We made a spur of the moment decision one Saturday afternoon in early June to head to Ithaca and Rob’s alma mater, Cornell University. In all the years we’d been together, I had never seen where Rob spent his undergraduate ...
Still excited by the meteorological event of last week (the northern lights), we turned our eyes to the sky once again to see a different type of event – a rare comet with a large tail that came within 44 million miles of Earth ...
We have been talking about seeing the aurora borealis off and on for some time. There was a time last winter when I proposed that we book tickets to the Aurora Capital of North America – Yellowknife – because flights from ...
California boasts nine national parks, more than any other state. And we were able to check another one off our list on our recent trip to California when we took the Island Packers cruise out of Ventura for a day on Santa Cruz Island ...
We have always thought about Parkcation as a site about our adventures in the national parks and other sites in the national park system plus related organizations (national forests, national wildlife refuges). But from time to time we ...
As we finished up our family fourth of July vacation in Grand Junction, we decided that we would take a detour to visit my last state in the contiguous United States – North Dakota. I have been working my way through the ...
On the day after our July 4th celebration we drove up to Grand Mesa with the family to do some trout fishing. Jayne and her brother grew up fishing with their dad on the lakes of the Mesa. Grand Mesa is a 500 square mile flat-top ...
We set our sights for the week of July 4th on a family trip to Grand Junction, Colorado. We already have family there, and we were able to coordinate with other family to meet them out there from Denver and Houston. So it was a nice ...
Captain Anthony Awgul took my dad and I out on Lake Nockamixon to go punching for bass – one of the many techniques that he uses to catch fish on this popular Philadelphia lake that is notorious for holding, and being difficult ...
We are pretty fortunate to live a little over an hour from one of the best places to photograph bald eagles east of the Mississippi River. The Conowingo Dam is one of the largest non-federal hydroelectric dams in the United States, ...
Eclipse chasing runs in our family, and we took our first attempt at it ourselves for the total eclipse on April 8, 2024. We weren’t planning on making the jaunt into the path of totality, but as the big day drew closer we ...
We were headed down to Atlanta for work and pleasure in mid-March so we decided to stop in the Great Smoky Mountains for part of the day. It is a long drive with two small kids to make it from Philadelphia in one day so we decided to ...
By the end of winter we were ready to head toward warmer weather and we decided to take our new minivan for its first roadtrip down to the Outer Banks and Cape Hatteras. On the way we would visit two of the ten national seashores of ...
After the conference in San Francisco finished up and we did a little sightseeing in the area, we headed west to Yosemite National Park. We spent part of our honeymoon in Yosemite and we wanted to introduce our son to the magic of the ...
We set out from Grand Junction to complete our drive to a conference in San Francisco, with the plan to visit two new national parks along the way – Capitol Reef National Park and Grand Basin National Park. Not far past the exit ...
Our plan for Glacier was to spend four days camping on the east side of the park, two nights at the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn and Cabins in the Many Glacier area, and the last night at one of the balcony rooms in the Many Glacier Hotel ...
Little Bighorn Battlefield NM Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument preserves the site of, and honors the combatants in, the battle of the US Army’s 7th Cavalry led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer against the ...
Our stay in Rapid City was a wonderful little break on the way home. We started out on the night of our arrival with a surprise family dinner with relatives that were also traveling through the area. After the wine, steak and a good ...
Pipestone NM protects approximately 300 acres in southwest Minnesota, which includes quarry pits for a soft stone used to make religious and ceremonial pipes by American Indians, and many acres of tallgrass prairie which has never been ...
My conference for work ended Friday afternoon and we picked up a car at the San Diego airport to drive out to Joshua Tree National Park. Joshua Tree was the 10th most visited national park in 2020 with more than 2.4 million visitors. ...
From base camp in Grand Junction we made a day trip to Ouray and Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park with family. Our first stop was Ouray, where we enjoyed exploring the quaint downtown shopping district along Main Street. ...
We spent a few days exploring Grand Junction, including the Colorado National Monument to the west and Grand Mesa to the east. The clear blue lakes of Grand Mesa really called to me as I promised to be back later with a fishing pole to ...
The last time that we hiked to Grotto Falls I carried an engagement ring in my pocket, and my fiance carried the ring back down the mountain on her ring finger. It was August 2018 and we were spending the weekend in Great Smoky ...
For the past few days we spent visiting friends in Houston, family in San Antonio, and coworkers in Austin. Texas showed us its brutal summer heat, and we were ready to get out of the state to hopefully some cooler weather in Western ...
It was time to hit the road for a long drive home, but we had plenty planned along the way. Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) holds a special place in our hearts as it was the first national park that Jayne and I visited together. ...
We hustled our way east across I-70 through Kansas with the goal of making it near St. Louis the next day. We managed to stop in Kansas City to pick up dinner for the road from Jack Stack, which was an amazing KC BBQ experience. We ...
