Category Nature
Rapid City to Missoula
This third leg of the journey — from Rapid City, South Dakota, to Missoula, Montana — was the longest yet. That was largely my own fault. After a 16-hour slog the day before, the predicted 10-hour drive seemed like nothing. Hey, I thought, why not relax a bit and soak up some of the local […]
Chicago to Rapid City
For some reason I thought that spring had arrived and this trip across America would not involve white-knuckle driving through blizzards. Maybe that’s because I’ve been spending time in DC and Seattle, where we’ve already hit the second round of flowering shrubs and bulbs and most trees are basically leafed out. Not so in these […]
Perfect weekend
There will be a special place in hell reserved for people who schedule moves away from DC during the springtime. [Er . . . hold on . . . I’m the one who scheduled this move. Let’s start again.] Whoever invented DC in the springtime deserves an award. Like, an Oscar for “best pairing of city and […]
Weekend in Colorado
Following closely on the heels of my trip to Seattle, I flew out to Colorado for some meetings at the US Olympic Committee. The USOC is based in Colorado Springs, which is only an hour south of Denver. Naturally I took advantage of the adjacent weekend to explore the area and play with Amanda and […]
Lake Tahoe
Today Lady and I drove over to Squaw Valley and Lake Tahoe. The weather couldn’t have been better — bright and sunny, not much of a breeze. The snow-covered mountains sparkled white, and the sky and lake were a deep, rich blue. I knew Lake Tahoe was supposed to be beautiful, but I hadn’t expected this. […]
Beach camping (Part II)
Waking up to a clear, late-summer morning on the beach is a glorious thing. Especially when your earplugs and sparkly Moroccan blanket made for a long and deliciously comfortable night of sleep. Amy kept laughing at all the jingling. It was a little like Christmastime… The metal grocery cart is another trapping of my “urban […]
Beach camping (Part I)
Okay, so, last weekend. I told you it was a fun one; now I finally have a minute to get it down in words and photos. It started with a long bike ride on Saturday. At that point, I was two weeks away from a 100-miler, and my training was woefully down. There were plenty of […]
Mudslides and peach cobbler
On Friday morning Mark and I drove up north to go hiking around Blue Lake and have lunch in McCall, Idaho. He didn’t have class or work, and the weather was perfect; I was looking forward to a fun day in Nature with my brother. Only we didn’t get there. Roughly half-way between Boise and […]
Hue to Danang to Saigon
Today was one of those transitional days where the bulk of the time is spent in transit from one stage of the trip to the next. In this case, we went from Hue (technically part of North Vietnam, though only just barely) back to Danang (on the other side of the North/South line, and the […]
Hoi An – Relaxing on the beach? Check.
I don’t really do “sit on the beach and relax” vacations. To date my maximum has been about four days, after which I went crazy and had to run up a mountain. You know, to accomplish something. So it’s kind of perfect that I’m traveling with Vanessa, who has an equally low tolerance for so-called “relaxation” (and […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 