After two days in Zion, it was time to move south. Many months previously we had purchased tickets to do a tour of the Upper Antelope Canyon on Saturday morning October 12, which meant we had to get to Page, Arizona, which meant we had to get up early and drive about two hours.

The tour itself is run by the local Navajao Reservation. You book a ( Read more... )

We woke up in a cold tent; the fire had gone out late in the night and the temperature was on the verge of freezing. Fortunately, the sleeping bags and blanked provided were quite cozy, so it took us a while to get up and moving. After a hot shower and breakfast, we were ready to enjoy more of ZionThe Kolob Terrace Road was right by our "camp" site ( Read more... )

Last year, my coworker Adam and I hiked into Havasu Falls. That went pretty well, and there are a ton of other outdoor things to do within an easy drive of Adam's home base in Las Vegas, so we decided to do it again. This time, our coworker Cris joined us for 3 days of hiking, two in Zion National Park and one in Arizona ( Read more... )

Back on August 10 we had what might have been the single nicest Saturday weather of the year, so M and I headed out west to Howard Marsh.

Originally, Howard Marsh, like much of northwest Ohio (including nearby Magee Marsh), was part of the marshlands that made up the Great Black Swamp. It was slowly drained and turned into farmland; in this case, ( Read more... )

Last year, M and I and her parents went to Magee Marsh for the Biggest Week in American Birding, which is the clever marketing term for the annual warbler migration and runs between the first two weekends in May. We had such a good time, that we did it again this year ( Read more... )

As noted at the time, I did not write a last weekend summary for September 28-30 because I was in Colorado for the whole week. I did get some photos posted relatively quickly after the event, but a fuller summary was lacking. Now the record of my second trip to Colorado in 2018 is, if not complete, at least as complete as it is going to get ( Read more... )

After our first day hiking, I woke up shortly after sunrise and saw that Adam had already left the tent. Unfortunately, it turned out this was because he couldn't sleep, which was mostly because I snore. Adam had brought earplugs as he says he's a habitually light sleeper, but apparently it wasn't enough, so he popped out of the tent and slept in ( Read more... )

So I have talked about the gear I took to Havasu Falls, and I talked about what Adam and I did after we left Havasu Falls, but aside from the comments I posted on these photos, I haven't really summarized the actual trip into the falls very much. Let's do that now ( Read more... )

Number 1B on my first bucket list pass was to hike to Havasu Falls in the Grand Canyon. Through a series of fortunate coincidences, I did that last week.

To make a long story short, my coworker Adam and I had discussed hiking the Grand Canyon (we've both done the Phantom Ranch hike). He is based in Las Vegas, so he's relatively close to the Canyon ( Read more... )

On very short notice my parents passed through town on Friday night en route to retirement home shopping. M and I took them to dinner at Cravings Cafe, which is a combination Thai restaurant & coffee house that I've biked past for many years but never been in. The menu had an extensive range of Thai food, some of which I do not recall seeing as an ( Read more... )