Tag Archives: Mountains

SoDak – Fall 2025

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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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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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 – 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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Oregon 2023

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Our summer vacation was in Oregon and it was super fun to visit Bend, Cannon City, and, Portland again. We last visited the areas like a decade ago and it was neat to re-visit some of our favorites and explore new areas.

Bend was neat. This time we didn’t hike South Sister, thank goodness, but we did visit Sparks Lake and see a stellar sunrise. Hiking around the area and visiting Newberry Volcanic National Monument was super fun too.

Catching Cannon City a bit after sunrise was pretty special. Seeing the early morning clouds burn off and hanging out on the beach while the tourist world wakes up was fun. Since Oregon is two hours different than Minnesota we found ourselves waking up crazy early to go do things. We aren’t really ocean people so we didn’t really go into the water but playing AROUND the ocean, hiking around the ocean, and visiting the little tourist shops in the quaint tourist town turned out to be quite a bit of fun.

We had a blast in Portland. The food trucks were fabulous, the nearby hikes were accessible and easy for us to do as a family, the weather was great, Tilamook / Umpqua ice cream was STELLAR, and, I learned the incredible joy of shopping at Winco where everything is so cheap even Arizona Iced Tea is only $0.78. Eating the fresh fruit from the Hood River Fruit Loop tour and engorging ourselves on fresh Rainier Cherries, a cherry which is really difficult to get in Minnesota, was wonderful.

Honestly, what I was expecting in Portland was far different than what we experienced. It feels silly to write now but I had expected the city of Portland to be a lot more lawless and filled with homeless than what it actually was. It turned out to be exactly as I had remembered my prior visits to Portland. The issues plaguing many large cities due to COVID / COVID lockdowns, policing / policing response, and proliferation of drugs. News, “news”, and social media have been filled with content about how dangerous cities are and Portland was commonly referenced as one of the lawless places just like Minneapolis. It turns out it was all bullshit. Downtown Portland was fine for us. Sure, we weren’t out at night and we weren’t trying to involve ourselves in drug deals so maybe we just weren’t part of the lawlessness scene during this visit.

The weather was perfect for us. So perfect we were thinking about moving to the area. Then it rained for like three days straight so we looked up how much sunshine the area gets. Amazingly, it’s cloudier in Portland than it is in Minneapolis, and, I think it’s really cloudy in Minneapolis. Yikes.

That’s about it. Lots of photos of hiking. We had a wonderful time and look forward to going back! Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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Summer around the USA 2023

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Quite the traipsing around the USA this summer – in a handful of weeks I visited rural Alabama, New York City, Dallas/Fort Worth, and, Houston.

I was shocked with how absolutely beautiful north east Alabama was – the waterfalls, hiking, and, other geographical features were so much fun to enjoy. I was in Alabama for work but there was some down time so we went hiking, I feel so fortunate because I don’t think I’ve ever heard ANYONE say “Alabama is mountainous and beautiful.” Once again, I enjoyed being the rural parts of the USA where things are made. It was fun to chit-chat with the locals, learn about the area, and enjoy their hometowns. I had no idea the Talladega Forest was so beautiful and mountainous. It was very special to have the chance to go through. The food was great, the hospitality was great, and, the scenery was great too! I actually want to go through north east Alabama again some day.

New York City, Dallas / Fort Worth, and Houston all happened in a whirlwind and was all work related. I’ve been to all these places in the past but this time was a bit different. The forest fire smoke plaguing the twin cities was in New York City too. It made for some rather beautiful sunsets and was a neat juxtaposition for the skyline. I spent quite a bit of time walking in NYC – I walked the Brooklyn Bridge, walked around Chinatown, and, even managed to walk into LaGuardia international airport. I think LaGuardia might be the only international airport I’ve ever visited where a person can walk into the airport. I thought my google maps directions were wrong but then I saw others walking into the airport and figured, “why not?”.

Walking the Brooklyn Bridge was a surreal experience. Last time I walked the bridge it was 2013 or so, and, my trip to NYC wasn’t work related so I had more time to goof around. Individuals taking selfies and generating other social media content on the bridge is extremely common now; so common it’s impossible to NOT be in someone’s photo / video / post. It was surprisingly difficult to walk across the bridge and get around everyone taking pictures and videos of themselves. Oh well. Chinatown was neat. I really wanted to get some real Chinese food and thought I picked an a good restaurant. Whatever I ordered ended up being unpalatable. Kind of surprising considering the ratings. Eating the delicious NYC pizza multiple times was absolutely fabulous – it was sooooo wonderful to eat actual, delicious, yummy, NYC pizza.

Texas was Texas and boy was Texas hot. Every time I walked outside it felt like I was getting hit in the face with hot oven air when checking cookies. It was uncomfortable. The BBQ was so fabulous and I finally visited a Bucee’s. I had no idea Bucee’s was more than a gas station, it’s like a destination. It’s possible to get just about anything in a Bucee’s, and, I found the holy grail in Bucee’s – they make their own banana pudding. HOLY SHITBALLS it was wonderful.

I ended up making a spontaneous trip to Houston because Delta Airlines is a terrible airline and cancelled my flight. It turns out the only real way for me to get back around the time I was supposed to get back to Minnesota from my work trip was by driving five hours from DFW to Houston. It sucks being locked in a Delta hub because this is about the 1,000th issue I’ve had with Delta, and, while I fly a lot with Delta, I don’t fly enough with Delta for Delta to care about me.

