For my birthday weekend we happily accepted an invitation to stay at our friend's house in Hilton Head Island, SC. Somehow we'd never been here before, and the amount of trees and hidden development...
Blog posts from USA Travel
Quick trip to Washington, D.C.
Nine days before we were set to leave for Spain, Leandra grabbed our passports out of the safe to book our train tickets from Madrid to Valencia, causing her to discover that my passport had expired...
NC mountains, April 2022: stops on the way there and back
On the way to Waynesville we stopped at the Ciener Botanical Garden in Kernersville. A fairly small garden, it is free to visit and has a nice selection of specimens, especially Japanese maples....
NC mountains, April 2022: food & drink
Over the course of the week we tried a number of breweries and restaurants in the NC mountains. April 10 Oskar Blues, Brevard - we'd been here previously so we knew they had lots of parking and a...
NC mountains, April 2022: Wheels Through Time Motorcycle Museum
With the weather forecast looking quite damp we decided to stay inside for the afternoon and checked out the Wheels Through Time Motorcycle Museum in Maggie Valley. The museum was great, with an...
NC mountains, April 2022: Smoky Mountains National Park
We went to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park twice on our spring trip, once to the relatively close Cataloochee Valley in the early evening, and then an all day trip to the Tennessee side of...
NC mountains, April 2022: waterfalls
During our week in the mountains we made sure to seek out several waterfalls that we hadn't yet visited. On a beautiful Sunday we focused our effort along Forest Rd 475, hitting the following: Cove...
Week in Florida: Eat + Drink
Other Breweries Good Liquid Brewing - We originally planned to go to the South Manatee location, but at the last minute we noticed their newish location in Sarasota that was a little easier to get...
Week in Florida: Oyster shucking
After returning from our afternoon in St. Pete - my Dad informed me they had purchased 2 dozen oysters from Detwiler's! I had him pour me a glass of champagne and got started shucking. We ate them...
Week in Florida: Daytrip to St. Pete
We started our afternoon in the Edge district with cuban sandwiches at Bodega. We ordered at the outdoor window and grabbed an open table inside. We were so hungry we ate everything before thinking...
2021 Year in Review
Previous years-in-review – 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 2021 was another slow(er) travel year - no international travel, but following our vaccinations we...
Chicago, December 2021
A trip to meet up with Leandra's sister and family in early November fell apart, so we decided to fly up to Chicago for a long weekend in December. Since we also had a free Hilton night we needed to...
Our Itinerary
2023 Trips
San Diego (Jan)
Orlando (Feb)
Richmond, VA (Apr)
Italy (Apr)
NC Mountains (May)
Wisconsin + Chicago
Rugby World Cup (Sept)
Seychelles (Nov)
2022 Trips
Florida (Feb)
NC Mountains (Apr)
Washington DC (Apr)
Valencia, Spain (May)
Hilton Head, SC (May)
Pacific NW (Jun)
Long Island (Jul)
Florida (Sept)
Chicago (Sept)
Poland (Sept)
NC Mountains (Nov)
Euro Xmas Markets (Dec)