US National Parks
All US national parks and NPS-administered sites
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A winter encampment – Valley Forge National Historical Park, Pennsylvania
Despite our best efforts, we moved away from the east coast with quite a few things left on our east coast to-do list. We just ran out of time to see everything. But we usually head back at least once a year for one reason or another. This year, it was for a wedding. As… Continue reading
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Rocky Mountain National Park Hikes: Two Rivers Lake & Lake Helene
We haven’t had a lot of luck with this hike. The first time, we began our hike under blue skies, but as soon as we sat down at Lake Helene to eat a snack it began to rain. Between the precipitation and the low-hanging clouds obscuring the mountains, it wasn’t very enjoyable and we couldn’t… Continue reading
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Nuclear science & history at Manhattan Project National Historical Park – Los Alamos, New Mexico
Well, we’ve finally reached the end of Thanksgiving in New Mexico. After four nights in Albuquerque and one night in Santa Fe, we headed north to Los Alamos for the final three days of our trip. The first two were spent visiting Bandelier and Valles Caldera, leaving the final day to hang around town. Like… Continue reading
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Life inside a volcano – Valles Caldera National Preserve, New Mexico
Last week, I wrote all about Bandelier National Monument, which protects the cliffs, canyons, and Ancestral Puebloan ruins south of Los Alamos, New Mexico. This landscape was created by the two massive eruptions of a nearby volcano more than 1 million years ago. After the final eruption the volcano collapsed, leaving behind a caldera 14… Continue reading
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Pueblos and petroglyphs – Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico
“The grandest thing I ever saw” – Adolph Bandelier, archaeologist Nestled in Frijoles Canyon, which has been carved into the Pajarito Plateau, is an 800-year-old pueblo called Tyuonyi. Tyuonyi (pronounced KYU-weh-nee, and no, that’s not a typo; it’s been three months, and my brain still struggles with seeing a T and having to make a… Continue reading
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Indigenous inscriptions – Petroglyph National Monument, New Mexico
Located on the western edge of Albuquerque, New Mexico, hidden amongst the jumbled landscape, are more than 20,000 (not a typo!) historic rock carvings called petroglyphs. This area is part of the Rio Grande rift, formed over millions of years by the movement of tectonic plates. This rift stretches from central Colorado to central New… Continue reading
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Bad country – El Malpais National Monument, New Mexico
Day 2 of our New Mexico road trip was somewhat of a failure in planning. I did plan. I planned a lot. Too much, in fact. And had it been July, with 14 hours of daylight and the endless motivation that can only be found during summer, we might have pulled it off. But in… Continue reading
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A smattering of New Mexico history
Thanksgiving road trip has become somewhat of a tradition for us. We can both usually get some time off work, and it turns out November is a pretty good time of year to travel around the southwestern US. After spending the previous two Thanksgivings in Utah, we decided to mix things up a little this… Continue reading
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Rocky Mountain National Park Hikes: Lake Haiyaha
Up until June 2022, Lake Haiyaha looked like this. On June 28, 2022, there was a rockslide on the mountainside above Lake Haiyaha. On this peaceful, sunny morning, a large section of the landscape broke free and began to tumble down Chaos Canyon. Rocks ranging in size from small pebbles to apartment-sized boulders began to… Continue reading
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Rocky Mountain National Park Hikes: Upper Glacier Gorge Lakes
You know how sometimes you’ve been wanting to do something for so long and you’ve built it up in your head, and then you finally get to do it and it’s not as amazing as you were hoping, and you end up being really disappointed? This was not that. It was, however, something I’d been… Continue reading
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Rocky Mountain National Park Hikes: CCY Route
The CCY Route – named for the three sequential summits of Mount Chapin, Mount Chiquita, and Ypsilon Mountain – is a pretty but challenging hike in the lesser-traveled Mummy Range of Rocky. Completing this hike means you’ll bag three summits in one day. However, to do so you have to climb up and over and… Continue reading
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Rocky Mountain National Park Hikes: Chasm Lake… again
Chasm Lake is, hands down, the best hike in Rocky. I’ve hiked a lot of trails in the park over the past four years, and I keep waiting for another hike to come along and dethrone this one, but that has yet to happen. I’m fairly certain it never will. This past August was actually… Continue reading
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How to get married in a national park
I was never the girl who planned every detail of her dream wedding. Or any detail, for that matter. I didn’t have a dream wedding. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I always envisioned getting married in the mountains. So when we first started planning our wedding – which was supposed to be… Continue reading
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Montana road trip 2022, part II: a somber visit to Big Hole National Battlefield
On August 7, 1877, a band of approximately 750 Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) arrived in the Big Hole Valley, known to them as Iskumtselalik Pah or ‘Place of the Buffalo Calf.’ They were fleeing the US Army. For over 20 years, the US government had been stealing their land, which once stretched from western Montana to… Continue reading
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Rafting the Arkansas River through Browns Canyon National Monument
The final day of our Memorial weekend trip was upon us, which meant one thing: whitewater rafting time! We were signed up for a full-day trip on the Arkansas River with Noah’s Ark Rafting. I booked this trip back in January, at which time I debated between Saturday or Sunday and joked that, no matter… Continue reading
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Pioneers on the Plains – Fort Laramie National Historic Site, Wyoming
Ask anyone who has ever gone on a road trip with me, and they’ll tell you I planned far more things than we could possibly fit into the time we had. They wouldn’t be lying. I’m not exactly what you’d call a relaxed vacationer. But every once in a while – usually accidentally – I… Continue reading
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Colorado National Monument
I was sorting through some old posts on here recently and stumbled across this one from a few years ago about my previous trip to Colorado National Monument. I imagine many of you can relate to the cringey feeling you get when you read something you wrote so many years ago. And, of course, the… Continue reading
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Rocky Mountain National Park Hikes: Cub Lake
The Cub Lake trail is one we neglected for years. It wasn’t intentional. It just never seemed to be at the top of my list. In the summer, I prefer to take advantage of the nice weather and hike in the tundra. In the spring, this trail is a muddy mess. And shortly after I… Continue reading
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Rocky Mountain National Park Hikes: winter at Sky Pond… again
Is it possible to hike a trail too many times? In some cases, the answer to that question might be ‘yes.’ When the hike in question is Sky Pond, though, and it’s wintertime, I would argue that the answer is very clearly ‘no.’ Back in December 2020, we hiked to Sky Pond with our friends.… Continue reading
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Rocky Mountain National Park Hikes: Wind River/Glacier Basin Loop
Normally I’m excited for snowy mountains and frozen alpine lakes and snowshoeing, but this past winter I had trouble locating my enthusiasm. It might have been because winter took its sweet time arriving in Colorado. The mountains ended the year with snowpack that was far below normal, and it didn’t actually snow on the plains… Continue reading