We had tentative plans to go to Colorado and Utah this month to visit Arches National Park but that trip was put on hold due to coronavirus concerns. Arches was closed to the public due to the public health crisis in late March. It has ...
It was a beautiful March day in Philadelphia and John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge was full of people enjoying the weather on the trails. We made our way there on Sunday afternoon and picked up a few more waterfowl that we had been ...
It was a sunny day on Saturday (though a bit windy) so we headed over to Wildlife Drive in Edwin B Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey north of Atlantic City. It is about 90 minutes from the Philadelphia area. Edwin B ...
We decided to head down to John Heinz NWR near the Philadelphia airport with our camera again for some March birding. While we were there, we saw one bald eagle sitting on the nest and the other decided to fly in while we were in the ...
After a brief cold spell in the Philadelphia area, we had another 50+ degree day today and I took the opportunity to walk around the John J Audubon Center at Mill Grove in Audubon with our Canon SX60 camera to take pictures of the ...
We made our first trip down to John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge for a walk and some bird photography this weekend. John Heinz NWR is the nation’s first urban refuge, established in 1972 to protect Pennsylvania’s largest ...
We took an hour in December 2019 to see and photograph bald eagles at the Dafter Dump in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, not far from Sault Ste Marie. We went up north to visit family after Christmas and saw a report that there were ...
We were in Miami for a few days for a wedding in November and decided to complete our visit to Everglades National Park and Biscayne National Park. It was a quick trip but we managed to pack in pictures of Stiltsville (on the north end ...
We headed down I-80 into Central Pennsylvania for a weekend of fall foliage, state parks and camping. If you are looking to leave cell phone coverage behind, the PA Grand Canyon is a trip we highly recommend! The Grand Canyon of ...
Jayne booked us a morning bird walk at the Audubon Center in October 2019 because Canon was going to provide some of its premium Canon cameras and lenses to participants. It ended up being a pleasant but overcast October morning in the ...
We had an extra day after a Las Vegas conference at the end of September to do some sightseeing and decided to make a quick road trip out of it to see the Grand Canyon. Since the Hoover Dam is on the way, and neither of us had ever ...
We took the Ford Mustang convertible (rental car) up the Pacific Coast Highway (California Highway 1) and explored Natural Bridges State Beach, Shark Fin Cove and Beauregard Vineyards on our way from Monterey to the San Francisco ...
We visited the West Entrance of Pinnacles National Park on Day 7 of our honeymoon for an hour – and it was action packed! Pinnacles may receive the award for the National Park over which we have argued the most. There are two ...
We spent a day in Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park after our stay at Yosemite National Park. We took the tour at the General Grant tree, drove through Kings Canyon to the end of the road at Copper Creek Trailhead, explored the ...
After we spent a day exploring San Francisco, we drove over for three days in Yosemite National Park. We stayed in the canvas tent cabins of Half Dome Village and explored Yosemite Valley, Glacier Point, Taft Point and Hetch Hetchy ...
Our first full day in San Francisco saw us make a whirlwind trip through Fisherman’s Wharf, across the Golden Gate Bridge, to Point Reyes National Seashore and Muir Woods National Monument. We arrived at San Francisco airport on ...
We finished off our trip to Congaree National Park with two days in the Charleston area. We explored historic downtown Charleston, Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, Francis Marion National Forest, Hampton Plantation State Historic Site, ...
We planned a canoe trip down the Congaree River through Congaree National Park from Columbia, SC to the 601 bridge in April 2019. Unfortunately, it was rained out as too many April showers led to flooding throughout the park. We made ...
We have been going to Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in the fall for a few years now. Hawk Mountain is a wild bird sanctuary located along the Appalachian flyway north of Reading and west of Allentown. It is known for its spectacular views, ...
We live about 12 hours from the nation’s most visited national park, which is Great Smoky Mountains. More than 11 million people visit it every year. We finally made time to go down there this year in early August for a long ...
We made a quick trip north of Philadelphia to Tyler State Park in Bucks County for July 4th today! We’re still getting used to paddling our new Advanced Elements inflatable kayak so we thought it would be a great opportunity to ...
We were supposed to make a quick trip down to Biscayne National Park during our trip to Florida, but because of uncertainty about the weather due to the forecast (scattered thunderstorms in the forecast), we decided to spend the day at ...
I have been telling Jayne that I would take her up to Ithaca and show her Cornell University (my alma mater) for most of our relationship. So when the first weekend in June rolled around this year and we were facing a rainy weekend in ...
We made a day trip up to Evansburg State Park to celebrate a birthday with family and friends. Evansburg State Park is located in southcentral Montgomery County near Collegeville and Skippack. This 3,349 acre PA park tracks Skippack ...
