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!
A rare moment where we weren’t at drunk brunch
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.
My parents and I were originally planning on Yosemite this year, but with the wildfires, it seemed like that wasn’t an advisable destination. Instead, we went to Lake Tahoe and Redwoods, which was an area of California I hadn’t been to before and it was absolutely gorgeous!
One of the things I was most excited for in this region was the Donner Party Memorial. The Donner Party is one of those things I learned about as a child and have always been irrationally fascinated by. There’s a state park outside of Truckee, California with a few hiking trails, a monument, and a small museum about the incident. There wasn’t a lot to see, but it was a fun excursion. I thought it was a particularly bold choice to include cookbooks in the gift shop.
Our next stop was Redwood National Park, which was incredible! They are the tallest trees on Earth, and there’s something so magical about being dwarfed by nature. We did a few of the short hikes and then did a scenic drive through the park. I would highly recommend a visit. The time of year we went was perfect, too, since it was the fall and the leaves of many of the other trees had changed to a stunning golden color.
The drive between Redwoods and Tahoe was beautiful. We went on some of the smaller highways and through the mountains. We tried to go to Lassen Volcanic National Park as well, but it was pretty snowy and most of the park was closed down from both the weather and the wildfires. It was crazy to go from the beach to a snowy mountain road within a day of driving.
One of the more sobering parts of the trip was coming across areas that had just recently gone through wildfires. Wildfires are a harsh reality of living in the Western US, but I’ve been so fortunate to be relatively unaffected by them myself. We went through communities that were still dealing with the fallout and trying to clean up, like the one pictured above.
Our final destination was Lake Tahoe! My mom had always wanted to stay in the Ritz Carleton there, so we had a ~fancy~ end to the trip as we headed up into the ski resort where it’s located and treated ourselves to a spa day. The whole area around the lake is beautiful, and I understand why it’s such a popular vacation destination. Overall, a great family vacation to a region I’ve wanted to explore for a while!
Chicago is one of my favorite places in the world. When Sam and I were looking at options to take advantage of the work-from-anywhere situation, that was on the top of the list. I’ve wanted to show him the city for a while, and so we booked a week here to work from our company’s Chicago office and spend some time exploring!
Anyone who knows me knows that I am weird about food, but Chicago is one of the few places where I actually plan out the bulk of the meals in advance instead of just wandering and finding restaurants. Obviously anyone visiting has to try Chicago-style pizza, so that’s Giordano’s or Lou Malnati’s or Gino’s. Personally, deep dish isn’t my favorite style of pizza, but I also happen to think that all of those places do incredible regular crust pizza as well. Then there’s Portillo’s, for hot dogs and Italian beef and, most importantly, their chocolate cake milkshake. Eataly does great food and is also fun to shop for groceries in. There are so many good restaurants and cafés and brunch places. This time, I met up with a friend at a place that had to-die-for gnocchi and a gelato flight, which was probably my top meal of the trip!
Chicago has stellar museums. I would always recommend the Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium, but the one that I made sure Sam saw was the Art Institute. Fun fact, it has the largest collection of impressionist art outside of the Louvre! It also has American Gothic, and Nighthawks, and a collection of miniatures, and beautiful stained glass. We got lucky this time and the Obama portraits were on tour there, so we got to see those up close.
Sam was shocked to find that The Bean is in fact, a large metal bean shaped sculpture! Millennium Park is always fun to wander through. I have two other recommendations I always make for first time visitors. The first is an architectural river tour. It’s a great way to see the city, and Chicago is a city known for the architecture! I’ve done the boat tours twice and learned a lot. Never call it the Willis Tower, though. It’s the Sears Tower. Always. The second recommendation I have is to go see Second City. They’re a great improv group, and a lot of SNL alumni started there. When I go, I always hope one of them will make it really famous and I’ll have gotten to see them early in their career. When Sam and I went, it was the first live show I’d been to since the beginning of COVID, and it was magical.
