Posts from 2021

Stumbling onto Highway 61

As Julie and I roamed from Melbourne, FL to Oklahoma City, OK, we accidentally found ourselves in the middle of delta blues country.

My Take on The Beatles - Get Back

While still fresh in my mind I wanted to give some thoughts on the wonderful documentary The Beatles: Get Back. I first watched Let It Be, likely on Betamax,...

Golf at Southern Pines

My final day in the Sandhills area of NC was spent golfing at Southern Pines, a course recommended to me by my golf coach. This recommendation was made pri...

Golf at Talamore

My middle day of golf in the Southern Pines, NC area was at Talamore. This course was in the middle of the pack in terms of recommendations, but they are a...

Golf at Tobacco Road

I kicked off my Southern Pines, NC golf adventure with an early morning 18 hole walk at Tobacco Road, what some call “that crazy ass Mike Stranze design.” ...

Golf at the Schoolhouse Nine

I cajoled Julie into playing 9 holes with me at the Schoolhouse Nine in the shadows of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. This was a great choice for he...

Hiking Old Rag in Shenandoah National Park

Julie and I started our winding drive from Keuka Lake, NY to Melbourne, FL with a long hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains to the top of Old Rag. This was a c...

The National Park in our Backyard

Julie and I lived near Portland, OR for over 20 years and never visited Mount Rainier National Park. On our west coast swing we corrected that mistake and ...

Golfing at Bandon

Our next stop at wedding festivities in Napa was Oregon to see friends and take care of some business in Portland. So why not make a stopover at the southe...

Wedding v2 - the Reception

Our first big stop on our 7,000 mile adventure this summer was Napa, CA for the wedding reception for Jacob and Kaitlin. They were married a year ago on La...

So we bought a van!

After our amazing camper van adventures in southern Utah earlier this year Julie and I started to think an owned van might be in our future. We would casua...

Recent Gaming, July 2021 Edition

We started our hosting duties for summer 2021 at the start of July, hosting gaming-running-drinking friends from Oregon and Indiana. There’s so much to do ...

Hygiene Theater Permalink

In other words: You can put away the bleach, cancel your recurring Amazon subscription for disinfectant wipes, and stop punishing every square inch of cla...

How old is civilization? Permalink

The most startling aspect of these ruins is their age: that they are old enough to predate the consensus origin of human agriculture.  How were hundred...

Critters of Southern Utah

I think this will be my last post on our southern Utah adventures of early 2021. I don’t carry my Canon gear and long lenses with me as much as I used to; ...

So How Was Van Life?

In a word: amazing. Better than expected with surprise ancillary benefits.

Bryce: Fairyland Trail to Tower Bridge

My one demand as we concluded our trip with the drive from Escalante to Las Vegas was a brief stop at Bryce Canyon National Park. Julie’s was a Diet Dr. Pe...

Escalante: Backpacking Coyote Gulch

We are in love with Coyote Gulch. This hike earned a “top 5 ever” list for us, and we were actually hard pressed to list four hikes we’ve done that were be...

Escalante: Zebra and Tunnel Slot Canyons

Today was an easier but no less magical day in Escalante canyon country. We camped overnight out on Hole-in-the-Rock road not far from the Zebra slot canyo...

Escalante: Bighorn Canyon Adventures

We had a plan: pick up a slot canyon or two near Escalante off Hole-in-the-Rock Road as we would be spending Sunday through Wednesday venturing deeper on t...

Goblin Valley Adventures

Three years ago we landed on Goblin Valley State Park when it was very busy, and when a rainstorm hit that was going to last a while. Ever since we’ve regr...

Canyonlands: Rock art in Horseshoe Canyon

Horseshoe Canyon is a relatively recent unit added to Canyonlands national park and sits mostly on its own on the far west side of the canyon, north of the...

Rock Art from Moab to Green River

It was moving day again, now from the Moab and Canyonlands / Island in the Sky area to the other side of the canyon to visit Horeshoe Canyon and Goblin Val...

Canyonlands: Hiking the Murphy Trail

We loved hiking the Syncline trail in the Canyonlands and thought it would rise to level of favorite hike in the park, but after hiking the Murphy Trail we...

Canyonlands: Hiking the Syncline Loop

We’ve explored quite a bit of the Canyonlands National Park over the past four years but there were still some longer trails to check off our list. Plus we...

Sunday is Rest Day in Moab

We left our dispersed campground in the hills above the south side of Moab early Sunday morning and made our way into town. We had decided a rest day was i...

Exploring the Ruins of Butler Wash

We drove from the Page AZ and Lake Powell area towards the southern tip of Cedar Mesa on Thursday, expecting to find a spot and camp in the Valley of the G...

Zion: Hiking the Virgin River Narrows

Our last day near Zion had us checking off our final want-to-do item: hiking the Virgin River narrows. For context, Zion Canyon is sort-of the opposite of ...

St. George: Red Hills Desert Garden

We are getting better at pacing ourselves on these extended hiking and camping adventures. We had an 11am bus pass for Zion but we gave it to our camping n...

Zion: Angels Landing and West Rim

We got an early start into Zion this morning and were thankful for it. My fears about a busy Easter Sunday proved true, and I feel so sorry for the folks t...

Our Home Near Zion

We are settled in Hurricane Cliffs, a dispersed camping area above La Verkin, UT. This will be our home for a few days as we explore Zion again, repeating ...

Link Blog Automation Permalink

Posts are usually 1) a link as the post’s title, 2) an excerpt from said link, and 3) a snippet of commentary. Occasionally, a list post will turn into a ...

Automating Jekyll Posting Permalink

The whole process actually takes place over two shortcuts. I abstracted away the process of preparing images (giving them titles, compressing them, etc....

Next Stop – Las Vegas

Julie and I are on the road to Las Vegas in our best mechanical friend “Rooster”. Rooster is the moniker for the Subaru Xtrek that has accompanied us on ou...

Cool ASL post Permalink

This is one of several posts you’ll see from me as I experiment with posting workflows from various devices. I figured I might as well share some good cont...

Leaving El Paso

This post is as much as test of image posting workflow with my new static site as it is a real post. Still, we leave El Paso in the coming week to embark...

My Yearly Theme for 2021

I wrote last year about my adoption of a yearly theme for 2020: The Year of Less. Julie and I were in Florida for the new year celebration and cajoled my fa...

Winter in El Paso

We’ve been living in El Paso since about the start of 2021. Matthew is stationed here as a 1LT at Fort Bliss, and we have the flexibility to roam so why not ...