So that’s about it. The work trips were pretty great! It’s wonderful to shoehorn in some sightseeing when traveling for work, it makes it all worth it.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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Phoenix / Tucson 2023

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We went to Arizona this year and missed the coldest stretch of weather in Minnesota. Once again, we were super lucky. But it is not about going to Arizona, it is about escaping the cold.

Phoenix is a neat place to visit. We stayed in Tempe near the Salt River and it was a great spot – easy to get anywhere in any direction due to the access to the highways. We ended up hiking quite a bit in and around Phoenix. The Phoenix Mountain Preserve turned out to be a stellar place to hike. It’s amazing to me a place with “make your adventure in difficulty” for hiking exists in a metro area like that – it took all of 15 minutes to drive to the trail head and the place didn’t get old even though we went to the same preserve multiple times. We did three different hikes in three different areas but it’s still the same park. Pretty neat.

The restaurants were fun. There was the very first “Waffle House in the early morning” experience for some of the travelers because our hotel didn’t start breakfast until 9AM our local time. I’ve been to Waffle Houses during my work travels so it was fun to have the Waffle House experience with others. In the search for good Mexican / tamales we ended up going to the same restaurant we visited back in 2018. The place was exactly the same and as delicious as we remembered.

We went to Phoenix last year too. This experience was quite a bit different because the COVID restrictions are nearly gone and the ‘new normal’ is in effect. For example: masks were not required nearly anywhere, restaurants were substantially more expensive, hotel service and hotel services were still extremely limited. What’s wild is the COVID response is pretty much over everywhere and we have just accepted the changes.

We saw many sunrises and sunsets this year – different than last year. For whatever reason, we didn’t really watch the sunrises or sunsets last year. We missed out. They are spectacular in Arizona and especially beautiful in the Tucson area. It’s neat having unobstructed views, mountains to break the scenery, and light clouds to make for some absolutely stellar sunrises and sunsets. We did a few hikes to overlooks in time for sunrise but most sunrises and sunsets were done from a high-ish point we walked or drove to. 100% worth it.

We had a lot of fabulous hikes. There are a ton of easy hikes and there are a ton of hikes where people regularly die due to the difficulty. It’s a ‘make your own adventure’ type of region for hiking. So it worked out very well for us – we had chances to hike in the morning and afternoons and both were great for different reasons. The biggest surprise I had was hiking in the superstitions at the First Water trailhead, walking into a fairly deep canyon, and encountering plants with dewcicles. It was a bit chilly but it was surprising to find plants with dew to begin with and the dewcicles were a lot of fun to look at. We hiked multiple trails where we encountered running water or pools of water and it was a bit baffling – I just don’t expect to see running water in nature in these arid places.

We went to Tucson this year and Tucson is not a place I want to visit again any time soon. It is difficult to get anywhere, the things we can get to aren’t that great, and the city / region itself is a dump.

Driving in Tucson is the worst. I have been to 49 states, 42 countries, numerous cities and Tucson takes the cake:

It’s crap shoot whether I’ll be driving 10-20mph below or above the speed limit.
Turn signals are rarely used. Getting cut off is common. It is common to see vehicles take a hard right from the far left lane and cross a total of three lanes of traffic.
There is a lack of highways and freeways. Instead, there are a bunch of three lane roads going in every direction with a bunch of stoplights since they intersect a bunch of other three lane roads. This arrangement makes it possible to get stuck in traffic on a Sunday morning at 7:45AM. As the day progresses the traffic gets worse and it takes even longer to get anywhere.
It takes forever to get anywhere due to the above. Much like the place I grew, there are many ways to get anywhere I want to go but they all suck because whoever is responsible for urban planning / traffic / stop light timing was either completely absent or straight up suck at their jobs.
We even saw the city busses run red lights because they are sick of the BS.

The city / region itself is a dump. Dilapidated homes, businesses, and trash are everywhere. It’s astonishing. It’s hard to get away from people and enjoy nature. There seems to be a road, a building, octagarians, or, many other people around at all times. That could be due to the trails we picked – it takes forever to drive anywhere so the thought of driving even further and wasting more of my day in the car was motivation to pick closer trails?

There were three positives – the food was great and sunsets and sunrises are stupid beautiful, there’s a distinct lack of things blocking the view of the mountains so catching the sunrise and sunsets is quite the treat, and, the saguaro forest is one of a kind. The donuts there taste different – they aren’t super sugary and they aren’t super filling, it’s great. So far, it’s the best donuts I’ve had ever. From a distance, the saguaro forest is incredible and has an odd beauty. “These sorta look like trees, these should be trees, but these are not trees” was a common thought I had while hiking in the cactus forest. Close up, it was all pretty fugly – it’s a desert after all. We witnessed some amazing sunsets and sunrises; they were stunning and the 1,000s of other upper midwesterners we encountered agreed!

The number of people from Minnesota down here right now is wild. We regularly see Minnesotans. Makes sense considering it’s -15F in Minnesota right now.

Otherwise – I’ll probably never visit Tucson again, or I’ll change HOW I visit Tucson dramatically. It’s not great in Tucson.

I’m not sure if we’re headed back to the Phoenix are next year. We might try to switch it up. I would love to go back simply for the easy access to hiking but I am just one vote 🙂.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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