Weekend Trip to Kennedy Meadows
It was 7:58. A Friday night. The sun still just above the mountain ridge and already Alena and I had retreated to our tent for the night. Only a thin layer of netting separated us and our dinners from the countless vicious mosquitoes that were systematically probing our tent, looking for a way in to…
Day Trip to Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve
Living in Santa Barbara means that I do not have to travel far to see spectacular natural beauty. Whether it be strolling along our amazing beaches, hiking the beautiful mountain trails or a quick walk down to Alice Keck Park to see the native plants, birds and bats that make it a local paradise, this…
Christmas Lights
Ever since I was a little kid, one of my favorite parts of the holiday season was seeing all the houses decked out with lights and decorations. While my own family did our part each year to bring joy to passerby’s, putting up lots of fun Christmas lights, lawn decorations and whatever else we could…
JMT 2018 – My 10ish Days on the John Muir Trail
I just got home from this year’s attempt at solo thru-hiking the JMT Southbound. I struggled at first, but shortly fell into the groove of trail life. It is a truly a beautiful trail, but it is definitely frickin hard! My body ended up breaking down too much for me to complete the trail again…
Food, Wine and Art From Umbria and Tuscany, Italy
After regrouping in Rome for a couple days after our trip south to Pompeii, we rented a car to road trip through central Italy for the final week of our travels. We were told by our hosts that doing a loop through the region of Umbria, a few hours North-East of Rome, then continuing North-West…
A Short Trip to Pompeii and Napoli/Naples – Archeological Ruins and The Home Of Pizza
Everyone has heard of Pompeii and knows the story of Mount Vesuvius and the relatively instant burying of the city during the volcano’s AD 79 eruption. Over 1,000 bodies were found by modern archeologists, buried by ash in the city, which have been preserved in plaster casts as seen in the picture above. These are…
Our Roman Holiday: Seeing Rome’s Historical Sites Between The Inevitable Pizza, Pasta, Pastry and Gelato Obligations
The whole time we were traveling I was so excited to eventually end up in Italy because I love Italian food!!! Once we landed in Rome, the first thing I did was ask our amazing hosts, Tracy and Jeff, to point us in the direction of some tasty Italian food. Within a half hour of…
Back to Lisbon for Some Toodling in Sintra and One Last Night on The Town Portuguese Style
Me looking over our pancake feast before Alena and I hopped back on a train to visit the real life fairy land of Sintra. A great tip from a fellow traveler prompted us to visit Sintra and led us to Magik Green Sintra Rent-a-Scooter. We originally had written off Sintra as a tourist trap, but…
Drinking Some Sweet Wines in Portugal – Porto and Douro Valley
Porto was one of the places I was most excited to visit when planning our trip and I’m happy to report it lived up to my expectations! It ended up as one of my favorite places we visited and a region I would love to return to soon. The food and wine tasting in Porto…
Back in the USA!
After just over over 3 months of traveling our trip has come to an end and we are back in California. We landed late Thursday night and after a 35 hour travel day and I have still not quite adjusted back to a normal schedule. Once I catch up on some sleep and the reality…
Alan’s Birthday in the Alentejo – The Breadbasket of Portugal
We spent 4 days (including my Birthday!) exploring the Central Alentejo from the city of Evora. We saw endless fields of wild flowers, massive castles, ancient monoliths, bone temples, drank fine wine, swam in Europe’s largest man made lake and ate so much amazing food. The Alentejo is an unassuming destination that does its best…