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Lake Jocassee with the Boys
For birthdays, I love to give experience gifts. And for some time now, it’s been a bit of a tradition for the birthday boy or girl to receive an envelope and inside that envelope they will find instructions or tickets or an invitation to a future date with me. This past spring, the boys each received their birthday dates. One for a guided boat tour of Lake Jocassee. (I had found a great buy one, get one free deal.) One for a day spent out of doors together hiking or fishing. Unfortunately, the boat tour company called and canceled their tour. And through shared conversation, the two boys decided they…
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Six Steps to Hiking & Adventuring With Kids
I like traveling with my kids. I like taking adventures with my children. I like hikes and being outside and going places with them. (This is beginning to sound like some sort of confessional. Are you waiting for the “however” or the “but”?) Exploring with my family has always been on the top of my list of favorite activities. This summer the kids and I drove 5,000 miles and hiked a handful of trails. We rode horses. We toured through four National parks in Utah and we went glamping for the first time. We saw the Grand Canyon and we drove across this gorgeous bridge in some state (I cannot…
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going dark . . .
It’s funny that we have a phrase for this. That “going dark” can be seen in so many different lights. (I make puns as if it were my job. Even when it’s not my job.) When I was planning for our trip to Colorado and Utah, I was talking with my Travelers Rest Here Intern/IG Diva/Really Gigantic Helper about what she would be doing while I was gone. I told her I would be completely off the grid for a while. She suggested I write a post when I returned called “going dark”. I’m taking her advice. Going Dark. For some it sounds like a dream. Shutting it all down…
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returning …
Even when your real life is one you actually enjoy, it’s painfully difficult to leave a place as dreamy as Lost Valley Ranch. It is absolutely a place of genuine connections, set aside agendas, zero emails – and, of course – laughter and luxury. Naturally, having someone else make your bed is far better than making it yourself. (And they do a much better job at it too.) Turn down service nightly – and that little Andes mint waiting on your pillow – beats any sort of turn down service happening at my house. (And what turn down service is happening at my house, you may ask? None. None turn…
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tell me about utah . . .
We’re on a countdown, and like most of my life lately, it has snuck up on me. In less than a month (what? for real?) we will be heading out for our fourth (seriously?) Beyond Wildwood adventure to the happiest place on earth. (Nope – it’s not Disneyland.) To say I cannot wait is an understatement. The fact that we have the privilege to go back for a fourth year, to feel like regulars, to ride horses in the Pike National Forest, to let someone else cook for us and make our beds …. oh dear goodness, it’s amazing. This year – we have the joy of having my dad…
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A Max Patch Visit
One of the lovely friends we met at Lost Valley Ranch contacted me. Told me that she had a timeshare that she’d be happy to share with our family because her family couldn’t use it this year. It is in the Pigeon Forge area. And the week it was available was the beginning of August. I wanted to say yes. But I was afraid it was going to turn out to be the week we were moving, or needed to move, or were packing, or would have just moved. And I was afraid the timing would be all off. Turns out, the timing is just about perfect. And we…
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Just What We Needed: Rapid City/Black Hills KOA Review
We’ve been back from our Ranch Adventure all summer and between buying a house and preparing to move and running a business and taking care of five kids I’ve not taken the time I meant to to write some reviews of our experiences back and forth across these lovely United States. Our route this year was heavily influenced by our strong and whole hearted desire to circumvent Kansas pretty much entirely. I’m willing to forgive Kansas for her poor treatment of us, but forgiveness does not equal embracing. On the drive out west we were under time constraints to get to the ranch by a certain day…
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July Fourth – celebrating it all week long.
For the last 27 years I have spent July 4th at the farm in Virginia. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s my favorite holiday. (Well, I did miss one holiday gathering the summer I worked as a camp counselor at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park.) The party is traditionally the Saturday nearest to July 4th and this year that puts the party on July 7th. Which meant that we stayed in our own actual town for the official Fourth of July! It’s truly a best of both worlds scenario for us this summer – we get to celebrate our favorite annual tradition…
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That Time We Visited a Castle: Glen Eyrie, Colorado Springs
Over three years ago when we were preparing to make our first Lost Valley adventure happen, I was researching places to stay and things to do in Colorado Springs. Glen Eyrie popped up in my searches. It’s stunning – right? I’d heard of it before actually – probably from my dad. Many years earlier Dad and Mom had taken some of us on a journey to Colorado and Wyoming when my oldest brother was getting married in Wyoming. We visited the Flying W Wranglers and their home base was located right outside of Glen Eyrie. (The Flying W was since tragically destroyed in a fire, but…
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The Weekend Ramble (the Lost Valley Ranch abbreviated bit)
Whiplash. That’s what it feels like to transition from a week of perfection to a laundry list of stuff that stacked up while you were not checking in. Not to mention the actual laundry. But let’s not focus on the 37 texts and the 490 emails that I’ll need to eventually wade through. (Although I am prone to it, that is not hyperbole.) Let’s just share a few photos from a week well spent at Lost Valley Ranch. We couldn’t even believe we were able to enjoy a third summer at the ranch. I don’t think a single guest was a new person so it truly felt…
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Little Ways to Save Money for Trips
I have five kids living in my house. Three of them are teenagers. The food consumption alone in this house is outrageous. Our house is over one hundred years old. The heating and cooling bill take a gigantic chunk of the pie every month. And pie – well, if we want that, we can’t even share just one any longer – we need two! This month my car needed a new oil sensor – whatever that really means. Its gas guzzling capacity rivals that of my son’s cereal eating capacity. Yesterday that car died in the parking lot of Wal-Mart. It has since been revived but there are no guarantees…
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A Day in the Life – not so lucky
The day before yesterday Otto found nine four leaf clovers in our yard. NINE. And I found three. (Which beats my life time score of finding four leaf clovers – previously I had only ever found one four leaf clover. In my entire life.) I thought maybe Otto’s luck would transfer over to our whole family. But I don’t know. We drove on a bit of an excursion to visit a dairy farm that provides milk to several local restaurants for a story. The smell of farm air and manure and cow and hay and copious amounts of milk was all very familiar to me.…
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Adventuring with Bergen: An Early Birthday Trip
What a busy busy week it was last week. Even though it was a few weeks early, Bergen and I took off to celebrate his thirteenth birthday. We had to seize our opportunity early because his birthday wish for his adventure was to go skiing. And you just can’t go skiing in the south in April. Shoot, often you can’t go skiing in the south in March. But like a little birthday miracle, not only was the ski slope open for one last week, we actually even had legitimate snow falling all around us. We drove up in the mountains north of Asheville and the snow was…