Depending on the season, try to go see a game at Wrigley! The tickets are a little more expensive now that they’ve broken the curse, but the stadium is super cool and historic. I’ve sat everywhere from the upper nosebleeds to right behind home plate, and it’s always been a fun afternoon experience.
We were there over the 4th of July, and got to walk along Lake Michigan as the fireworks went off. It was such a good week, and I’m already trying to figure out when I can go back!
After having to cancel our planned New York trip in 2020, Emmy and I were finally able to meet up in Denver for a long weekend! She grew up on the East Coast and hasn’t spent much time in the West, so it was a fun opportunity to show her the mountains. Up until very recently, she didn’t think tumbleweeds existed in real life, and was convinced they were just a prop in western movies.
We started at Garden of the Gods, which I had never visited either! It was a hot day but we brought water and wandered around. It was pretty busy while we were there. Personally, I’d recommend finding the higher trails that aren’t paved, as those had some cool views and felt a little bit less “on the beaten path.” There are some fun breweries near by in Colorado Springs too, so if you go in the morning, you can make a day of it.
The next day, we headed up to the top of Mount Evans! I told Emmy we were going to go to the top of a 14er and she asked me what that meant, because she lives at 14 feet of elevation. One big note here, the drive to Mount Evans requires reservations now. It didn’t use to, and 2021 was in fact the first year they started doing it. It took me a little longer than expected to get reservations because the system had a few technical difficulties at first, but once they got it sorted out, it was really easy – we just showed the ticket at the base of the mountain.
That view on the drive up is incredible! It’s a pretty limited window in the year when the weather is nice enough, and definitely watch the forecast when you go. We lucked out and had absolutely beautiful weather. Once you get up to the parking lot at the top, there’s a short walk to the actual summit, just so you get to feel as though you’ve accomplished something. One of my cousins reported that you can hike up to the top as well, and we saw lots of people mountain biking their way up to the summit, but our route was significantly easier.
We did accomplish Emmy’s two goals for the weekend, which were (1) seeing the blue demon horse at the Denver airport and (2) seeing a tumbleweed. The second one was only a tiny one on the side of the road as we went back to the airport, but it still counts!
When Sam and I went to Wendover, Nevada back in March 2020, we kept seeing signs that implored us to “Explore Elko.” As with many things, we started saying it ironically and then one day, it wasn’t ironic.
As fairly avid travelers pre-pandemic, we have often joked about being “somewhere, anywhere” even as we work at home and socialize at home and spend…. almost all our waking hours without even leaving this building. And so we planned a long weekend away to Elko.
Elko was charming! There are so many small towns in America that are struggling economically, and Elko felt like an exception to that rule. As it turns out, they’ve still got active gold mining, and as such, they’re doing pretty well. Every restaurant we ordered food from was locally owned and not a chain. We stopped by art galleries, too, and there were quite a few in the downtown area.
It is still Nevada, and it wouldn’t be a town in Nevada without several giant casinos! All of the ones we saw had a more old-school vibe, as opposed to Wendover that has more modern looking places. Or, of course, Vegas. Obviously. But the biggest shock was when we accidentally wandered into the “red light district” (really just a street with a couple legal brothels). I was sort of zoning out and looked up to see…. this.
I mean, I guess they really went for the alliteration.
If we’d been there in the summer, I would have loved to do some hiking on the Ruby Crest Trail! It looks stunning and seems, from all my research, to be a fairly undiscovered gem. But alas, it was rather cold and snowy, and we had a fairly chill weekend. We did wander along the trail next to the Humboldt River. We also saw a snow squall, which was a new experience for me. The phone alert system texted us both to tell us to stay inside, and sure enough, within 15-20 minutes it went from sunny to blizzard conditions.
Our Airbnb was absolutely amazing. We stayed up in this neighborhood with streets named after trees, and all of the houses were historic but well-kept. It was an easy walk into the city from there and our host was so great, giving us plenty of suggestions of places to go and giving us a quick tour of the new property she was working on.
