Outdoor Travel Geek

Category: road trips

  • on the road to nashville

    I honestly thought I was done with these sorts of road trips. I think for real this time though, this will be the last one. Of course I said that last time when I helped Ray move to Colorado. And actually before that, when I helped Sam move back from New Jersey, I thought that…

  • 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…

  • arches after dark

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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…

  • the maine lobster roll

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    After a whirlwind tour of Montreal, we headed back across the border to the US, crossing back into our homeland somewhere in Vermont. Vermont for the most part was forgettable to me, we had one meal in the state capital, Montpelier, which was a surprisingly tiny town where we ate a surprisingly terrible meal considering…

  • montreal at night

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    The first part of our little week long road trip was planned out pretty well. We stayed one night at Caleb’s place near Cornell. Then we had booked one night at a hotel overlooking Niagara falls. From there we went to Toronto. After Toronto we had nothing planned yet. So we decided we would continue…

  • the CN tower

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    The CN Tower is one of the most famous landmarks in Toronto. For thirty four years, up until the completion of the Burj Khalifa in 2010, it was the world’s tallest man-made structure. We arrived at the CN Tower at night, about a half hour before closing, but the guy at the ticket booth said…

  • waterfalls of upstate ny

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    Upstate New York has some amazing scenery, and I was fortunate to be landing in the area near the peak foliage season. First stop on this road trip was to Ithaca, New York. I met my friend Bo at the airport in Newark, and from there we went to visit Caleb in Ithaca. He’s there…

  • angel’s landing

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    This weekend Jack and I flew out to Denver to meet with Ray and drive back with him to California. On our way back we took a slight detour to Zion National Park in southern Utah to hike Angel’s Landing. On road trips there are many different conversations. At one point we talked about the…

  • on the road again

    The old country singer Willie Nelson has a song that I consider to be the epitome of road trip songs. The song is called “On the Road Again.” It begins with the words: On the road again – Just can’t wait to get on the road again. The life I love is making music with…

  • reno, rest, relaxation & return

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    The drive from Seattle to Glacier National Park took almost ten hours. Originally our plan was to hit up Yellowstone after Glacier, and then Arches and Zion, and then hit Las Vegas before heading home. But looking at the map, we saw that each of those drives would be at least a good eight hours.…

  • glacier national park

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    Often when car camping for multiple days in a row there’s a bunch of leftovers. Those leftovers are great when thrown into a pot with some ramen noodles. In this case we had some leftover seafood soup from the Korean restaurant we ate at outside of Seattle. It made for a really tasty breakfast. It…

  • seattle

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    Most people know this about me: I like to bike, I like to eat, and I like photography. Apparently Portland exists at the intersection of all three of those. Seriously I liked Portland so much, it was hard to leave. The distance between Portland and Seattle is not very long. In fact, I biked it…