Outdoor Travel Geek

  • cologne

    From Brussels Jack, Anna and Alexia flew back to California. My flight back home would be out of Rome, but not for almost another dozen days. I hadn’t planned my route to Rome, but I wanted to visit at least Paris and Zurich. Before heading out to Paris though, I decided on a whim to…

  • brussels

    After London we took a short flight across the English Channel to Brussels. To be honest I didn’t really know what to expect from Brussels. I know Belgium is famous for waffles and chocolate, two things that I’m not too interested in. Belgium’s also famous for beer, and for that I was somewhat excited. One…

  • london

    After Barcelona we flew into London. Since London is not part of the Schengen area we had to go through customs. When asked by the customs agent why we were in London, someone in our group responded with “the food.” “Sorry, you’re in the wrong country…” the custom agent replied. I had heard that British…

  • barcelona

    From Madrid we took a Renfe AVE high speed train to Barcelona. It ended up costing us about 100 euros per person– if we had booked ahead of time online we probably could have saved a good 30 or 40 euros per person. If I could do it all over again, I think I’d take…

  • mercado de san miguel

    The Mercado de San Miguel is a food market located close to the Plaza Mayor in Madrid. When I travel I like to visit these sorts of markets. I’ve been to some of the famous ones, like the St Lawrence Market in Toronto and of course Pike’s Place in Seattle. Up until now my favorite…

  • madrid

    There are many reasons why I’ve wanted to come to Spain. First and foremost is the food. I’ve heard the food in Spain is ridiculously good. The second reason is the ham, which I suppose is still food. Iberico ham is supposedly the best in the world. Third, there’s the culture and history (which is…

  • double or nothing: a chinatown bus tour

    “Double or nothing” is a gambling term. In my opinion it’s usually a desperation play made by somebody who’s already pretty down on their luck. At that point they make a double or nothing bet to either break even or end up twice as miserable. This week my friend Vince called me out of the…

  • cold canyon christmas

    For most people Christmas is the biggest holiday of the year. For my family it’s just another day to get together and eat. This year, for the first time, we celebrated in Davis. My family came over and we had a hot pot on Christmas Eve. Apparently it was a new experience for my parents–…

  • the anthem

    Recently I added a new bike to my stable. I’ve been looking at full suspension 29ers for a while. When I rode the Slickrock trail earlier this year, I had rented a Giant Trance 29er, and I found I liked it a lot. I had ridden the same bike at a Giant demo day about…

  • mt tamalpais

    This weekend I went hiking at Mount Tamalpais with a few new friends. Our plan was to hike from near Stinson Beach to the eastern peak of Mount Tamalpais, then drive to the Tamales Bay Oyster farm to enjoy some seafood. We started out on the Dispea Trail, which starts near Stinson Beach. It takes…

  • telephoto compression

    A while back I decided to do a series of posts called 7shots. The plan was to do a blog post with at least 7 images at least once per week, and each post would have some sort of common theme. The goal of this series was to get out and use my photography equipment,…

  • arches after dark

    Mesa Verde was more or less the last scheduled stop on our whirlwind road trip through the American southwest. We had flown into Vegas, from there it was about 2.5 hours to Zion. From Zion to Page, the city in Arizona where Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend are located, was also about 2.5 hours. And…

  • mesa verde

    Mesa Verde National Park is located in the southwestern part of Colorado. It’s famous for it’s cliff dwellings, built by the Ancestral Pueblos who lived in the cliff dwellings almost a thousand years ago. The drive into the park is pretty epic, a winding road built into the side of a mesa. Mesa Verde means…

  • antelope canyon

    Antelope Canyon is probably the most famous and most photographed slot canyon in the world. I’ve seen it in pictures many times, in magazines, in galleries, and even in framed photographs on friends’ walls. It’s a place that I’ve wanted to see in person for a long time, and I finally got to visit and…

  • the subway

    Zion National Park is one of my favorite places. It’s home to spectacular hikes, including Angel’s Landing, the Zion Narrows, and the Subway. These three hikes form an amazing trilogy of hikes, a trilogy that for me was finally completed this weekend, almost exactly three years after first hiking the Narrows in 2010. I did…