Travel & Places
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Beach Scenes
For our vacation, since we were on North Padre already, we opted to drive down to Padre Island National Seashore for all of our beach visits. I think this was mostly spurred because the first night we were there we drove down after dinner and it was quite peaceful with just a few cars on the beach. Even though we spent about 20 minutes driving down there, being able to drive on the beach eliminated the need to haul our gear across the street to the beach that was directly across from our hotel. There are definitely good and bad things about being able to drive on Texas beaches. One…
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Sea Turtles at Packery Channel
The second afternoon of our vacation we popped down to the Packery Channel jetties to walk along them (they have a sidewalk on top) and to look for sea turtles as we had done six years ago when it was just Chris and me. We were looking to kill a little time before dinner and it was very hot walking along the jetties in the late afternoon sunshine. It didn’t take long for us to find a sea turtle and then we continued to find them all along the jetties, inside Packery Channel and along the beach. Forest was in his stroller for the ride so I don’t know how…
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Birthday Fun at the Texas State Aquarium
For Forest’s birthday we spent most of the morning at the Texas State Aquarium. I hadn’t been since I was a teenager, about 20 years ago, and during that time period went two or three times. I had vague memories of it but couldn’t quite recall everything about it. It appeared based on the website that the aquarium had more attractions but it was also working on an upgrade to the facilities. When we actually arrived to the aquarium I began remembering more about it, recalling that I had been to some of the features before and that definitely some of it was new. They are working to upgrade to…
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100 Years of the National Park Service – National Parks Part II
Great Smoky Mountains Even though I had been to the adjacent town of Cherokee, NC several times for work, I had never ventured over to see the Smoky Mountains until our thru-hike on the AT. Clingman’s Dome hosts the highest point on the Appalachian Trail, the joke being that once you climb the summit then it is all downhill from there! Hah! My experience with the Smoky’s is limited to the AT and seeing it via the road down into Cherokee where Chris and I took a zero day with his mom and step-dad while we were hiking. To ease usage of the natural areas around the shelters, it is…
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100 Years of the National Park Service – Monuments, Historical Parks, and Memorials
Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument Less than an hour from Billings, Montana on the Crow Reservation is the memorial to the battle of Little Big Horn, or what many people know it as, Custer’s Last Stand. One of the perks of my job in Florida was being able to travel multiple times a year and seeing a lot of different and unique places. Standing in what as once a battlefield was a little spooky and it wasn’t difficult to imagine the carnage that went on. Yet it seemed a little surreal to see the wide-open expanse around me and imagine that in the 1870s and think of just how much…
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100 Years of the National Park Service – Trails and Recreation Areas
Appalachian National Scenic Trail All of my Appalachian Trail posts are here Florida National Scenic Trail – While part of the National Trails System, it is administered by the US Forest Service. All of my Florida Trail posts are here Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area This recreation area we hit up on our AT thru-hike, but I’m still going to count it as a separate visit! Sunfish Pond El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail This historic trail dates from the Spanish colonization period and multiple paths from western Louisiana were forged through Texas as a highway to Mexico City. I’m mostly familiar with the area of…
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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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Hiking Adventure on the Nature Trail at Fairfield Lake State Park
Everyone but my dad set out for a hike Sunday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend. Dad stayed back to hang out with their dog Daisy. We weren’t sure exactly how long this trail was because unlike many other Texas state parks there wasn’t an individual trail map for the state park. The trail was on the campground map but there weren’t really any distinguishing marks to estimate the distance of the trail. And to make matters more complicated, wires were crossed between my brother and sister-in-law in regards to what the end-goal was for the hike: my brother was going for a hike and my sister-in-law thought the trail ended…