The Skyline Drive – Blue Ridge Parkway together form an historic scenic drive that runs 574 miles through Virginia and North Carolina through the Blue Ridge Mountains and Appalachia. That time I almost lost my phone hanging out the window taking a photo along Skyline Drive. The Blue Ridge Parkway is a […]
Year: 2020
Table Rock Hike in Monongahela National Forest
What’s a little mud when the view is this? Table Rock is a massive rock outcropping on the western side of Canaan Mountain, overlooking the Dry Fork and Cheat River valleys. The hike out to it will carry you through a hardwood forest as well as rhododendron thickets; it’s unlikely you’ll encounter anyone else, so […]
Overlook Mountain Trail Hike
Overlook Mountain is located just north of Woodstock, NY. In fact, if you walk down the main thoroughfare of Woodstock, you can see it clearly. It’s a popular trail — one of the most popular in the Catskills, in fact. You won’t get any solitude but that’s because the payoff is amazing. Three payoffs, actually. […]
The Holiday Spirit Goes Wild at Zoo Lights at the Maryland Zoo!
I want a hippopotamus for Christmas Only a hippopotamus will do Don’t want a doll, no dinky tinkertoy I want a hippopotamus to play with and enjoy I couldn’t stop singing this cute Christmas song by Gayla Peevy, first released in in 1953 as we approached the Maryland Zoo to see its annual Zoo Lights. […]
Winter Festival of Lights at Watkins Regional Park
Bring a little twinkle to your holiday cheer at the spectacular Winter Festival of Lights at Watkins Regional Park, featuring a variety of fun and dazzling displays. I always get a kick out of the claims of how many hundreds of thousands, or in this case, millions, of lights there are — but this holiday […]
Octagon Mountain House: Nature is Art
I’d always wanted to live in an octagon shaped house, and when I saw the Octagon Mountain House on AirBnB near where we were planning on vacationing in the Shenandoah Valley, I leapt at the chance to rent it for a week, to serve as our homebase while we explored the hiking trails, historic sites […]
Holiday Cheer at Bull Run Festival of Lights
Brighten your holiday season with the magical 2.5 miles of illuminated light displays of the Bull Run Festival of Lights. Because of Covid 19, the annual fair and carnival at the end of the light displays is missing. Don’t let that dissuade you from visiting this holiday lights display — I do believe it’s one […]
Let Holiday Lights Displays Light Up Your Holiday Season!
If you’re looking for a way to enjoy the holidays, then check out some holiday lights in and around Maryland — whether drive through or walk through, holiday lights displays are a family-friendly holiday activity! Whether drive thru or on foot, this is a fun way to get some holiday cheer while letting your inner […]
Riding the Houtzdale Rail Trail and Discovering Local Rail History
Running just shy of 10.5 miles, the Houtzdale Rail Trail is a delightful little trail in Clearfield County between Oceola Mills and Smoke Run, PA. We had just enough time to ride a few miles in each directions, so we headed for the near geographic center of the trail, Houtzdale itself. The railtrail as it […]
Does Daniels, Maryland’s Ghost Town, Actually Have Ghosts?
Daniels is a little known ghost town sprawled on both sides of the Patapsco River within the Patapsco River Valley State Park, which we’ve written about before (several times actually). The hike along the old road into Daniels on the Baltimore County side of the river is about a 4.5 mile there-and-back hike, with a […]
Hippos, Kookaburras, and More at Adventure Aquarium
Adventure Aquarium offers a fun, unique exploration of the wonderful animal life in the ocean, as well as some cool land animals, such as hippos, and birds, such as penquins and kookaburras. You can easily spend two to three hours exploring as you walk around the exhibits. The highlight was the shark tunnel, suspended directly […]
Staying at Grandma’s Place — an AirBnB Vacation Fabulous Find
We were looking for a fairly inexpensive house to rent while we explored the Catskills and we found “Grandma’s Place” in Woodstock NY. Perfect for a couple or small family, Grandma’s Place is walking distance to the center of Woodstock. The house sleeps four comfortably: one double bed and one queen bed. The […]
On the Road to Revolution Following Patrick Henry
The Road to Revolution Heritage Trail links historic sites and institutions in Virginia that interpret the life of Patrick Henry, orator of the Revolution and Virginia’s first governor, as well as other important Virginians who made significant contributions to the American Revolution. I had the opportunity to visit four sites along the Road to Revolution […]
White Rock Falls Hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains
White Rock Falls Hike is a hidden gem of a hike: moderate, 2.5-mile out-and-back, that offers very pretty views, hidden grottos amongst the rhododendron, wading pools, and a series of small water cascades that collectively form White Rock Falls. It’s located in central Virginia south of Humpback Rocks on the Blue Ridge Parkway at mile […]
Let the Road Take You Where It Wants to Go — Finding Yourself on a Barn Driving Tour
We were a little stir crazy from being quarantined for the pandemic, but weren’t comfortable heading out to a store or even to a park where there were likely to be a lot of folks around. So we decided to just go for a drive in the countryside… taking our car for a “stroll,” so […]