When we were planning this trip to the UK, one of the places that Zach was interested in visiting was the island of Islay (pronounced “eye – la”) off the west coast of Scotland, where (arguably) the best whisky in Scotland is produced. Zach first got interested in whisky back when he was working at …
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London, Amsterdam, and Paris
After turning in our boat (see our previous post on boating on the Kennet and Avon Canal), Zach, his mom Virginia, his sister Valinda, and Jennifer headed for London by train, with a stop in Salisbury to see the Magna Carta at the Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge. After a few days in London, Jennifer took …
Kennet and Avon Canal Boating
About a year ago, YouTube got Zach interested in the extensive canal system in the UK. These canals were built starting in the Roman era, and were used for transportation until the advent of the railroads provided a more reliable and cheaper form of transportation that could carry more goods and people. In modern times, …
March 2025 in Portugal and Southern Spain
Time for a change in the blog… In 2010, we went on a 6-week bicycling adventure in central Europe. Internet access along our route was very spotty (we didn’t even have access every day), our phones didn’t work in Europe, and good photos required using a stand-alone digital camera instead of a phone. So we …
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Planes, trains, buses, boats, and automobiles: Alaska 2024
In June, after we returned from our trip to Hawaii, we talked to Zach’s mother (Virginia), and decided that we all wanted to take a trip to Alaska, if it wasn’t too late to organize it for this summer. For both Zach and Jennifer, Alaska was the only state we hadn’t visited yet, so completing …
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Summer Adventures 2024
You may have noticed that there haven’t been many posts here lately… Jennifer had some health issues that affected her ability to go on the type of adventures we like to do between 2022 until this spring (see our previous post about a road/hiking trip to the southwest). But things are looking better now, so …
Cycling and Ferry Hopping in the Gulf Islands
In late summer 2022, we decided that it had been too long since we had taken a bike trip, and we started discussing where to go for a fall trip. We didn’t really want to fly anywhere, due to concerns about COVID-19 as well as the hassles of transporting bicycles on airplanes. We discussed going …
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Thailand
After our 3-day visit to Tokyo, on the evening of November 15, Zach, his mom Virginia, and Jennifer headed to Narita Airport and flew to Bangkok. We arrived late at night, so we spent the night near the airport, and started our adventure in northern Thailand the next morning. Trip Overview Here’s a brief overview …
Summer 2016
We had a pretty busy summer. Nothing really seemed to qualify for its own “adventures” post, but we had a lot of fun and went to some beautiful places, so I thought I would post a photo gallery of some of our summer activities, which included: June – Adventure Cycling’s National Bicycle Travel Weekend – …
Canoeing the Buffalo River: A Slightly Epic Adventure
On May 6, Zach, Jennifer, Jennifer’s dad Al, and his partner Gwen left on a 3-day drive to Arkansas, where we planned to meet up with Zach’s mom Virginia and cousin Donna (who drove out from Georgia), for a 5-day canoeing and camping trip on the lower section of the Buffalo National River, between Grinder’s …
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Venice and the Veneto area
On Monday the 27th of April, we packed up our bags in Florence, and took a train up to Venice. The first thing that happens when you arrive there by train is that you go out the front of the station, and instead of being on a busy street with tram and bus connections, you’re …
Upper Missouri River
The week of September 14-21, 2013, Zach, Jennifer, and Jennifer’s dad Alan took a canoe trip on the Upper Missouri River in Montana, which we all really enjoyed. This section of the river is a designated national “Wild and Scenic River”, and it is within the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, administered by the …
Berlin: Lessons in Recent History
After arriving in Leipzig, we counted up the number of days we had left before our flight home, the number of days it would take to bicycle to our next destination, and the couple of days we needed to get to Frankfurt, pack up our bikes, and catch the flight home. The conclusion: more long-distance …
Two National Parks and One City
When we were planning this trip, one of the reasons I wanted to try ride the Elbe River route was because where the river crosses the Czech-German border, both countries have national parks — Bohemian Switzerland in the Czech Republic, and Saxon Switzerland in Germany. They sounded like pretty nice places (descriptions such as “the …
Baths, Mud, and Goulash
For the final leg of our Danube trip we rode mostly in Slovakia, but ended up spending our nights on the Hungarian side of the river. The road conditions are somewhat dicey. We encountered various grades of gravel – some mixed with grass, and mud; more about that later –, small roads of varying quality, …
More Austrian Danube
The last few days, we continued riding down the Austrian Danube, again switching from one bank to the other of the river in search of the best route, the most interesting sights, etc. Unlike the previous German section of the Danube, we were almost always riding on paved surfaces, either bicycle trails or very lightly-traveled …
Into Austria
We made it into Austria this morning, and noticed several differences right away. The river valley is closed in on both sides of the river, leaving little room for roads, bike paths and towns. The railroads have disappeared, and the bike path is nice and smoothly paved, with very little car traffic. We’ve noticed an …
More German Danube
In the last few days, we have been continuing down the German stretch of the Danube river. A few highlights and notes… Zach’s GPS is working again — apparently the problem had to do with where he had put the phone. In his pocket it works; in his bike bag, not so much. So we …
Into Germany
On the third day riding north from Elsau, we finally reached the start of the Danube bike route. We rode north from Elsau to reach the Bodensee in Steckborn. Riding in Switzerland is fun, and as we were following a national cycle route, we didn’t have any trouble figuring out where to go. We saw …