The Indistinct Redwood National Park and a Bunch of Other Indistinct Little Parks

So after the coast, the trees. Y’know, on my cross-country road trip, during which I visited a bunch of parks, it came to my attention that not every national park is like the national parks in Washington state. The parks in Washington state make sense to me. They’re big, there’s a lot to do there,

Read More →

Way Northern California Coast

It’s been a couple weeks, but I don’t know that the photo album idea is really going to take off and even if it did, it’s not really a great forum for expressing the deepest, inner-most feelings of my heart regarding, you know, topographical features, coast lines and tall trees and such. Been a couple

Read More →

National Parks List — Mostly Visited

Posted this list originally here. Now updating! I no longer think that I necessarily need to see every single US National Park before I die. The hamburger list has left me a changed man. OTOH, I’m pretty interested in going to Samoa now, so, you know. Things change. Alpha by park and I bolded the

Read More →

Things I Have to Do Before the Trip

Here ‘is: Get my truck serviced. Move the rest of my non-trip stuff into storage. Move my trip stuff out of storage. Buy a JetBoil. Make reservations for Boundary Waters and other parts of the trip that need reservations. Get signed up on health insurance. Get my interim mailing address squared away. Study for the

Read More →

48-State Cross Country Roadtrip Itinerary v. 4 or 7, Depending

Here’s the latest version of the roadtrip. It’s still getting tweaked. And full. It’s been run out to 114 days, although at least seven of those are more personal than roadtrip. First, map: So I’ve written off South Florida. I think that needs to be a separate trip during the earlier part of the year

Read More →

National Parks List — Mostly Unvisited

So yeah, I sort of have this idea that I should see every US National Park before I die. Although I’m not sure I should have to count the one in American Samoa. I got a long way to go (alpha by park): Acadia: not visited. American Samoa National Park: not visited. Arches: visited! A

Read More →

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park Photos

I posted some photos of Sequoia and Kings Canyon (click on the link or go through the Photos tab up top). Some were already posted in the last two blog entries. I can’t tell if any of them are any good — I’ll give it a month. Enjoy maybe. bkd

Trip to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park(s?)

They refer to each separately, but only give you one map, thus obfuscating the truth, which is their way. Went to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park or Parks over the weekend — left Thursday, came back Saturday. Camped for a couple nights. Hiked a little bit, took pictures of trees (see previous post), drove

Read More →

General Sherman and General Grant Are Also Names of Large Trees

To wit:   General Sherman, the “largest living thing on earth”. There are people at the foot of the tree, for comparison, some of whom were relatively large — I assumed they were from the midwest.   As clearly demonstrated above, General Grant is barely three inches wide. Beyond just the generals, a lot of

Read More →

#15, Build-Your-Own Burger, The Counter, Santa Monica

So I finally knocked off the other SoCal location on the 20 must-eat hamburgers list.   To The Counter’s infinite credit: a little on the rare side. It’s a tough one to evaluate. The meat quality was spectacular. I opted for the two-thirds-pound patty and asked for medium-rare — that worked out great. The hard

Read More →