In the weeks leading up to our cross-country road trip, I often got asked the same question: “What are you looking forward to most?” This is a toughie. Being a travel junkie, I pretty much look forward to seeing any new place, even if it doesn’t seem interesting by typical standards. Camping in Ohio? Driving through Indiana? Visiting state parks in Northern Minnesota? Yup, I looked forward to all of […]
I’ve been staring at the screen for some time now thinking, “what can I possibly say about Yellowstone and Grand Teton?” Everyone knows that Yellowstone is a crown jewel of the national park system. It’s the first national park and one of the most widely known, drawing visitors from every corner of the world. Grand Teton, just a few miles to the south, is perhaps lesser known, but its scenery […]
After a couple of nights in Badlands, it was time to move on to Wind Caves, South Dakota’s other, perhaps lesser known, national park. Wind Caves, a 2.5-3 hour drive from Badlands, is an underground cave system so vast that there are likely still hundreds of miles of undiscovered cave yet to be explored. Today the cave has more than 130 miles of explored passageways, but experts believe only five […]
The drive from Teddy Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota to Badlands National Park in South Dakota is not an exciting one. The scenery is boring and repetitive – grasslands and the occasional defunct barn as far as the eye can see. Every once in a while you pass through a tiny isolated town, like New England, N.D., where we bought some lunch groceries, Faith, S.D., where you can get […]
After five nights in Minnesota (and northern Michigan), we were ready to move on to a new state, a new landscape and, thankfully, fewer mosquitos. After making our way from Bemidji, Minnesota through a stop in Itasca State Park, home to the Mississippi headwaters, we found ourselves in Fargo, North Dakota for the night. Fargo is barely over the state line. It’s so close to Minnesota, in fact, that when […]
Our next stop after Isle Royale was Voyageurs National Park, right on the Minnesota/Canada border. There isn’t a great direct route from Grand Portage, so it was close to a five-hour journey. With the ferry from Isle Royale putting us back on the mainland around 4:00pm, we were destined for a late arrival. However, after a couple of days eating nothing but snack food, a good dinner was needed. We […]
Monday August 8th was an early morning for us. We were heading to Isle Royale National Park, an island in Lake Superior, and we had a 7:30am boat to catch at the docks in Grand Portage, Minnesota. Isle Royale is accessible via boat or seaplane, and there are few different departure points in Minnesota and Michigan (Isle Royale is Michigan land). We opted for the Voyager II out of Grand Portage, which […]
After a fun three days in Chicago, it was time to hit the road again. This time we were heading north to Isle Royale National Park, an island in Lake Superior accessible by ferry from Grand Portage, Minnesota. Making the trek in one day was a bit more than we could handle, however, so we planned for a night of camping at Minneopa State Park in southern Minnesota. Getting there […]
After exploring Cuyahoga Valley National Park, it was on to the big city: Chicago. Our friends Tristan and Sam invited us to stay with them for three nights, a generous offer that we couldn’t pass up. Heading west out of Cuyahoga took us through northern Ohio, where we stopped for a quick walk around Oberlin, and northern Indiana. It was a long day in the car, so unfortunately we didn’t […]
Day four of our road trip was the first in which we had no travel planned; we had devoted the entire day to exploring Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio. It’s location, between Cleveland and Akron, may come as a bit of a surprise – it did for me. But, it clearly offers a nice escape from its more urban surroundings. Cuyahoga Valley is the seventh national park my husband […]