Category: USA
Wherever we travel to we try to imagine ourselves living in that place. At the end of the day, we always ultimately decide that Laguna Beach can’t be beat. We joke that in SoCal, the thing you can always count on are sunny days. That lack of precipitation is reflected in our brownish and not-so-pretty … Continue reading Multnomah Wahkeena Trail
My 6-week work stint lasted a grand total of 7 days! The ever efficient government VA failed to submit paperwork to request funding for the month of May. Finally government bureaucracy working in my favor. I am re-retired! How do I let my recruiter know that he can no longer make money off my back … Continue reading Watson & Toketee Falls
After almost a year of retirement, I was hit with a minor bout of existential crisis. I was surprised that it would hit me because I made a point to never let my profession define who I am. I guess more than 2 decades of doing the same thing, one’s profession inevitably becomes part of … Continue reading A Change In Pace
Faith came to visit this week, and managed to drag my lazy bum out of the house to go whale watching. In the 11 years we’ve been in SoCal, never once did we go whale watching, even though the migrating whales are just off our coastline. Whales migrate down south from their feeding grounds in … Continue reading Pink Floyd
When in Miami, eat Cuban sandwich. Despite its name, the Cuban sandwich was invented in Miami. We were told by a native Cuban that this sandwich doesn’t exist in Cuba. The famous Cuban sandwich at Versailles located in Little Havana The rest of the day was spent strolling along the ocean path and Ocean Drive. … Continue reading Sights of Miami Beach
It’s been 2 and a half months since we last traveled. Joe’s perfectly fine staying at home, but I’m getting restless. So, I jumped at the very first chance to fly out to Miami to meet up with Juin without my better half. With the luxury of time, I opted to not fly direct to … Continue reading Transcon Travel
Ton Ton Katsuya, New Asian BBQ, Eataly, Big Dan Shangxi Taste
The big day is here. I had been thinking of hiking to the Wave for a few years, but never got around to entering into the lottery for a permit until this year. Tried the online lottery twice without success, and finally won the walk-in lottery on our first try. I will admit we were … Continue reading Coyote Buttes North – The Wave
We decided to sandwich an off day in between yesterday’s Angels Landing hike and tomorrow’s Wave hike. Nothing was really planned for today until the very last minute. I had initially thought about doing a short hike at Bryce Canyon, but we changed course at the last minute when we realized that Page is about … Continue reading Horseshoe Bend & Toadstool Trail
Angels Landing is Joe’s favorite trail, and a tie for second for me (the other being Bright Angels in Grand Canyon). Today is our third, and likely final, Angels Landing hike before the lottery permit system takes effect in 2022. It is unfortunate that a permit system needs to be implemented, but due to overcrowding … Continue reading West Rim Trail – Angels Landing & Walter’s Wiggles Viewpoint
We are back at Zion National Park. The thin November crowd makes the park visit much more pleasant. Here’s a view outside our hotel room. Before heading out for any hikes, we had to go to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office in Kanab to see if we could get lucky with getting one … Continue reading Our Happy Place
We scheduled the Beehive Trail for our afternoon hike on the last day of our trip. As we were making our way back to the hotel after lunch to regroup, I saw an interesting trail on Google maps. There’s a little hiker icon in the middle of the water! Intrigued, we made a quick detour … Continue reading Beehive Trail
Two of the most popular and challenging trails in Acadia National Park are the Precipice and Beehive trails. I decided to save the best for last, and did both trails on our last day in Acadia. First, the Precipice trail, a vertical climb of 0.9 miles to Champlain Summit at 1,058 ft, involves a lot … Continue reading Precipice Trail
With toddlers in tow, we opted for an easy family friendly hike in the morning. The Ocean Path is a 2-mile stretch along the northeast coastline of Acadia National Park. We probably only covered a third of the length in an hour and a half. Varied terrain made the path interesting A brave little 4-year … Continue reading Ocean Path & Dorr Ladder Trail
The Boston Marathon is traditionally held on Patriot’s Day in April, but due to Covid and repeated postponements, this year’s race was held in October. The week of the race coincided with peak fall foliage in the Northeast, which gave us the chance to go leaf peeping up in Acadia National Park in Maine. Having … Continue reading Jordan Pond Trail
Phoenix is an urban sprawl much like LA, albeit cheaper. One wouldn’t expect to find any nature paths or scenic hiking trails in such a mega city, but there is one — the popular Echo Canyon Trail on Camelback Mountain, which reaches up to 2706 ft in elevation. Not a very imposing height for those … Continue reading Echo Canyon Trail @ Camelback Mountain
Since we had covered the Western district of the Saguaro National Park yesterday, I decided that we’d revisit the Eastern district today. We would later find out that the use of the word “revisit” was completely wrong, because when we pulled into the park we realized that we had literally never even been to the … Continue reading Saguaro National Park
It’s astonishing that there are places we had never been to in Tucson despite having lived here for 5 years. We didn’t even know that the Saguaro National Park is split into East and West, with the town of Tucson sitting in the middle of it. We’d been to the park on the East side … Continue reading Trip Down Memory Lane
Three days of rest and rehab with eccentric calf strengthening and foam rolling did wonders for my achilles. Managed to tuck in my 18-miles this morning before hitting the road for Phoenix at 10AM. The 5.5-hour drive went by quickly with minimal congestion. That is until we got closer to Phoenix, when we encountered the … Continue reading Phoenix
Kaua’i has to be my favorite Hawaiian island. Oahu is too commercialized, Maui too crowded, and the big island of Hawai’i a bit bland. Kaua’i is simply beautiful with its lush greenery, stunning coastline, and less crowds. Alas, our time on the island has come to an end. We were due to fly out at … Continue reading Last Day In Kaua’i
There are several trails in the Koke’e State Park that bring you out onto ridges to view the NāPali Coastline. The 2 most popular are the Awa’awapuhi and the Nu’alolo trails. There is the option to do both by hiking the connecting Nu’alolo Cliff trail between the 2 to form a 12-mile loop, which is … Continue reading Nu’alolo Trail
Owing to yesterday’s Hanakapi’ai Falls hike, waking up this morning was incredibly hard. Is this another sign of aging, where we can’t do back to back 8-mile hikes anymore? Since we only have 2 more days of hiking on the island, I decided to push the agenda. I have 5 trails on my hike list. … Continue reading Pihea Trail
Anyone who’s watched the movie Jurassic Park will be familiar with the famed NāPali Coast. To view the NāPali coast, one would have to be on a helicopter, catamaran, or kayak. Since none of those options appealed to us, we decided on the second best option - hiking it. The Kalalau trail is the 11-mile … Continue reading Hanakapi’ai Falls Trail
We don’t have a car booked for the first 3 days of our trip. This is mainly because I had wanted to pare down the expenses by just having a car for 4 of the 7 days that we’re here. When I had booked the car back in early April, the rates were around $100 … Continue reading Kaua’i Sans Car
The last time we set foot in the airport was 4 months ago back when domestic traveling was just picking up. Today, domestic traveling has returned to pre-pandemic levels. Images of long lines in the airport, packed flights, and stories of flight delays/cancellations and crowds in HI had me reconsidering whether to make our way … Continue reading Post Vaccine Pandemic Travel – Domestic Edition
FIRE'd @ 47 