Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
All in Vacation
After our red-eye flight, we landed in Halifax and spent our first day getting our room and walking around the waterfront. We also made it to the Halifax Public Garden.
Since we had an early evening flight from Seattle, we took our time finishing things at the house before heading to the airport. After we arrived, our first flight to Vancouver was delayed several times. It ended up leaving almost two hours late, but fortunately, that still left us with a layover of about an hour, so we weren’t too worried.
After Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, the second half of our trip was to Los Angeles. Melody was at a conference for the American Translators Association, so I did a combination of playing tourist and seeing family.
Since Melody had a conference in Los Angeles in the middle of October, and we decided to leave a few days early to have some time in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. I hadn't been there since elementary school, and this would be Melody's first time. We did quite a bit of hiking, as well as many of the tourist favorites.
Melody’s sister Celeste was in town for about a week, and we took the opportunity to do a bit of travel. It was a whirlwind week, and we got a lot done. We started with a couple of nights in Packwood, WA so we could hike in Mt. Rainier National Park, then went to Yakima to visit Melody and Celeste’s mom, then to Spokane to visit their uncle.
Our last full day in Toronto was quiet, with me catching up on things and Melody going to her last conference day. Our travel day back to Seattle was pretty non-eventful, too.
I ventured further away from our room than on previous days to look at bluffs on the lakeshore. Melody didn't have any extracurricular activities at her conference this day, but she did join people for dinner.
Another split day. Melody went to her conference and went on an art walk near the University of Toronto, while I went to the Art Gallery of Ontario. It was still hot.
Another full conference day for Melody, and I went to a castle. We both avoided the rain but not the heat.
Melody's first conference day, so I walked around a bit. Since she didn't have anything in the afternoon, we went down to the Financial District to do a walking tour.
This was the first of our "split" days, where Melody and I do different things. At least for part of the day. I went to a Blue Jays game while Melody walked around a bit and had dinner with some people at the conference.
We often try to do a day trip when traveling, and that’s what we did this day. The last time I was at Niagara Falls was almost 50 years ago, and Melody had never been, so we figured it would be a good thing to do. We were prepared for crowds (a weekend day during the peak summer season) and were able to get plenty of time looking at the falls from two countries.
Our first full day in Toronto included going through the Royal Ontario Museum and doing a walking tour of Chinatown and Kensington Market.
Melody wanted to go to a week-long book group event in Toronto, so I tagged along so we could make a vacation of it. The last time we were there was almost a quarter century ago, so it seemed like an opportunity to revisit the city.
This installment covers hikes from the past several months. We were in Arizona for a week in November and did a couple of hikes in Saguaro National Forest. In late January/early February, we went on a short road trip to the Leavenworth area and did some snowshoeing. The last couple of snowshoe hikes were in the Seattle area.
Melody signed up for a literary translation conference in Tucson, so I tagged along. We went a few days early so she could also play tourist for at least part of the time. Melody hadn't been to Tucson before, while it's been about 40 years since I was last in the city.
Spring is a good time to go looking for wildflowers, so we did that in the Columbia River Gorge. We did a bunch of hiking and a little bit of playing tourist. The weather was mixed, but the worst we had was a little rain, a little hail, and big winds. Yes, we did see lots of wildflowers, as well as a lot of views of the Columbia River.
We were able to fit in one more hike in November 2020, then switched to snowshoeing starting in January. In addition to a couple of outings in the Snoqualmie Pass area, we also spent a couple of nights in the Lake Wenatchee area and got in some great snowshoe hikes there.
We did a lot of hiking in September and October, with all but Snow Lake on a trip we took to the Mt. Baker area and Leavenworth. I only tracked the larger hikes, which is why there isn't distance/gain data or graphs for the short ones.
For our last full day in Berlin, we took it easy with a short walking tour near where we were staying. After spending time in a bookstore, we went to an organ concert in the French Cathedral.
