Category: North America

I went to Great Basin National Park twice last summer, once with friends and once with my parents. It was almost back to back, but I did different activities both times so I felt like I got to see a wide range of what the park and surrounding area of Ely could offer! It’s a great little weekend trip from Salt Lake.

We stopped by the Salt Flats on our way to Nevada, which is one of the most interesting landscapes in Utah. It’s the first place I can remember ever seeing mirages for real, and while they don’t look like how they’re represented in Looney Tunes, it is pretty wild to not be able to trust your eyes.

Ely has a lot of interesting history! We took the scenic railroad, which was a fun activity and made for a good primer on the early years when the town was settled. We also went to go visit the Charcoal Ovens. They were part of the mining process, but the more fun claim to fame is that outlaws used to use the ovens to evade the police. The drive out was quite pretty as the sun set but it was slow going with the dirt roads and a herd of cows that also laid claim to them.

There are two main aspects of the park: the mountains and the caves. My friends and I did a hike in the mountains, which was a little harrowing with the snow on the trail – definitely a few slips as we made our way over, it might have been nice to have spikes or something. But the view once we got to the lake was incredible! I loved the mirrored reflection of the still-snowy mountains, and I think it would be equally nice in the later summer once the snow was more melted as well.

The cave tour was also a great activity. It had cool formations, it was fairly accessible, and the history of the discovery of the caves was well told by our guide. Definitely worth doing if you’re in the park! Overall, I would say Great Basin is a bit smaller than most of the other national parks I’m used to in the west, but I still got two great weekends out of it.

Back in COVID, Sam and I had split a virtual pass to the Sundance Film Festival. This year, like so many other events, it went hybrid! We still got our virtual pass, with new rules this time, and supplemented those movies with four more that I wanted to see but that were only offered in theaters. By the time I was done with the week, I’d watched 14 full length movies and over 50 short films. My goal during Sundance is basically to melt my brain with indie films, and in that, I definitely succeeded.

Some highlights:

Scrapper: This movie was SO good. I watched it by myself and sobbed. It ended up winning the international film dramatic prize. Basically, it’s a tough-as-nails little girl who is living alone after her mom dies, stealing bicycles and pretending to be her own guardian to the social worker. Her dad comes to the house and tries to take care of her, even though he wasn’t around and she doesn’t want adult supervision. I’m not sure how wide a release it’s going to get, but if you have a chance to see it, do.

Fair Play: This one got acquired by Netflix so I know it’s going to be available at some point. Two hedge fund managers are secretly dating, despite it being against company rules, and one of them gets a promotion to be the other one’s boss. The effects ripple across their power dynamics and their relationship. It was so well done, and was one of the best movies I saw over the week.

Onyx the Fortuitous and Talisman of Souls: Honestly, the dark horse of this festival week. This was one of the last movies I watched, and my whole household was movied out, but I was determined to finish out the challenge. I put it on while we made coffee and by the time everyone was halfway through their first cup, they were sold. Really fun, and takes itself exactly as seriously as it should (read: not very). 

You Hurt My Feelings: Julia Louis-Dreyfus is one of my all time favorite actors, and I thought she was a delight in this. It’s all about the little white lies we tell each other, and the unintended consequences of that.

Infinity Pool: So the real reason to see this at Sundance was to see the official “director’s cut,” which was officially NC-17. This is the only NC-17 movie I’ve ever seen in the theater. It was wild to get carded going to a movie. Honestly, not the most violent or grossest horror movie I’ve ever seen – there were a few very specific scenes that I imagine can’t be shown when things are rated R, but I had honestly expected it to be more upsetting. That said, I think it’s an interesting concept and it was done well. It went in a different direction than I expected but I liked it.

Theater Camp: It’s truly a love letter to being a theater kid (which I wasn’t, but as a dance kid, I was adjacent and I love musicals enough that I almost qualify). I went to dance camp for three summers in a row and they captured the energy of those arts camps. The kids they cast were crazy talented and it was a fun watch.

