Remember 2019? Me neither. Let’s fix that (for August-December, anyway).
travels
St. Thomas and Virgin Islands National Park
Right before December concluded, we flew down to St. Thomas, exited the American Airlines 737, walked a few paces across the tarmac, showed some locals our negative Covid test results on my wife’s phone, and entered the Cyril E. King airport. We’d escaped the continental United States for the first […]
Camping and Ziplining at Guntersville State Park
Just over 2 hours from Atlanta is a state park in Alabama a few minutes from where my parents live, and since we had a Screaming Eagle Aerial Adventures rain check (more accurately, a “torrential, lightning-filled, and utterly destructive storm” check) left from Fathers Day weekend, we used it in […]
Columbus Day weekend on the Golden Isles
Every year since passing the Georgia Bar in 2004, I’ve attended the annual workers’ compensation continuing legal education seminar at Saint Simons Island, with the only exception being 2007, when I was keeping you comfortably sleeping under that blanket of freedom you enjoy every night whilst I got mortared over […]
more Covid Camping near Atlanta
My Eagle scout friend Jody (whose ceremony I attended nearly 30 years ago) planned a family camping trip to Cloudland Canyon State Park in northwest GA for his birthday weekend, so being a good friend, I invited myself (plus my 3 children, wife, and dog) to join. We enjoyed it […]
our rockin’ road trip through Muscle Shoals and Memphis
We saw the film “Muscle Shoals” earlier in the summer and decided we needed to go, much like we did with Yosemite after “Free Solo” last summer. On Friday of Labor Day weekend, we headed west on I-20 to Alabama. We pulled off I-65 in Cullman to see something I’d […]
a weekend in Chicago during Covid
I haven’t flown on a non-Delta aircraft in over a decade, but when a travel newsletter I get said American had round-trip flights to Chicago for $49 a few months ago, I bought 5 for the weekend of Sept. 11. Why that date and that city? In 1997, I graduated […]
Zion National Park
I have a National Parks bucket list, and hiking The Narrows and Angels Landing at Zion National Park have been near the top of said list for at least as long as there’s been an Instagram. We concluded our tour of the Utah National Parks with visiting my most anticipated […]
Bryce Canyon National Park during Covid-19
I’ve had some amazing experiences at the 33 U.S. National Parks I’ve visited: rock climbing in Yosemite, biking through snow above the Grand Canyon, paddling under snakes at Congaree, hearing a ceremonial flute serenade at Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde. At Bryce Canyon, however, I had 2 experiences that rival […]
Socially Distant Utah at Capitol Reef National Park
We awoke at Capitol Reef, Utah’s least visited of its 5 national parks, and had a lousy breakfast at Pioneer Kitchen before going by the visitor center for junior ranger workbooks and hiking the 2.25-miles-each-way Grand Wash trail in the bottom of a canyon with 800′ sandstone walls. It was […]