Outdoor Travel Geek

  • hat creek

    My friend Joe and I have been talking about doing a fishing trip to Lassen for a couple of years now. We finally made it happen this weekend. We went to Hat Creek in the Lassen National Forest. Joe caught a pretty nice sized trout. Todd caught a pretty nice trout. Ray caught a pretty…

  • courthouse culinary conglomeration

    During my short jury duty stint I got to try a few of the restaurants within walking distance of the county courthouse. I don’t eat in Woodland very often, so trying out the different restaurants in town was actually pretty cool. Here are some of the restaurants I tried. Silvina’s Basket Silvina’s Basket is a…

  • dewey point

    I went backpacking solo for the first time this weekend. It probably would’ve been better to wait and organize a trip that people could join me on, but at the last second I decided to go alone. The window of opportunity for a snow trip in Yosemite was closing and I would be out in Modesto…

  • learning from the worst

    Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer who is considered by many to be the father of modern photojournalism. His famous quote, “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst,” is one that I only recently heard of, but I think it’s definitely true in my case. Recently my computer’s main hard drive crashed, so I lost…

  • synaptic response

    Synaptic response?! What kind of weird title is that? Well, they seem to say that a lot in Star Trek, which I have been watching a bit of on Amazon Prime lately. But actually this post is in response to riding my new bike, a Cannondale Synapse. The new bike. A Cannondale Synapse. When it…

  • pinnacles

    This weekend I went for a hike at Pinnacles National Monument along with a group of guys for my friend Johann’s bachelor party. The ‘before’ picture. I didn’t realize that we were supposed to be smiling for this picture… Pinnacles is known for rock climbing. At various points along the trail that we hiked, we…

  • through the arch

    One of the cool things about Europe, in my opinion, is the architecture. There’s a lot of really old architecture, and arches are pretty prominent in a lot of that old architecture. So anyways, as sort of a photographic assignment I tried to frame random subjects in arches. I think arches are cool, and apparently…

  • merchants & musicians

    On my trip to Europe I brought two cameras, my Pentax SLR and my Olympus mirrorless camera. In Prague I ended up using the SLR for most of my pictures but in Vienna I ended up using the mirrorless camera exclusively. I took the subway a lot in Vienna, and didn’t want to have to…

  • prague food & drink

    On the night I landed in Prague Jack and I decided to go to the restaurant in the hotel’s ground floor. They had stopped serving food, but they were still serving drinks, so we decided to grab a beer. As soon as we had gotten our beers, a friendly local Czech guy asked if we…

  • stolen cycle

    I didn’t notice until this morning when I was about to leave for work that my bike was missing. (There are usually two bikes on this rack.) I looked around the house and found that the side door was open. I never use that door, it’s always locked. And the sliding door in my sunroom…

  • people in prague

    So it’s been a while since I’ve posted… This is more or less a weekly blog, in that I more or less try to write something every week. For those few people who actually check this blog regularly, or for those who are subscribed to the feed, it might have seemed like something was wrong,…

  • magical market meal

    On the last day before flying back home, I spent half a day at the Naschmarkt, a big market in Vienna not unlike the famous Pike’s Place market in Seattle. On Saturdays apparently there’s also a flea market that gets setup right next to the Naschmarkt. The flea market was incredibly crowded. The variety of…

  • vienna by day

    I have two days in Vienna before I fly back early in the morning on Sunday. To make the most of those days, I decided to purchase a Vienna card. It’s different from the Prague card in that it doesn’t get you into any attractions for free, it just gives you a small discount on…

  • vienna at night

    I arrived in Vienna late in the afternoon. I had booked a couple of nights in an apartment I had found on AirBNB. The apartment didn’t look all that inviting from the front door… But the room itself was pretty nice, it was large and comfortable. I had picked the place mostly because it was…

  • brno backpacking & bargains

    One thing I’ve always wanted to do is backpack through Europe. I regret not doing it when I was younger, although I suppose it’s never too late to do that kind of stuff. So anyways, after I split up with Jack (he flew back to the states), I continued on my own by train. I…