Magazine Dreams: I’m not sure if I would recommend this movie, if we’re being honest. It’s Black Swan meets bodybuilding, and it is a very intense watch. But Jonathan Majors was INCREDIBLE in it. Yes, I’ve read recent headlines, and it’s a real bummer to see the domestic violence allegations. It still stands as one of the best acting performances I’ve ever seen.

I’ve been to almost all the states in the US, but I have a few glaring omissions that I haven’t gotten to yet. The one that seemed to surprise the most people was that going into this trip, I hadn’t been to Pennsylvania! Sam and I had been talking about it for ages, because he went to school at Penn and absolutely loves Philadelphia. After my visit to the mid-Atlantic, I could see why!

I actually visited four new states on this trip – Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware. Both New Jersey and Maryland were day trips. As it turns out, I don’t have any pictures of Maryland, which means that I was having too good a time exploring small towns like Havre De Grace and eating macarons and wandering through thrift shops! Embarrassingly, the only picture I have from this portion is the sign when I re-entered Pennsylvania….

New Jersey was the day trip that everyone thought I was crazy for taking. Yes, I understand that Camden is not the nicest part of New Jersey, and also that New Jersey is one of our country’s favorite states to joke about, and I probably should’ve gone one of the times I was in New York, but this was convenient. And it was on a train line that Sam hadn’t been on, which is really all it takes for him to be excited to go anywhere. The views from the train were pretty cool, actually.

I felt like Camden had a lot of potential. There were some cute areas, but it didn’t seem like anyone was out and about. It honestly felt to me a little like that period of COVID when no one was really out and the cities were emptier than they ever had been. We saw very few cars and very few people. And yeah, the area by the train station was not great, but otherwise, it felt like that shouldn’t be the case? It was the middle of the day on a weekend. I don’t know. I think Camden could be a lot more lively than it currently is and I think that would go a long way to making it a more fun place to be.

I spent most of my time in Delaware working. I mostly had Emmy’s house to myself, with just her cats around during the day. It was an unusually busy week so I was pulling longer hours and by day three, her husband was like “??? Erin hasn’t seen anything, she hasn’t even been outside when it’s light out? She needs to see something of Delaware.” We did find a good night to head to one of their favorite breweries to visit, Mispillion River, which is quirky (as you can probably tell from the lime green beer on the right). Plus, we went to a beach and I saw the ocean, so that counts, right? Yes, next time I’ll come visit in not-January, and we can actually go to the beaches that Delaware is known for. (that’s right, it’s not just a tax haven for LLCs!)

For my actual daylight outing in Delaware, we headed to the Air Mobility Command Museum, which is adjacent to the Dover Air Force base. That’s what had brought Emmy and her husband out to Delaware, and it was fun to visit with Wade! One delightful thing I’ve discovered since knowing him is that every pilot I’ve met is obsessed with planes. Truly, deeply, in a way that you don’t often see with people and their jobs. So he knows tons of facts about planes, and made the tour much more interesting that it would have been if I was wandering around by myself.

Anyway, the part of the trip where I got to be more of a tourist was Philadelphia. I loved Philly! A lot more than I expected, given that my knowledge of it before this trip was primarily from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which…. isn’t the best representation. Most of the tourism is focused on Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, so we started there. My parents have always done the US National Park Service passport books, getting stamps at each site, so Sam and I tracked down as many as we could while we were visiting. We also toured Independence Hall, which was cool and free after we waited in a medium long line and went through security. I also went out to Valley Forge, which is nearby but a little outside of the city.

We wandered around the old town, we went to Penn’s campus, and I visited my first Wawa, which was apparently the most important thing I did all weekend. We tried to go to Betsy Ross’s house/museum, but we were slightly too late to actually go through the exhibits. We also met up with some of Sam’s friends. When Emmy joined me, she and I went through the Magic Gardens, which is a mosaic art exhibit that reminded me a lot of Fusterlandia in Cuba – it was one of those overwhelming but really cool areas to wander through!

One other note – Emmy and her husband and I had gone to a bar, and I know that Philly is intense about their sports. Like, I listened to a podcast about Eagles fans once. I know the stories. But what I was not expecting was the music to pause and then an entire song about the 76ers to play at top volume in the bar, and then to be immediately followed by the Eagles-related song. I guess they’ve got a lot of city pride?

