The other day I wrote about how the unglamorous reality of business travel is cookie-cutter office park hotels, chain restaurant food, and long days that preclude going out for nightlife. See Dullsville in Austin, TX and I'm busy. Well, the reality is that occasionally it's not like that. I had one such brief occasion on Thursday night when a few ( Read more... )

Northwest Return Travelog #7
Moscow, ID - Fri, 30 Jul 2021. 5:30pm.

This afternoon we took a slight detour on the way back from hiking Elk Creek. Instead of retracting our route directly back to Clarkston we angled due west for a while to the town of Moscow, Idaho. There was a gem shop Hawk wanted to visit there, and it seemed like a good place to ( Read more... )

Saturday Hawk and I took a road trip up to Napa wine country. The impetus for the trip was getting my 2nd Covid-19 vaccine shot in Napa. We planned a bunch of other activities around it to make a day out of it. ...But mostly low-key, because I wasn't sure if I'd start experiencing side-effects of the shot or how soon they might come. It turns out I ( Read more... )

This past weekend Hawk and I visited a Whole Foods store. One's opened up recently in our downtown, a little over a mile from home. We were walking in the area and figured, "Why not?"

Why not is Because it's too expensive, normally. Whole Foods earned the nickname "Whole Paycheck" years ago for good reason. So many of their groceries are 1.5x to 2x ( Read more... )

Paso Robles, CA - Sun, 10 Nov 2019, 6pm

Continued from previous entry. The first winery I visited in Paso Robles today was Daou. I picked it as a level setter because I've seen its products on the shelves of my wine store back home. It's well regarded for its Cabernet Sauvignon wines, which I'm curious about tasting in Paso Robles. Cabs are ( Read more... )

DEN Airport - Mon, 3 Sep 2018, 8pm

Today, our last day of our three-day weekend trip to Colorado, was a mostly driving day. A straight drive from Glenwood Springs to DEN airport would've been just under 200 miles, but we added another 100 to that as we took a side trip to Steamboat Springs.

Mammoth Lakes, CA - Monday, 2 July 2018, 10pm.

When we replanned our schedule for the day in camp this morning, we decided to do two hikes today. Our hike at Big Pine Canyon was the first, Inyo Craters was the second. We also decided to stay in a hotel this evening after struggling to sleep on the ground in a tent last night and waking up stiff. A ( Read more... )

Bishop, CA - Sunday, 1 July 2018, 11am.

Last night we stayed in Bishop, California, a small town along US-395 on the remote eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains. How small? Well, the Wikipedia page for Bishop says the town itself is fewer than 4,000 population but notes the "built-up zone" surrounding the town proper numbers nearly 15,000. ( Read more... )

Mammoth Lakes, CA - Sunday, 1 Oct 2017. 9am.

Neither of us slept well last night. The dry air of the high altitude combined with help from heater made Hawk congested so she couldn't breathe well all night. I didn't have any particular excuse; I just couldn't sleep. I awoke before 5am and tossed and turned until just after 7. Then I felt sleepy ( Read more... )

Saturday, 30 Sep 2017. 10pm.

It was around 6pm we finished hiking at Devils Postpile and started heading back to town for dinner and a hotel. The drive took about 45 minutes. Town, in this case, is Mammoth Lakes, population just under 10,000.