Tag: national parks

Part 4: Colorado

.Reading time 11 minutes.

May 24-30

“I’m getting a little tired of oatmeal,” Jamie sighed, as we boiled up some water and dropped the fixins into our bowls of porridge.

I guess it’s good we only had a handful of days left on the road.

It was a beautiful, crisp, cold morning at Junction Creek in Durango. Turns out we love Durango. Everyone on their way to hike, bike, or run in the national forest on the outside of town. We wanted to get a taste of the area for the brief time we’d spend there.

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Part 3: Arizona

.Reading time 12 minutes.

May 15-23

Where it all began. The home of our first travel assignment, back at the start of 2019. Plenty of reruns to keep us busy as we bopped around the 48th state.

We woke to a stunning mountain sunrise on the 15th, perched on the ridge between seas of fog covering coastal Santa Barbara and the inland Santa Ynez Valley. We departed the Los Padres national forest and crushed 8 hours of drive-time. Past smoggy LA and the harsh and barren deserts of California and western Arizona. The thermometer teetered over 100F. Any time spent outside the car was brief. Archie was our haven.

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Part 2: California

.Reading time 21 minutes.

May 7- 14

As much as we toiled through the chilly rains of coastal Oregon, California had been parched for years. It took a long pull on Earth’s canteen this winter, and we’d have the pleasure of hanging out with the well-hydrated monster of a state for the next week.

We left Harris Beach and bid adieu to Oregon as we crossed into Northern California along US-101. I stand by my belief that the first couple hundred miles of California should belong to Oregon. A continuation of old growth forests and rugged coastlines greeted us.

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Seattle, Round 3

.Reading time 7 minutes.

August 18- November 5

There’s simply too much to cover to write any sort of narrative for this post. Instead, we’ll just go over everything in photos, with brief descriptions.

Returning to Seattle after our Alaskan Summer, we settled into our new apartment briefly before packing bags to head east. We spent a lovely weekend up in New Hampshire with family at the new lake house, and Grammy was able to make the trip from Buffalo- her first time getting to meet her great-grandson Elliott. We spent time taking in the beautiful weather and enjoying everyone’s company.

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The gang goes North: Part 8- Girdwood, Valdez, McCarthy/Kennecott and the Yukon

.Reading time 20 minutes.

July 26-August 1

Glass on Kenai Lake awaited us the next morning. We’d decided to make our return trip back up the Kenai Peninsula that day, but had some time to spare.

Blowing up the kayak, we floated out onto the water. About a mile wide, and about 22 miles long, with two deep bends, I wanted to get to the east side, across the skinny way. A mountain cascade poured into the lake from beneath a tunnel of small trees, and we traveled to the mouth of it and relaxed for a half hour or so, in silence, save for the stream. Jamie and Charley took a nap. I couldn’t stop staring up at the long bowl that we floated within.

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The gang goes North: Part 7.2- Kenai Peninsula (West side)

.Reading time 15 minutes.

July 21-25

Not shockingly, we left Seward the morning of the 21st in the midst of a rain shower. Heading north along the Seward Highway, then splitting off west along the Sterling Highway, our surroundings changed from mountainous to rolling forested flats. Homer sits at the end of the Sterling Highway, and “The Spit” stretches a handful of miles out into Kachemak Bay, only few hundred yards wide and marks the end of the road- as far south on the Peninsula as a car can take you.

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The gang goes North: Part 7.1- Kenai Peninsula (Seward)

.Reading time 15 minutes.

July 17-20

Rain again. We slept in at Porcupine Campground in Hope, hoping it would dry up outside before we started packing. It didn’t.

Jamie finalized a blog post as we huddled under our awning. We’d be heading further south in the Kenai, to Seward, so we grabbed coffee at Kayak Coffee Co in town to give our bodies a little extra fuel. I spotted a guy wearing a Bills hat under a pavilion beside the coffee shop’s parking lot.

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The gang goes North: Part 4- Old Denali Highway and Talkeetna

.Reading time 16 minutes.

July 3-5

“Get off my dog!” Jamie yelled at the mosquitoes.

Ever since entering the Yukon several day prior, mosquitoes had been our unwelcome company. These ones were unlike any we’d encountered before. I was describing them to my dad over the phone as, “it’s like they have a lieutenant and they get their mission and fully commit to it. They’re not haphazardly flying and maybe biting. It feels like a coordinated attack, and when they get you, you can visibly see their bodies swelling red with blood.”

We left Delta Junction that morning, happy to start our Alaska adventure. Jamie and I decided that it was the worst of the campgrounds we’d stayed at. Unkempt, overgrown, ragged. Situated a stones throw from a helicopter-field for wildfire management. We were treated to the whooshing of heli-blades for a good portion of the night.

The old Denali Highway is exactly that: the original approach route to Denali National Park and its surrounding wilderness. But first, we rode the Richardson Highway southbound to catch the old Denali highway in Paxson. We passed stretches of wide, rubble filled drainage areas, with grey serpentine rivers meandering through the massive glacial valley floors. So much water. The Alaska Range came into view as we ascended into the tundra of the Old Denali Highway, furthermore known as the 8.

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The gang goes North: Part 2

.Reading time 13 minutes.

June 19-23

Passports, check. Rabies vaccination card, check.

“Anything to declare?”

“Just a couple beers left in the fridge, two cans of beer spray. Some raw meat, a couple multi tools and a hatchet.”

The border agent went through their questions methodically, making sure we didn’t slip up about our doings in Canada.

From Camano Island in northern Washington, we’d be making our way onto the Sea-to-Sky highway north of Vancouver.

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SB: Part 2

.Reading time 16 minutes.

April 6- May 25

We’d been in Santa Barbara for a month and a half, and had yet to get out on the water. Jamie took the occasional float in the harbor on a paddleboard, but other than that, it had been a dry stay.

We linked up with Maggie and Brandon, booked a whale watch on a catamaran with Santa Barbara Sailing. It turned out being just a nice day out on the water, as the whales played shy. But it was nice to see the coastline from an offshore vantage point and we spotted some harbor seals sunbathing and perhaps a dolphin. The company gave us a voucher to come back and try our luck again in the future.

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