Also, the drive out to Nevada is beautiful! The Bonneville Salt Flats are a great and easy day trip out from Salt Lake, and of course, we always love this view of the mountains over the lake.
It’s not exactly a hot take to say that the pandemic has changed travel. And I have desperately missed taking flights, and exploring new countries, and even the basic things like sitting in a restaurant or seeing the bottom half of a stranger’s face without worrying about whether they’re going to get me sick. But it has been a good push to spend time in places a little closer to home, places that I might not have considered as a travel destination when the whole world was open to me. Now that Sam and I are vaccinated, we’re exploring options for safe travel that are farther afield, but it’s nice to take the time to explore places like Elko every so often.
Interestingly, Delta, Colorado is almost directly in the middle of two extremely wealthy mountain towns. They’re about two hours from Telluride and two and a half hours from Aspen, and so we visited both during our trip. The other cute small town recommendation out here is Ouray, which, honestly, I’m still not quite sure how to pronounce.
Let’s start with Telluride! I’ve wanted to go here for ages, but it is so far out of the way from almost everything else in Colorado that I’d never gotten the chance. They had some fun with their COVID posters, as you can see below. Overall, beautiful scenery, a great town to walk around in, and we spotted some fun restaurants – I would have loved to be here in a non-pandemic time to eat in some of those restaurants, but alas. Takeout will have to do for now. If we’d had more time there, I also understand there are some scenic hikes nearby.
Moving on to Aspen, which is probably about 4.5 hours total in the opposite direction. I have been to Aspen before, when I was little. My family went to a wedding out here once. What I remember from that is that the aspen trees were all that bright yellow color, and my parents and I watched the original Charlie’s Angels TV show the night before the wedding and when we woke up we found traces of a bear nearby. Obviously our little day trip was a little different. Sam and I wandered around the city center, ate on the patio of a café, and then found a path through the trees that we walked along for a while. It’s even more gorgeous that I remember there.
Our third featured mountain town is Ouray! This one was a recommendation from our Airbnb host. It’s not quite as glitzy as the others, but it was charming. If we’d had more time, we might have gone beyond it, because apparently there is a very beautiful mountain road that leads to more cute and historic old mountain towns.
I think the night coming back from Ouray was the night of the deer. We saw so many. I don’t know if you’ve read The Only Good Indians, by Stephen Graham Jones, which is a deer-related horror novel, but it felt a little like that. Several passed in front of the car that we could see, and we were terrified we were going to hit one. The worst, though, was when we came up over a small hill and I found myself looking directly into the eyes of a deer that was contemplating whether it should cross the street. I stared straight into its soul, I think, and it was just me and the deer for a few seconds before I finally managed to say something to alert Sam to its presence. Luckily for both the deer and our car, it stayed on the side of the road.
On the subject of rural life, I’d like to take a minute to note the advantages of our farm stay. The place we were staying had a herd of cows, horses that regularly wore jackets for the cold, chickens, and goats of both the fainting and non fainting variety. Some days we would go out to wander around their various pens, and we even got the chance to feed some of the animals while we were there! I love being in a city most of the time, but it was really great to get away from it all and wake up to cows mooing in a field. We used to joke they had some sort of daily standup meeting because they would all congregate in one area and moo at a specific time each morning.
All in all, I cannot stress enough how underrated southwestern Colorado is. It was never really on my list, but when COVID shifted my travel plans to be closer to home and pushed me to look at places for outdoor-focused road trips, it created new options of places to visit. I’m so glad we took a chance on Delta and had the time to really explore the region.
I didn’t plan it out so that we were in the middle of nowhere during Election-Week-From-Hell, but I also wasn’t mad about it. It kept Sam and I from staring at the CNN predictions for 24 hours a day while we waited for all the states to finish counting ballots, which… let’s be real, we needed that distraction.
