Travel & Places
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10 Years Ago – Ocean to Lake Trail Hike
It suddenly hit me about a month ago that we’re wrapping up a decade here in a few weeks. To be honest, and I’ll elaborate more on it in my end-of-decade post later in December, my brain is still stuck somewhere in 2014-2016. It hasn’t caught up to 2019 yet. And then I realized that this Thanksgiving week is our 10th anniversary of our hike of the Ocean to Lake Trail, a side trail of the Florida Trail. Typically most people start on the eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee and then walk to the Atlantic Ocean on Jupiter Island at Hobe Sound Beach. We did this as a prep for…
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Westcave Preserve In Summer – The Uplands
Let’s rewind back to early July and our trip to Austin. We visited Westcave one sweltering morning after having not been there for several years. We had some time before our tour to the grotto and cave began so we hiked their upland trail. It was a trail we had not been on before so everything was new to us! Texas Skeleton Plant, Lygodesmia texana Snake Apple, Ibervillea lindheimeri I noticed this plant in the two photos above and was unfamiliar with it. It was obviously a cucurbit of some sort but I had no clue what it was. I was right about the cucurbit part and the plant is…
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Ketchikan, Alaska
After our hike at Carlanna Lake, we called a taxi and told the driver that we wanted to see the salmon run and ladder in town. She drove us to Deermount Street at the north end of a city park and sure enough, there were plenty of salmon in Ketchikan Creek. We got out and paid her and then watched the fish for a while. Forest wanted to play in the park nearby so we walked over and scouted that out while Chris finished oogling at the salmon. At the far end of the park is the Deer Mountain Hatchery which was open to the public to view and learn…
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Richards Loop on the Lone Star Trail | Sam Houston National Forest
We have been meaning to get out for a short overnight backpacking trip the last few weeks but our initial weekend in October didn’t work out—I think rain was forecast. Last weekend we had it pinpointed once again but cold air and rain was a factor. As the weekend loomed closer it appeared it would be a great weekend for a short overnight hike. I looked up the Lone Star Trail maps with an eye on an hike I did with our friend Red Hat (trail name) when she still lived in Texas back in 2011/2012. Sure enough the Richards Loop looked like the length we were looking for–about 6…
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Humpback Whales & Mola Mola | Wildlife/Wordless Wednesday
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Thunderbird Falls Trail | Eagle River, Alaska
Jumping ahead in our Alaska adventures (mostly because I wanted a simple set of photos to edit. I looked at Denali photos and the billions of bear photos and thought that was too much at the moment!) we’re going to hike on the Thunderbird Falls Trail just outside of Anchorage in Eagle River. We’d arrived in Anchorage that morning via the Alaska Rail into Anchorage, rented a car, checked into the hotel, and headed for a few hiking adventures on the outskirts of Anchorage in Chugach State Park. Since it was Labor Day, the trailhead was rather busy. In my assessments online it seemed like this was in a quieter…
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Flora, Fauna, & Fungi on the Carlanna Lake Trail
Because I take too many photos these days I’ve broke down the Carlanna Lake Trail into two posts, with this one focusing on the flora, fauna, and fungi we found. This was seen not far from the trailhead parking lot and honestly, I’m not sure what it is. iNaturalist suggested cotoneaster and the closest one I think that would be is Late Cotoneaster, Cotoneaster coriaceus. It is native to China and so I’m thinking this is an escapee from the neighborhood nearby. Again, not 100% certain on the ID. Large-leaved Avens, Geum macrophyllum Slugs, so ubiquitous in the temperate rainforests–I think this one is an Arion sp. Oxeye Daisy, Leucanthemum…
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Carlanna Lake Trail | Ketchikan, Alaska
When we woke up on Wednesday of our cruise we found ourselves in Ketchikan. We’d been there for a bit it seemed though I don’t think we were supposed to have been there until 7am but we had clearly been tied up at the dock for a while. Though, as we came to find out when we left port later that afternoon, the crew had everything down to a science and we were out of port within 30 minutes of the final call to board the ship. Our dock was just west of the main area in town and there were already tour buses ready for those who were preparing…
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Through the Inside Passage
The day and a half we had sailing the beginning of the Inside Passage was one of my favorite parts of our trip to Alaska. Ok, the entire trip was pretty much my favorite part of the trip (hah!) but what was pleasant about this time was that we didn’t have to be doing anything. We could lounge in the room, sit on the deck watching the water, sit inside the Garden Cafe (aka: the buffet) and watch the water while eating a dessert or sipping coffee. So, that’s just what we did. Leaving port during those early evening hours we got glimpses of Canadian islands from the Inside Passage…
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Vancouver and Boarding the Ship
As I mentioned in the wrap-up post we made it to Vancouver, and I had started feeling better but not well enough to be traipsing about Vancouver and cramming in all of the sight-seeing as possible. We weren’t in the country long when Chris mentioned that he still wanted to try to eat at the Old Spaghetti Factory in the Gastown portion of Vancouver. There is a trolley in the middle of the building and Chris thought Forest would enjoy sitting in it, so I gave the restaurant a call to see about reserving a table for dinner, which they did. My stomach wasn’t in the mood for much else…