Hiking

Cataract Falls, Great Smoky Mountains NP, Tennessee

Having recently talked about our parents' weekend with one son in West Virginia, I feel compelled to give equal billing to the other, a student at University of Tennessee in Knoxville, TN. Our trip to Tennessee was similar in structure, but different in detail. First off, it takes a lot longer for us to get…Read more Cataract Falls, Great Smoky Mountains NP, Tennessee

Washington With Bones, Part 5 – North To The Cascades, via Seattle

The night was chilly. It was the only night we actually had a normal RV power station available, so we made use of the adapter we'd brought and had an electric space heater going all night. It turned out to be very welcome, as the temperature got down to between 40 and 45 deg F.…Read more Washington With Bones, Part 5 – North To The Cascades, via Seattle

Washington With Bones – Part 4B: Leaving Paradise

Having spent the morning hiking around and getting various views of Rainier, we had worked up an appetite, so we popped over the ridge, just downhill from Paradise, to the Paradise Picnic Area. This was very conveniently placed for us, though it put us among the trees and out of sight of the summit. Paradise…Read more Washington With Bones – Part 4B: Leaving Paradise

Washington With Bones – Part 4A: Mt. Rainier From Paradise

The morning of Day 4 (Tuesday) dawned cool and foggy. It had gotten down to about 45 deg the night before, enough to prompt an extra layer in Bones to stay warm. The fog had settled into the little creek valley and plunged our campsite into low visibility mist. We'd had no more visitation or…Read more Washington With Bones – Part 4A: Mt. Rainier From Paradise

Washington With Bones – Part 3: Hoh Rainforest

The Hoh Rainforest gets an average of 140 inches of rain every year. That's more than 3 times as much as stereotypically rainy Seattle, only 100 miles away, gets. The Olympic Range catches all the moisture coming in off the Pacific and dumps it onto the westward slopes, generating the famous temperate rainforests, of which…Read more Washington With Bones – Part 3: Hoh Rainforest

Washington With Bones – Part 2C: Sol Duc and Rialto Beach

It had already been a long day by the time we navigated the windy road down off Hurricane Ridge and traveled, once again, along the south shore of Lake Crescent. The lake is beautiful, but I was really starting to feel stuck in this one little area. We'd been back and forth along this stretch…Read more Washington With Bones – Part 2C: Sol Duc and Rialto Beach

Washington With Bones – Part 2B: Hurricane Ridge

Leaving Marymere Falls, we headed back out toward Port Angeles to visit the destination we didn't have time for the day before - Hurricane Ridge. It's a commonly visited spot, at the end of the main National Park access road out of Port Angeles, but it's popular for a reason, and even though it represented…Read more Washington With Bones – Part 2B: Hurricane Ridge

Washington With Bones – Part 2A: Marymere Falls

Before I get into this update, a note: Now that we were fully immersed in this trip, things got busy - so I'm going to break days into individual locations and hikes for the sake of utility and the ability to do each part justice without making these posts overly long. As is typically the…Read more Washington With Bones – Part 2A: Marymere Falls

Washington With Bones – Part 1: Arrival, Olympic

There's one advantage to getting up at 3am to catch an early flight from the US east coast to the west coast. Time zones work to your advantage in this direction, so you can make this trip and still arrive before local lunch time, leaving plenty of time to get a half-day in to start…Read more Washington With Bones – Part 1: Arrival, Olympic

A Week In Washington With “Bones” – Campervan Adventures Across Three National Parks (Intro)

I had the blessed opportunity to take a week off from doom-scrolling and posting to the internet last week. We spent the time off grid, out of range of the mobile towers, exploring Olympic, Mt. Rainier, and North Cascades National Parks, and all the various State and National Forests that surround them (Olympic, Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie,…Read more A Week In Washington With “Bones” – Campervan Adventures Across Three National Parks (Intro)

Calvert Cliffs, MD (Sept 1, 2025)

This past week has been absolutely gorgeous through the Mid-Atlantic. An early glimpse of fall, the temps have been low, the humidity non-existent. There's a hint of a chill in the air, and certain trees seem to suddenly have gotten the cue to start changing color (though, this is almost certainly more due to water…Read more Calvert Cliffs, MD (Sept 1, 2025)