I spent most of last week in Texas. Austin, to be exact. I was pretty excited to be able to see Austin in person, because I’d heard some good things about it. A college town, Austin has a reputation of being more colorful and edgy than the rest of the state, an island of blue […]

Backcountry camping permit: $15. Dehydrated food: $20. Tank of gas: $50. Taking 7-year old daughter on her first backpacking trip: Priceless. Our Labor Day holiday weekend started a day early, which gave us the opportunity to backpack at Point Reyes National Seashore before the holiday crowds descended on the area like a thick swarm of […]

We made a group “early season” backpacking trip to Chilnualna Falls in SE Yosemite in early June. Our destination above the falls was around 6,200′ if memory serves, and most of the snow had melted at that elevation. The river and falls were still raging from the runoff at the higher elevations, which was very […]

Wow, the most-overdue 12 of 12 yet… Sorry about that. July was even worse, when I forgot 12 of 12 entirely! It was a busy month, though mostly in good ways. As noted on the gallery index page, this was a challenging 12 of 12 from a philosophical point of view. How does one create […]