On Tuesday of spring break 2018, we awoke in downtown Richmond and arrived just after 9am at Tredegar Iron Works to see the national park service visitor’s center, so the children could get yet another junior ranger badge whilst we toured where the CSS Virginia (FKA the “USS Merrimack”) was […]
We’d barely finished our “Easter eggs Benedict” and put away the chocolate wrappers littering the den area rug when the 5 of us loaded up in my car to head up I-85 north for a Spring Break road trip of national parks in Virginia and the Carolinas. We were still […]
We arose at 4:20am, quickly donned winter coats, and headed out for the winding uphill climb to Haleakala Observatory. We parked the car at 5:30am and walked to the observation tower; it was 20-something degrees outside and windy, but we were determined to experience the famous Haleakala sunrise. Unfortunately, the […]
For over 30 years, I’ve wanted to ride in one of those “air boat” (or is it a “fan boat”?) things in shallow water, dodging alligators like a slalom skier with the wind blowing in my face. Last July, we drove from Atlanta to Florida Everglades National Park to do […]
We left Atlanta on December 27th and headed north, stopping for soul food at Southern Star in Chattanooga, our borrowed Kia Sedona packed for 1,000 miles of exploration across the Bluegrass State. A couple hours later, we were peeing at the Kentucky Welcome Center off I-65, and 45 minutes after […]
Rather than fly home to Atlanta and then go to Philly the next day, we changed our flight “home” to go straight to Philadelphia, landing at midnight on Friday night (thanks to a delay at JFK), June 16. Why end a vacation with another vacation? In a word, Bono. I’d […]
After our 3 days in Disney parks and L.A., we took our Kia Sedona for a 1000-mile road trip to explore some of the natural beauty of southern California, starting with Channel Islands National Park. Have you ever been to Channel Islands National Park? No? You should fix that. We […]
My bride convinced me to register as a potential chaperone for our 5th grader’s field trip a few months ago, and I forgot about it, because she said lots of folks register for this privilege, but what I shouldn’t have forgotten is that I’m really lucky and win stuff from […]
After we left Santa Fe at noon on Wednesday, January 4, the objective was to follow I-40 to Oklahoma City. This was to be the longest “pure driving” day of our trip, so we’d hoped to start early (but the lure of Meow Wolf was too great–and it was worth […]
We entered New Mexico via I-40 east after our travels through Arizona on Monday, January 2. We passed Albuquerque, and my eldest let her American Girl doll, Saige, wave out the window to her hometown, but our destination was Santa Fe. Dinner was at Sazón, which I only found because […]