And when I say the middle of nowhere, I mean the middle of nowhere. My coworker asked me where Delta, Colorado was, and when I said, “oh, it’s about an hour east of Grand Junction,” he said, “but there’s nothing there?” Which, again, wasn’t exactly my plan. These vacation days were originally earmarked for Ireland pre-COVID, and then we went through a couple of other ideas even after it was clear our Europe trip was off the table. Northern California and Oregon road trip? Nope, literally on fire. South Dakota? Nope, crazy high COVID rates. And so we ended up finding an Airbnb through a coworker of my mom, which was a farm stay in Delta.
And here’s the thing – it was great. It turns out that there are amazing destinations all around Delta, and it was nice to be out in the middle of nowhere for a while. I’m separating the trip into two posts. This one will be focused on the landscapes and outdoorsy activities, and the next post will be the cute ski towns we visited around here!
On the way to Delta, we stopped at Arches National Park and hiked out to Delicate Arch. It’s one of Utah’s most famous landmarks! You may have seen it before on the Utah license plates. The hike out is gorgeous, and the arch itself doesn’t disappoint. At some point, we’ll have to do a full Utah parks trip because this was the first time Sam had been to any of them.
Our next day was Colorado National Monument, which is right by Grand Junction.
Fun fact, Grand Junction and nearby Fruita actually have a lot of wineries! We went to one that my parents recommended, Red Mesa. It had great wine, and more importantly, it had Daryl, this delightful dog who sat with us outside while we drank wine.
Another important note about Grand Junction is that they have an… unusual convention for street names. Sam and I were absolutely baffled as we came across the following:
It’s a similar concept to the grid system, but the fractions are wild. We came across one that had a 5/8 and just about lost it.
Our last big National Park Service outing was to Black Canyon of the Gunnison! It’s known for being extremely steep. Just look at those sheer rock faces in the third picture. When we got our stamp at a little table outside the visitor center, the ranger told us about all the lookouts and then said that we could hike a bit into the canyon until he took a look at my shoes. They were just normal sneakers and so he immediately walked that back. But we walked along the rim near the visitor center and then went to a number of the lookouts, and they were indeed spectacular. I think it’s one of the less popular national parks in Colorado, which is probably due to its remote nature. If you’re considering visiting this area, though, I would highly recommend it!
Since we’d visited Sam’s family, it was time to visit mine in Colorado! Cue another two weeks of hard quarantine. We went in early July, so it was hot (but not as hot as it would’ve been in Arizona, haha). There are two ways to go, through Wyoming or over the mountains, and Sam chose mountains. It was definitely the better choice. First it’s down from Salt Lake toward the red rock formations of Utah, and then you go through the canyon and past all the adorable little ski towns. It’s pretty incredible to have this out your window:
It was great to see my parents. I am so thankful that I could work from home and so could they, so that we could all fully quarantine before the visit. Their neighborhood was a good place to spend some time as the cases ramped up in the summer. They back up to a park, which connects out to a lot of walking trails, and we would go on long walks every morning before work.
At the beginning of COVID, when everything went quiet and there were less cars on the roads, it seems that the animals around my parents’ neighborhood took that as an opportunity to come outside! We saw so many deer while we were there, including one that we had to gently herd away from the road and this guy, below. We were sitting on the deck eating lunch when I looked up and saw him. Surprised, I made some sort of noise, which scared him away from our backyard. Instead, he went two doors down, where he proceeded to take a nap and then utterly decimate the lettuce they were carefully growing.
We were there during July 4th. Fun fact, they cancelled a bunch of the fireworks for July 4th, both because of COVID gathering restrictions and because of the danger of wildfires. Here’s the problem, though: they told everyone several days in advance. So everyone got in their cars and drove up to Wyoming and brought fireworks back. People went all out, too. I’ve spent a lot of summers in Colorado and I’ve never seen anything like it. It felt like professional-grade shows. And while I was mildly terrified that they would light the trees on fire, it was nice to have such a spectacle in such a dark year.
