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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Hiking Scotland’s Rob Roy Way
After being in cities for about 10 days (see our previous post on London, Amsterdam, and Paris), we were ready for some quiet countryside. We started out by taking the train from London to Glasgow via Edinburgh, including a very scenic section on England’s northeast coast; Jennifer actually started that day in Paris with a …
Summer Backpacking 2025
We were lucky enough to have the time, energy, fitness, and wellness (which I never take for granted these days!) to go on three backpacking trips this summer together; Zach also went on several backcountry trail work trips with Washington Trails Association (WTA). Jennifer wanted to make sure all of her backpacking gear and body …
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 …
Southwest Trip 2024
In March of 2024, Jennifer traded in her all-electric 2022 Kia Niro for a slightly-used plug-in hybrid 2023 Kia Niro. She liked driving the 2022 Niro, and liked not using gasoline to drive around town, but decided she wanted a car that was easier to deal with when leaving town. The new Niro still has …
Miscellaneous Adventures 2022
The last few years, around the end of the year we have been making posts with some notes and photos from adventures that we didn’t write up as individual blog posts. We’re a bit late this year, but I (Jennifer) decided late was better than never, so here goes! Early in 2022, Zach decided he …
Southwest Road Trip
In late November 2022, we embarked on a three-week road trip to the Southwest, which I’m finally getting around to writing up a blog post about (this post is written by Jennifer). We took my electric car… the electric vehicle charging infrastructure in the US right now is having some problems (a lot of charging …
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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Miscellaneous Adventures 2021
We’ve had a pretty busy 2021 so far, especially the last couple of months, filled with home improvements, new cars, outdoor activities, and trips — so it seemed like time for another Adventures blog post! In January, Zach purchased a Toyota RAV4 Prime (plug-in hybrid). Since this car was not being sold in Washington state, …
Road Trip in the Time of COVID-19
Since March, we’ve been following a pretty strict physical distancing protocol. We’ve kept up our hiking and cycling activities locally, but we have only been seeing people either outside while maintaining our distance or online (aside from masked-up essential trips to get groceries, doctors, etc.). It has kept us healthy so far, but we have …
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 …
Cycling the Oregon Coast
We had a busy summer this year, but hadn’t been on a bike tour in a while, so we decided to go out and ride part of the Oregon coast. We started our trip to Oregon by putting our bikes on Jennifer’s car and driving to Portland the day after the Labor Day holiday, where …
Summer 2017 Photos
We had a very busy summer this year — we didn’t go on any big trips, but we had quite a few small adventures. And we didn’t get around to blogging or posting any photos until now… Better late than never, I hope? Zach spent most of June on a road trip, which Jennifer didn’t …
Spring 2017 trips are for the birds (and other animals)
We recently returned from the second of two spring trips. In April, we visited friends and relatives in Florida and Georgia, and in May, we visited friends in Costa Rica. It was great to see all the friends and relatives that we don’t see all that often (plus Zach’s new nephew Bo!). And we also …
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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 – …
Hawaii, the Big Island
In November, we took a 3-week trip to Hawaii, where we spent 2 weeks on the Big Island of Hawaii (Zach’s mom Virginia joined us for the middle week of that), and 5 days on Oahu visiting with family (Zach’s sister Valinda and her family are there, as well as Jennifer’s cousin Luke and his …
Minnesota cycling part 3: Driving back
After finishing our bike ride across Minnesota in Fargo, North Dakota (see previous post), we packed everything back up in the car and set out to drive home on Wednesday the 23rd. We drove most of the way across North Dakota, and camped south of Medora in Sully Creek State Park, which had a very …
Minnesota cycling part 1: Driving there
Zach and Jennifer are both (not too seriously) trying to visit all 50 United States; they’re each down to less than 10 to go. A while back, we compared our lists and found that neither of us had ever been to Wisconsin, Minnesota, or North Dakota. Minnesota seemed like a nice place for bicycle riding, …