Planning to Visit Japan

We've been trying to plan a trip to Japan for several years now. This fall the stars aligned and we are actually making it happen! Brian visited Japan in 2014 for work, traveling to Tokyo, Kyoto, Utsunomiya, and Nagoya. He came back raving about the experience—the architecture, the cuisine, the hospitality, and the efficiency and …

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Washington Hikes: Nisqually Vista Loop and Deadhorse Creek

Despite the overcast skies we decided to squeeze in one more hike to round out our weekend of hiking adventures when we woke up at Mt. Rainier National Park's Paradise Inn on Sunday morning. We headed over to the Nisqually Vista Loop for an easy hike to a series of overlooks that were supposed to offer great …

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Washington Hikes: Alta Vista Loop

On our recent trip to Mt. Rainier National Park, we opted to stay at the Paradise Inn for an evening and dedicate our weekend to hiking around Paradise. After an incredible morning hiking at nearby Sunrise, we finally arrived at Paradise to find that the clouds had rolled in, blocking much of the summit and …

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Washington Hikes: Narada Falls

During our recent trip to Mt. Rainier we decided at the last minute to check out Narada Falls on the recommendation of my brother-in-law and his girlfriend. They had visited Mt. Rainier during their time here and said it was a nice, quick stop on the way out of the park. They were right--the falls is …

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Hiking in E.C. Manning Provincial Park

One of the (many) bright spots of our motorcycle trip throughout the Okanogan Valley was hiking in E.C. Manning Provincial Park on my birthday! We had a slight adventure traveling from Penticton to Manning Park—I had several ideas for breakfast stops along the way that all ended up being closed! Thankfully at the second stop, …

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Wildlife at Lake Minnewanka

One of the highlights of our time exploring Banff National Park with my parents was all of our wildlife sightings! From elk and deer to mountain goats and sheep to coyotes and porcupines and black and grizzly bears (not to mention the countless birds and rodents along the way), this was probably the greatest variety of …

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Weekend in Yosemite National Park

Shortly after we moved to Seattle my mom sent me a link to a YouTube video about visiting Yosemite National Park in the off-season in order to experience a phenomenon called frazil ice. Frazil ice occurs when mist freezes--streams end up looking like they are flowing with slush rather than water. Obviously there are other …

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