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 …
2022 Kia Niro EV — Road Trip Notes
As noted in our previous post, I (Jennifer) recently bought a fully electric car, a 2022 Kia Niro EV. During the month of November, we took a road trip from our home in the Spokane, Washington area to southern California (and back) in my new car. Here are some notes from the trip. Warning: some …
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, …
Cycling the Natchez Trace Part 2
When we wrote our last post, we had reached Kosciusko, Mississippi on our 3-week Nashville to New Orleans bike trip via the Natchez Trace Parkway. So… let’s see. From there, we continued riding south, and took two days to reach the area of Jackson, Mississippi. When we got to Ridgeland MS (a suburb of Jackson), …
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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Minnesota cycling part 2: Cycling across the state
After our road trip to Minneapolis (see previous post), we set off on Tuesday, September 15 on our bicycles. The Adventure Cycling route we were following started in Stillwater, Minnesota, which is about 30 miles west of Minneapolis. The map we had provided a “spur” route from the Minneapolis airport to Stillwater, but we weren’t …
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Back Home
The train ride to Frankfurt was relatively uneventful. We arrived just after 4AM, and after some coffee and pastries we had a smooth ride in the dark to our hotel. Luckily they let us check in very early, at about 6AM. Jennifer had her bike packed very soon, so we went out to look for …
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 …
Off river, in Leipzig
It took us two and a half days to reach Leipzig from Dresden. The first day was spent riding down pleasant paths along the Elbe river. We stopped midday in the town of Meißen, which was dominated by a large medieval fortress called Albrechtsburg. There we were able to stock up on some important supplies, …
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 …
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 …