I’m down to my last eight states! I want to hit all fifty, because I think it’s important to travel in the country that you live in. Going to university in the Midwest made it abundantly clear that some of my classmates had not spent time outside of the coasts before moving to Chicago, and while there are some amazing places on both coasts, that ignores so much of the United States. Most of what I have left is in the southeast, since that’s the farthest from where I’ve lived up to this point. Stay tuned!

Our first weekend in New York was an absolute whirlwind of trying to see a bunch of friends, which meant by the end of the weekend, we needed to recover from the unrelenting social activity. Luckily, we had just the thing planned – Colin and I were headed upstate to spend a few days with our friend Jess and her family!

This was my first time seeing any of New York outside of NYC. Jess lives in Canandaigua, which is not far from Rochester. We took the train up, which was very pleasant. I got a lot of reading done, and the views were pretty. A good portion of the trip goes along the Hudson. We were lucky enough to have fall colors for our trip, which certainly helped the views!

I would love to visit in the summer, when I imagine you can actually go boating on the lake, but we still had a great time even with the colder weather! We did lots of wine tasting, both at the Lake House and at actual wineries like Ventosa and Three Brothers. Most of the places were pretty quiet, although maybe that’s because we were going on a weekday afternoon – nonetheless, we had great service as well.

The whole region also has a lot more civil rights history than I expected. In particular, Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony lived in and around Rochester. As we explored the area, Jess would point out some of the famous sites. We were even able to go tour the Susan B. Anthony house! I learned a lot about her life, and it was so cool to see a landmark where so much important US history happened.

It was amazing to visit Jess, and we were so thankful that the weather was beautiful during our trip. Buffalo, just an hour and a half away, got a brutal amount of snow, and if Jess and her family had chosen to live there, I doubt that Colin and I would have made it to our next stop – Portugal!

For this year’s long weekend, Emmy and I chose Atlanta! She’s wanted to go for ages to see the whale sharks. Atlanta, fun fact, has the largest aquarium in the world.

I’ve also seen whale sharks in at the aquarium in Osaka and know that they are awe-inspiring and amazing. It’s on my bucket list to swim with them in the wild some day. Obviously, when we got to Atlanta, that was the first stop on the itinerary! A few other highlights included penguins getting the zoomies and alligators holding dog chew toys so that they can exercise their jaw muscles, which, incidentally, is the first time I’ve ever thought an alligator was cute.

We also went to the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, run by the National Park Service, which was very cool. They had a great museum on his life and legacy, and then we could see his birthplace, his tomb, and the church where he made a number of important speeches. My parents have done the National Park passport stamp program for decades and they’re very jealous that I got my first stamp in the Southeast region before they did.

The next day, we rented a car and went out to Stone Mountain. This was an interesting experience – it’s a massive Confederate monument, and they do have the Confederate flag flying in multiple places around there. Like any true Northerner, I feel a little uncomfortable to see that flown so proudly. Emmy and I hiked up to the top of Stone Mountain, which had beautiful views from the top. The hike itself wasn’t too bad but it had a couple VERY steep parts which were nerve wracking to come back down. Then we found a place to park and wander around next to the lake.

On our way back to the city, we stopped in the town of Stone Mountain for lunch and a visit to the Miniature Chair Museum. This is a museum run by a cute old lady who really loves collecting miniature chairs, and holds the world record for the largest collection of miniature chairs, which…. yeah, fair, she has a lot. Not sure how competitive that one is.

The next day we headed to the Botanical Garden, another one of Emmy’s favorite things to do! She’s the plant expert and I’m the one who’s killed multiple succulents (or, to quote a meme I saw recently, did the plants just not have what it takes to thrive in a fast-paced environment….). The gardens were incredible, very extensive with these cool plant sculptures (pictured above). They also have a fun children’s section that we accidentally wandered into that seems like it would be great if you were traveling with kids.

All in all, we had a great time in Atlanta. I love these weekends because we pick places that I wouldn’t necessarily prioritize to explore on my own. Also, Georgia was a new state for me! I can’t wait to see what we pick for 2023.