We’re only 3-4 hours from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, depending on which part we’re trying to get to, so I feel like it really ought to be our National Park….yet this was only the second time we managed to make it there as a family. The first time was only a year ago, […]
The Breakwater in Provincetown + Old Harbor Life Saving Station + Highland Light: More Cape Cod
Back when I was in grad school, Dave and I and a few friends randomly decided to go to Provincetown, MA one weekend….in January. There was still snow on the ground from a recent storm, but the actual days we were there were unseasonably warm. This was back before my obsessive planning phase, and one […]
Cape Cod with Kids: Eastham, MA and Cape Cod National Seashore
Even though we live in the Southeast, the vast majority of my kids’ beach time has been spent on Cape Cod and on the west coast. They don’t really have much of a grasp of the idea that the ocean can be warm. We compound the problem by often visiting the Cape in June, when […]
Four Things to Do near Vogel State Park, Blairsville, GA
In the weeks leading up to our trip to Vogel, I came up with a long list of things to do in the area. Unfortunately, I wrote it down on an actual piece of paper with an actual pencil like in olden times, and then I lost it. But then I managed to mostly reconstruct […]
A Few Days in Vogel State Park, Blairsville, GA: Campground Review
Not to get too political, but I love it when Big Government sends hundreds of thousands of unemployed young men off to build state parks for me and my family to enjoy eighty years later. Vogel State Park, on the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains and about two hours north of Atlanta, is the […]
Two Days in Shenandoah National Park
When I was in college, my roommate Suzanne and I took a road trip up to Washington, DC and back. My memory on this might be completely wrong, but I feel like this involved driving the entire length of the Blue Ridge Parkway AND Skyline Drive. In the Chevy Cavalier I’d inherited from my grandmother, […]
Elkin, NC: First Stop on our Summer, 2016 Road Trip
It’s finally here! Our big summer road trip: twenty two nights, ten campgrounds, and a whole lot of ice cream. This trip was originally conceived as sort of a practice trip for next summer’s massive road trip, but it’s turning out to be pretty substantial all by itself. As I’m writing, we’re already about two […]
Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial: Spring Break, Part 2
Some people travel to see beautiful scenery. Some people want to eat at the best restaurants in the world. For some, it’s all about touring masterpieces of architecture. Me? I’m mostly in it for the Abraham Lincoln stuff. We plan to do a big tour of Lincoln-related sites sometime in the window when our own […]
Mammoth Cave Weekend: Spring Break, Part 1
We actually had a trip to Asheville, NC all booked for spring break. Campground booked, list of places we wanted to see all planned out. We’ve passed through Asheville and stopped there briefly before, but never spent any significant time there. Then I started to get a little nervous about planning a trip that involved […]
Red Top Mountain State Park and Campground Review; or Continuation of Remains of Industry Tour: THWARTED!
As regular readers will recall, we are, it seems, on a quest to become experts on the history of the iron industry in the Southeastern United States. Or, anyway, we saw a lot of iron-related sites on our recent trip to Birmingham. And we happen to have a state park nearby that hosts an iron […]