We did a few day trips while we were there, too! A couple of my friends masked up and went on walks with us, and we had the chance to go to Boulder, Denver, and that hotel that they based The Shining off of. Denver seemed to be preparing for an expansion of their outdoor dining, as you can see above.
One of the things that I was pleasantly surprised by was that we could get alcohol with our takeout, which is… not a thing Utah offers (shocking, I know). But it led to this delightful cup, which contained some sort of frozen sangria slushie:
Anyway. That’s all I got. It was weird not to be able to see all of my family, some of whom still had to work in person. But it was so nice to see my parents and get a chance to show Sam some of Colorado. It really is a beautiful state!
The only “travel” I did in the summer of 2020 was family visits after two weeks of hard quarantine. As we looked at the numbers across the country, both my parents and Sam’s parents agreed that this was likely to go on for a long time, and we decided to figure out how to see everyone safely.
Sam’s family lives near the border of Arizona and Nevada, out in Mohave County, Arizona. I’ve made it a personal rule to never go to to Arizona in July, because it’s just objectively too hot, so we went in May with the hopes it wouldn’t have warmed up too much. Which…. eh. It was still pretty hot. It got to 111 F while we were there. I now understand Sam’s fear of the sun and subsequent desire to make sure we always have 120 oz. of water when we go hiking.
Side note, the drive down was spectacular?! I don’t know if I’d ever been to that bit of Arizona that you can’t reach from the rest of Arizona before. If I had, it was a long time ago. Sheer cliff faces, canyons, and the sun setting as we went into the valley near his parents’ house…. absolutely incredible. Look at these rock striations!
Most of our trip was spent working from their house and taking long walks around the house. Because they’re out farther from big cities and light pollution, the view of the stars from their house was amazing. I also loved seeing all of the quails in the neighborhood. Sam and I heard two of them calling back and forth to each other in the mornings when we would talk past two particular rooftops, which was adorable!
We did visit Needles, California, which is apparently the home of Spike from Peanuts! It’s also a stop on Route 66. Because Sam’s parents live so close to the border, I actually was in four states over this trip – Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and California.
This picture is from a casino/gas station/McDonald’s in Nevada. I find it fascinating how Nevada manages to incorporate gambling into even the most mundane activities. If you’ve got it, flaunt it, I guess? Also, driving through Las Vegas is terrifying. It felt like we’d inadvertently signed up for a NASCAR race.
One of our outings was to Lake Havasu. Extra fun fact, the original London Bridge was taken apart and shipped to Lake Havasu in the late 60s/early 70s! No, really, it was. Apparently it was sinking under the weight of traffic and needed to be replaced, so London auctioned it off and the founder of Havasu decided to buy it for $2.4 million. And obviously, I had to go see it….
One of the other nearby attractions is the ghost town of Oatman, which is now full of burros. In better times, I would have loved to get out and explored all the museums, but we just drove through on our way to the Hualapai Mountains.
The Hualapais were a lovely outing. It was significantly cooler up at elevation, which was a welcome change after temperatures in the 110s with a UV index of 10. Also, the hike was beautiful and we saw a deer leap off the path right in front of us.
I only have one more picture to leave you with. It’s from a stretch of road between Las Vegas and Laughlin in Nevada. There’s a section where they honor the veterans of various wars. WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, etc. They cover quite an impressive array. Including….
Ahhh, yes. The Cold War. You know, the one that even Wikipedia defines as a geopolitical tension based on ideology, rather than an actual war fought with actual battles. I love the mental image of someone being told they need to make highway signs for all the wars and they just printed out a list of any conflict that had the word war in it regardless of what it actually was.
Anyway. My main takeaway is that there are plenty of interesting things to see in this region! Just go in the winter and bring lots of sunscreen.
