Welp, I’m falling further and further behind on trip photos. No surprise, as we’re planning as we go and packing in a lot, and I’d like to write a bit more than a quick blurb about some of our stops.
We visited the Hopewell Culture NHP yesterday, which was one of the two remaining UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the US that Jen hadn’t yet visited. We’ll hit some of the other Hopewell mound sites on a subsequent trip.
The hometown of General Sheridan.
Bank burglars beware.
Just a boy and his dog… BOTH DEAD 😵😂
One of my fav pastimes while traveling is figuring out “how many stickers I’ve been to” at breweries we visit. I played against the brewer’s mom tonight, closely edging her out, 17 to 15. Also fun to see our local place, Wren House, on the wall. They gave me a sticker to deposit somewhere during our trip.
Peace out, Cincy! We’re back to Dayton, stopping in at Branch & Bone Artisan Ales, plotting tomorrow’s agenda.
It was then on to a much more sobering experience: the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Lucky us, it happened to be a free admission day! This is an excellent museum, worthy of its Smithsonian affiliation.
We then caught the Reds-Cardinals game to mark Cincy off Jen’s MLB ballparks quest.
Then it was off to William Howard Taft National Historic Site, park unit 384 of 433 for Jen. I had forgotten about this crazy long sign at the visitor center. And this might be one of my favorite Preidential quotes about their own tenure 😂
First stop today was Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument. Gen Young was an impressive individual; I had forgotten that he was also the first black park superintendent! I had visited this site just months after its designation in 2013, so it was nice to see the subsequent renovation.
Saturday was a full travel day, with what seemed like an especially long flight to Cleveland, then a ridiculous car rental fiasco, then a quick stop at a mediocre brewery, then a 4-hour drive to Dayton, while also trying to follow the (also mediocre) ASU football game, which ended around 2am.
ID/passport, wallet, phone, and glasses—the only things you actually need to travel. You can solve most problems with those. We always remind ourselves of that when we have the inevitable “oh crap, did I pack the (insert nonessential item)??” moment.
Six random photos of bikes from my photo library
1 - Malawi (Africa) 2 - Mackinac Island (MI) 3 - Beatty (NV) 4 - Superstition Wilderness boundary (AZ) 5 - Amsterdam (Netherlands) 6 - Slab City (CA)
Commenting on domain names with a buddy and was reminded of why I killed off my outdoors/travel blog a number of years ago.
Waiting for the 24-hour mark to check in for my Southwest flight tomorrow—presumably the last time I’ll do this. I don’t fly Southwest very often these days, but back when I did, I absolutely loved them. Bummed they’re conforming and will just be yet another airline with the same crappy policies.
My local brewery just got in some new to-go cans for Oktoberfest… 😳🍻
🏕️ The REI Labor Day sale ends this weekend. If you’re camping curious, here’s a short list of what to buy at the sale. (Also, please feel free to hit me up with any questions)
Forgot to mention that I completed my A State Park in Each State quest during last weekend’s Nebraska trip. I’ve now wrapped up 29 of my 64 quests, though of course I’m eyeing a few new ones, too.
Black bear, brown bear, polar bear, and…Irish bear?
One of our favorite travel purchases of the last year were several handheld fans. We bought them for our 100-day Adventure, figuring we might want them during our 24-day overlanding safari through Africa.
And boy did they come in handy—they were perhaps the best purchases we made for the trip. We used them constantly, not just in our overlanding truck (which lacked both AC and fans, even in 90+ degree humid weather), but also just for general air movement in tented camps and hotel rooms (even in fancy destinations like Singapore or Dubai).
Jen’s of the age that involves hot flashes (she old), and so they’ve also come in handy since our trip, for those random moments when things suddently get hot. We now bring at least a couple on every trip we take—whether for our tent or a hotel room—and I assume they’ll earn a weekly spot in our stadium bag at upcoming ASU football games.
I bought four different colors (and two sizes), mostly as a way to differentiate which ones might need to be charged. They’re all shaped like bears, so each become a different kind of bear: a brown bear, a black bear, a polar bear, and—because of its mint color—an Irish bear.
Anyway, we tried a whole slew of personal fans, from the handheld variety to the hanging neck variety, and returned everything else. These bears were the best ones, and by a wide margin, and also among the least expensive. Here’s the link to the larger and smaller varieties on Amazon, in case you’re interested.