of interest. I’ve never seen anything else like it at a national park in the US. Normally, park maps are very good, everything is marked out in the park, and it’s super easy to find stuff. Not so with the Smoky Mountains National Park!

I took a ton of photos during our visit. Our Airbnb had a great view over the park and we had some fantastic sunrises. There’s a ton of photos in the album and, like I said, the photos don’t do the park justice. It was incredible to be in and around the park during peak fall colors.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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Colorado 2017

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It’s become a tradition to visit Colorado over Labor Day and go hiking with my brother. We returned to the same area as last year and hiked a loop of lakes on the Glacier Gorge Trail in Rocky Mountain National Park.

One new habit Jac and I started is bringing something sweet on the trail to eat at the turnaround point; there’s nothing tastier than a nice sweet treat while hiking and it’s fun to sit in nature while snacking on something very delicious. Most people bring things like trail mix, protein bars, fruit, and other stuff but Jac and I bring things like doughnuts. I’ve never understood why someone would settle for something like trail mix or protein bars when doughnuts are available!

So, I was telling my brother about our hiking habit and my brother suggested bringing Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Since we don’t have Krispy Kreme doughnuts in Minnesota I figured it was only prudent.

Like last time, we woke up super early and and headed out. On the way to the tailhead we stopped by a 24hr Krispy Kreme and somehow ended up with a dozen doughnuts for the two of us. We were able to reached the trailhead well before dawn and were able to witness an absolutely magnificent sunrise due to all the forest fire smoke; the sky was so hazy I was able to use my zoom lens to see sun spots!

The air quality in Denver from the forest fires was pretty bad, like India / China bad. The PM2.5 particulates were deeply in the ‘unhealthy’ territory. I think it’s probably the worst air pollution I’ve been in since the world trip – I don’t miss it!

All in all, it was a great visit, a fantastic hike, and a I had a blast. It’s kind of hard not to have a good time since Colorado is awesome.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris

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Summer in Minnesota 2017

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It’s no secret I dislike Minnesota. In fact, I generally tell anyone who will listen how much I would enjoy living elsewhere. While Minnesota has a lot of great attributes like: innovative job market, STEM opportunities, foods from around the world, pragmatic state and local leadership, and a fairly good standard of living; the weather is awful and the state is flatter than Kansas. Being cooped up indoors six months out of the year is tough and having no where good to hike is worse. My wife doesn’t seem to really care but she grew up here so I don’t really trust her opinion on the matter.

So, I’ve been trying to make the best of it since the world trip as it’s apparent we’ll be living here for the indefinite future.

This summer has been the best summer of all the summers we’ve lived in Minnesota. We’ve made it a point to go hiking at nearby parks, we’ve gone to a ton of cultural events like Little Mekong Night Market, Polish Fest, and Latino Fest, the Capitol Building Grand Re-oepning, we’ve found ways to spend time outdoors in our yard, and we’ve managed to start growing a lot of beautiful flowers. We are lucky we have events where the locals feel compelled to launch fireworks and we’ve had some spectacular shows to watch. Our little town we live in is great, and we have tried to make it to all the local events – including the water treatment plant facility open house!

As it turns out, summer isn’t so bad in Minnesota. Maybe my dislike of Minnesota is unfounded but I am still grateful we have a major international airport nearby :).

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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