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100 Years of the National Park Service – National Seashores
Canaveral National Seashore I think Chris probably spent more time on this seashore than I did—really I may have only been once when Chris stopped to fish somewhere on the Indian River Lagoon. I know he went up to fish fairly often when we lived on the Space Coast. Gulf Islands National Seashore My visit to this park is intermingled with our Florida Trail thru-hike since the end/beginning of the trail is at Fort Pickens. Padre Island National Seashore Padre is one national seashore I have always wanted to hike or drive the length of. When we moved back to Texas I had the grand idea to hike the beach…
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100 Years of the National Park Service – National Parks Part I
Acadia When we finished our Appalachian Trail thru-hike in 2010 my mom came up to Maine and spent a few days with us tooling around the state with us. We stayed in Bar Harbor a couple of days and visited Acadia National Park just briefly with a hike up Cadillac Mountain to watch the sun set. I know that we barely saw what this national park had to offer and for that I am sorry because I have no idea when we will go back to Maine. Big Bend Chris and I went to Big Bend with four of our college friends during spring break in 2000. Oh boy, what…
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100 Years of the National Park Service – Park List
In honor of the National Park Service’s 100th Birthday on August 25th, I’m going to spend this week sharing snippets of parks that I’ve been to under the jurisdiction of the NPS. Many people don’t realize there are more than just ‘parks’ that are part of that system and it extends out to seashores, monuments, preserves, and trails. I’ll be breaking down my posts this week into those parks that I’ve visted, linking photos and previous blog posts to share. While I love the National Park system I wish there was more love for the USFWS refuge system as well as the US Forest Service. Both are highly undervalued resources…
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Rainy Garden
It’s never a perfect scenario weather wise, right? Too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry. Spring flooding, summer drought. But we got a nice break in the drought over the weekend with rain. Rain that’s now forecast daily until early next week. Which is good for the most part but also puts a damper in finalizing summer gardening chores, pulling those ‘last’ weeds, etc. The wheelbarrow has been sitting in that spot for over a week with little activity. From a distance the garden looks good. You can’t see the weeds and it is evident that the yard needs to be mowed but the mower is on the fritz…
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A Few Random Backpacking/Long Trail Thoughts
I often write in my head and many things never make it out into the internet. However, I have had a few backpacking and long distance trail thoughts building up over the summer that I think about and then forget, but I think I’ve got enough of them now to do a random list-style post. Here we go… Last fall Geraldine Largay’s, trail name Inchworm, body was found after having been missing for over two years after getting lost on the Appalachian Trail in Maine. When news broke in 2013 the she was lost it was easy to suspect foul play based on all of the circumstances. At the very…
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Friday Five | 8
It’s been a few months since I’ve done one of these! Stranger Things: I can’t say enough about this Netflix series. Marisa brought it to my attention and so I dipped into an episode one evening a few weeks ago and was enthralled. It makes me want to retreat back to the 80s! So much good stuff in this series: I hope Winona Ryder has a comeback career after this. The kids in this series are fantastic actors. Eleven…oh, Eleven!! I can’t wait to see what else they do with this series! The DNC renewed my zest for politics and of course I had to imbibe in some (balanced) political…
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Whitlock Weekend July 2016
*Prepare for a photo overload!* Last weekend the part of the Whitlock clan, my brother, sister-in-law, niece, and nephew, came down for a visit. The four of them haven’t been here together since Forest’s birthday last year and my SIL, Zoe, and Grayson haven’t been here since last November. It was time for a visit! Friday evening we all walked over to the park so they could hunt some Pokemon. While Zoe and Curt were searching for pidgies and the like Grayson and Forest played around on the jungle gym and were being silly boys! Grayson told me he was a monkey as he was climbing the jungle gym—lots of…
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Life Lately | Late July 2016
Today’s photo is brought to you by the Turner River in Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park, circa 2008. +In My Head Let’s go with some random bulleted thoughts…. I think the story of my life is being emotionally connected to time passing. Speaking of time, I have a post to write that has been jingling in my head for months about synesthesia and time. Just need to sit down and parse it out. I’m trying not to get too excited about autumn and cooler weather but I am looking forward to hiking and camping again. And fall baking…*sigh* I love autumn! The last two days we have…
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Passiflora lutea | Wordless Wednesday
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What’s Growing in the Vegetable Garden
We’ve reached that point in the season where not much is being productive in the vegetable garden but the peppers and cucumbers, and even the cucumbers are worn out and fading. Most plants out there are just putting on growth and holding on for slightly cooler temperatures to start producing flowers for reproduction. These are sweet potato squash that I’m excited to try out when we get fruit. I planted them in the hugelkultur perimeter beds. Like I said, the cucumbers are barely hanging on. Several vines have up and died but a couple are still trying to grow and put on flowers. I started new seeds and will try…