Category: USA
In the days of social media, it has now come down to this - if you want to access a particular trail, you will need to book your parking and entry permits 30-90 days in advance. Gone are the days when you can stroll onto a trail after having read about it in a guidebook … Continue reading Park Permits & Reservations
One of the reasons we had timed our Zion and Grand Canyon visit for this week was so that it would coincide with the Resorts World opening. What we were interested in wasn’t so much the hotel itself, but in their Famous Street Eats featuring all the famous hawker foods in South East Asia. Since … Continue reading Vegas Eats
After spending a night at the luxurious suite at the Palazzo, it was hard to say goodbye. Alas, good things must come to an end. Before checking out, I logged 10 numbing miles on the fitness center’s treadmill, instead of running outdoors in 90F weather. Dry heat or not, it’s still too hot. I used … Continue reading Wynn Las Vegas
The key to snagging luxury for a bargain in Vegas is to visit on weekdays. Weekend nightly rates easily reach over $500, but weekday rates can be as low as half that. So I purposely booked one night at the Intercontinental Alliance Palazzo for a Sunday night after our weekend in Utah and Arizona (weekday … Continue reading Intercontinental – The Palazzo Las Vegas
There are 3 popular trails that bring hikers down into the canyon - South Kaibab and Bright Angel from the South Rim, and North Kaibab from the North Rim. People will attempt rim-2-rim by hiking down North Kaibab, stay overnight within the canyon and hike up either Bright Angel or South Kaibab. For day hikers, … Continue reading North Kaibab Trail
The Grand Canyon is one of my favorite National Parks, if not the favorite. In the 5 years we’d lived in Tucson, we’d been to Grand Canyon 3 times, including an overnight at the Bright Angel Campground at the bottom of the Canyon. However, all 3 trips were to the popular South Rim. After a … Continue reading Grand Canyon North Rim
In years past, we’ve always saved our valuable vacation days for off peak season travel in order to avoid the crowds and high costs of everything. Visiting popular National Parks like Zion and Grand Canyon, where you go seek solitude, during the busy summer months did not appeal to us. Our first Narrows hike back … Continue reading The Narrows
En route to Zion from Las Vegas is a not so well known Nevada state park called Valley of Fire, so named after its fiery red rocks. In contrast to the surrounding grey rocks laid down during the Paleozoic era, the red rocks were formed later during the Mesozoic era. This entire area used to … Continue reading Valley of Fire State Park – White Domes Trail
Being situated in Coastal CA is most ideal for us. We have the Pacific on one side, and, in my humble opinion, the most spectacular landscape in all of America on the other side. I am referring to the Southern Utah and Northern Arizona region, where you will find my 2 favorite National Parks - … Continue reading Virgin Hotels Las Vegas – Curio Collection
Two “baby” hikes. For our last day in Tahoe, we decided to go on a hike that the kids would be able to do. After some research, I decided on the Cascade Falls trail. A baby hike of just 1.4 miles out and back. The beginning of the hike looked promising with a wide and … Continue reading Cascade Falls & Eagle Lake Trails
After yesterday’s 10-mile hike, we decided to take it easy today. Spent the day at Meeks Bay paddling the day away. Rented boards from SUP Tahoe - highly recommend these guys They racked up the boards on top of the minivan for us Whiling away the hours on the lake
We were supposed to do stand up paddling today, but due to high winds we postponed it to tomorrow, and I made the last-minute executive decision to move up our Mt. Tallac hike to today. As a result of the last minute change, we ended up starting our hike very late - 11AM, instead of … Continue reading Mt Tallac Trail
We finally made it up to Lake Tahoe after having lived in CA for the past decade. Joe had always wanted to check out the place, but for some reason I’ve always felt there’s something better than going to a lake. For me, lakes are for fishing, swimming and, subsequently, contracting some kind of brain-eating … Continue reading Rubicon Trail
It’s been a year since I last ran. Suffering from burnout from running and non stop training for the last 8 years, I was toying with the idea of giving myself a break from running. Back in April of 2020, the California State Parks (including my training ground) closed due to the pandemic, and that … Continue reading Back To The Old Haunt
Going home! It’s been a while since we’ve traveled to a place where we’re happy to be going home. There’s nothing wrong with Morocco, but we think Turkey ruined it for us. Our trip to Turkey was absolutely one of the best (a close second after Botswana and Tanzania), and after having just been there … Continue reading Traveling Back To The US
Our Morocco trip was booked back in late 2019 for April 2020. With the pandemic, the trip was postponed. Since this trip was booked pre-retirement, the duration of the trip was only for a week, which is short by today’s standards. Morocco is open to US travelers, albeit with restrictions. First, we had to test … Continue reading Pandemic Travel – Africa Edition
The first leg of our trip to Morocco involved flying domestically from the West Coast (LAX) to the East Coast (JFK), since Royal Air Maroc had cut out all direct flights to Morocco except for the JFK route. Domestic travel is nothing like international travel. The crowds! Everyone, minus the grandmother, is traveling! Had we … Continue reading LAX to JFK Flight
Joshua Tree National Park is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from us - a nice day trip for a hike. Of the 15 National Parks we’ve been to in 6 states, this one ranks smack dab in the middle of my favorite (#1&2 being Zion and Grand Teton). Judging by my list of favorite … Continue reading Joshua Tree National Park
Being in nature makes me happy, and National Parks are a great source of that happiness. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that way, because the people you meet on hiking trails are in general the nicest and happiest bunch you’ll ever encounter. How can you not be happy when Mother Nature … Continue reading Death Valley National Park – Day 2
Once retired one has nothing but free time. Add a little dose of spontaneity, and you get last minute trips like our Death Valley National Park trip. Thanks to the internet, a quick research can help cobble up a trip in less than 12 hours. And thanks to credit card reward points, one can score … Continue reading Death Valley National Park – Day 1
FIRE'd @ 47 