The journey up to North Point is a beautiful one. We decided to hike to this overlook with our one year old son and had a wonderful time! With multiple views along the way, the trail gently slopes up, giving you a lot of level areas and allowing you to catch your breath as you make your way to the top. This was our first real hike since our son was born, and it was the best way to get ourselves back into hiking shape!
I have always thought that sunrises were more magical than sunsets. Don’t get me wrong, sunsets are beautiful. I just find sunrises even more so. Sunrises give me an optimism and hopefulness that I don’t find anywhere else. They offer the promise of a new day and all the endless possibilities that accompany it. Sunrises on vacation, when you know that you don’t have to go to work, are the best.
That’s why when we visited Acadia National Park, we knew that we had to see the sunrise from Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on all the east coast United States.
The Lisha Kill Preserve is a beautiful place, and echoes the feeling I had while traipsing though the Black Forest in Germany. The forests here consist of tall, dark trees and soft pine needles trail riddled with roots to walk on. It’s simply magical.
Nestled within downtown Los Angeles is the natural wonder, the La Brea Tar Pits. For tens of thousands of years, tar has been seeping up in the ground here claiming the lives of poor, unknowing creatures and preserving them in wonderful condition for us to “enjoy” today. These remains were discovered in the early 1900s when the area was mined for asphalt. Oddly enough, “La Brea” actually means “the pitch (or tar)” in Spanish so The La Brea Tar Pits translates into the the tar tar pits.
This past weekend, we spent our days at the glorious Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance in Trumansburg, New York. If I were to imagine what a perfect community would feel like, Grassroots is it. It is friendly to all ages, people are friendly and kind, the music is incredible, and there is room to dance everywhere.
If you are ever visiting Charleston, South Carolina, I highly recommend taking a short 30 minute detour to visit the formidable Angel Oak Tree. It is a magnificent Live Oak Tree whose limbs sprawl out wide and long reaching every which way. It looks like the Tree of Life with its overarching presence. I’ve mentioned before my love for old, giant trees (see my post about the Kvilleken Oak tree). This tree is one of the most beautiful that I’ve ever seen. It is humbling and awe inspiring to be around.
How does one beat 94 degree weather during summer in New York state? Going for a nice walk under a canopy of trees along a fast-flowing creek works really well! That’s what we did when we recently visited the Wolf Creek Falls Preserve in Knox, New York.
Grafton Lakes State Park is a glorious little destination that is very popular and well-known in its local area for its beach, which is always packed on a hot summer day. However, there is far more to Grafton Park than its beach. We went off the “beaten path” here, onto their small trail that went around Shaver Pond, and had a very private experience.
Two places very near and dear to my heart are Clermont and Olana; two historic homes and estates located in the Hudson River Valley in upstate New York that are now protected State parks. Both places have contributed greatly to local and national history, and in very different ways. We recently visited and hiked around Clermont and I must say that in June, it may be one of my favorite settings in the world.
There’s nothing like the height of summer. Long hours of sunshine paired with lush greenery is what I look forward to all year and is what I got to enjoy at the Normans Kill Preserve West. Add golden hour to the mix, that special time just before sunset where the angle of the sun casts a warm glow on everything it touches, with stark shadows on everything else, and you have a pretty perfect setting.