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labor day staycation
Instead of going out of town for Labor Day weekend (which usually means sitting in holiday traffic for hours trying to get out of the DC area on Friday night/Saturday morning, and then getting stuck...
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locked out
Yesterday, I managed to lock myself out of the house for SIX HOURS. My phone, wallet, and book were INSIDE. The dogs and I were outside. I had no way to contact Larry, and of course it ended up being...
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canada | heading north + EXP cabins
This spring, Larry and I stuffed the REO Smithwagon with hiking gear, sleeping bags, camp food, our passports, and every jacket we owned, and headed north to Canada for our longest road trip yet - 800...
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canada | moose sighting + hiking les cascades
After our first cozy night in the EXP cabin, we woke up, threw on clothes and headed to the visitor center to check in. We also had some questions about the park map and the hiking trails. Before our...
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canada | a walk on the chemin de la vallee-de-la-jacques-cartier
For our second day of hiking in Parc National de la Jacques-Cartier, we decided to walk down the park road (Chemin de la Vallee-de-la-Jacques-Cartier). The day before, we had learned that many of the...
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canada | exploring quebec city
After spending three nights in a cabin in Parc National de la Jacques-Cartier, we packed up our camping gear and drove into Quebec City. We were planning to meet my friend in the city, but he had...
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canada | montmorency falls
When our friend Bryan decided to join us last minute in Quebec, he told us "One thing I want to see while we're there is Montmorency Falls." Since we had done pretty much no research ahead of time,...
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canada | île d'orléans
After spending the morning at Montmorency Falls, Larry, Bryan, and I drove across the bridge to spend the afternoon on Île d'Orléans. Once again, we knew nothing about where we were going. When we...
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another one bites the dust
Our yard has been teeming with wildlife this spring and summer. There's a family of foxes - including two baby foxes, who we often see romping and rolling in our yard on weekend mornings. I haven't...
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weekend adventures | exploring hillwood gardens
Spring is always such a beautiful, yet fleeting, season in DC. It seemed to disappear even more quickly than usual this year, I think because we were traveling and because horrible weather (a month of...
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weekend adventures | hiking rose river loop
Larry and I have been trying to hike as much as possible in 2016. We've always been good about hitting the trail whenever we have a nice weekend, and we hike a lot when we travel, but this year I've...
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the headless squirrel
Sigh. Another day, another dead animal in the backyard, another haiku (or six). What luck that decapitation has five syllables!More backyard drama:Banjo has a bloody beard.A headless squirrel.Just...
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the summer of blackberries
If I remember the summer of 2016 for anything, it will be for the Olympics and the blackberries. I've spent the past few months avoiding society and generally hiding from the world. Perhaps it's not...
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weekend adventures | tubing the shenandoah
On the last Saturday in September, we celebrated summer's last hurrah with a tubing trip down the Shenandoah River. I'd been trying to make this excursion happen all summer, but with vacations and...
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best of 2016 | best books
Follow what I read and chat with me about books on Instagram: @funnelcloudrach | #booksandbeverages 2016 was a great reading year - I read 62 books, explored different genres with the Book Riot Read...
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2016 | the year in review
2017 is here. It sounds like such a futuristic number. 2017 is the year I will celebrate 20 years since I graduated from high school. (Omg.) I'm honestly not feeling super inspired about this year (or...
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a southern new year's eve
At our New Year's Eve party this year, our group of friends was talking about when spending New Year's Eve together became a thing that we couldn't miss. The tradition started on the last day of 2002...
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17 goals for 2017
It's been a while since I've written about my goals - mainly because I'm really good at making them, and really bad at accomplishing them. Part of the problem is that I tend to set really ambitious...
View Articlenew mexico in 1 second everyday
In November, Larry and I spent a week in New Mexico. I decided to try documenting the trip with short video clips using the 1 Second Everyday app. (I also took thousands of photos on my Nikon, but per...
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california | sparrows lodge + palm springs
I was recently talking about Palm Springs with some friends and I exclaimed "Oh, you have to stay at Sparrows Lodge! It's the best place we've ever stayed!" Which I quickly realized wasn't exactly...
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california | hiking lost palms oasis
Last winter, my friend Karen wrote a series of blog posts describing her top ten favorite hikes. It led to a lot of discussion between Larry and me as to what our favorite hikes were. A few weeks...
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california | the casey jones house
"Turn left at the abandoned gray house and left again at the rusty bicycle. Do not use Google maps! Pay careful attention to directions and mileage. Do not get lost out here or you might get stuck in...
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expanding our pack
We're adding another hiking buddy to our pack of boys this summer. Baby Smith is due in July! Surprise! I'm pregnant! (Emphasis on the surprise!) And yes, I lugged a tripod into the woods to take this...
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telling the grandparents
We told the grandparents we were expecting at Christmas. I was 11 weeks pregnant and honestly would've liked to wait a few more weeks to share our news, but the holidays were such a perfect time to...
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happy spring, jerks!
It's been a bitterly cold winter. But the beginning of daylight savings time, some sunshine, and hearing the birds chirping in the mornings over the past few weeks had me feeling hopeful that I'd made...
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