Spring Break

Spending a couple days on Hohman Lake in southern Illinois, outside Metropolis. Some much needed nature and recharge time. 

Spring Break

Back in Nicole's home state of VA to visit her sister and cousin and to do some hiking.

Had to stop by Carl's, one of Nicole's Grandfather's favorites.

Travel

I've become less and less interested
in other places
and more and more interested
in my own
its trials and textures
its problems and peoples
for first and foremost
I must know myself
and keep my house in order

our capacity to influence

has not grown

with our ability to know

Alaska

Perhaps its fitting
it was so difficult
'The Last Frontier'
and all that
we saw beautiful sights
even if their access was constrained
we experienced the wilderness
even if it was extreme
we navigated hordes of tourists
the tourist prices, the tourist traps
the exclusive tours
the prevailing and seemingly inevitable plague of unsalted food
the ever-present Boomer niggling
we endured it all
and had our adventure.

Denali II

Last day in Denali. Its been challenging, highs and lows, but an adventure. Can't say I'd recommend the trip honestly just because of the cost/benefit. There are similar places in the continental 48 that you can experience for 1/2 the price with more accessibility and without Alaska's libertarian culture/infrastructure. Not a bad experience, Nicole and I had a great time and saw some amazing things, but certainly a more complicated one than we were expecting. For visitors Alaska seems most appropriate for either backpackers looking to spend multiple days/weeks camping or rich people who can afford various guided tours and to charter planes.

Ended our time with a visit to the sled dogs, cool and cute!

Denali

In Denali the rest of our time here. There's only a single road access to the park and not a ton of established trails. A big thing here is just hiking out into the bush, there's a bus system that takes you farther than you can drive and you hop-on/hop-off to explore. An interesting idea but the bulk of the guests here are retirees or international visitors both groups seemingly ill prepared for the conditions and terrain. Beautiful but logistically a bit complicated and relatively difficult to get away from crowds and experience the park in some solitude.