Hey there Adventurers! So I have been a little light on posts recently: My apologies! I assure you there are many coming! The sidekick and I just got back from an awesome trip to Juneau, AK! And we are headed to California in a couple days, and then I am going back to California for a mostly camping/national park trip later in July! In lieu of a proper post, for now (it is in draft form and I don’t think it will finish before the next trip!) I wanted to share a couple pictures from the very recent trip to Juneau and Glacier Bay National Park! Thanks for reading and enjoy!
This first picture is Mt. Fairweather, in Glacier Bay National Park. The summit is the border between the US and Canada. The park ranger on our tour said they hadn’t seen the mountain in a month! This picture is taken roughly 70 miles away, and the mountain is merely the 7th highest peak in Alaska. Which makes it at least 1000 feet taller than every other mountain in the other 49 states! I took this with my new phone and I think the camera on this phone is doing a pretty good job!
And this picture is more of a poignant one. The sidekick and I hiked up this mountain a ways and she stopped at tourist stop a little down below. I continued up this trail on Mt. Roberts in Juneau and found this cool spiritual spot!
There will be more to come soon! Up next is a trip to California with the sidekick. We are visiting Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks as well as some LA area exploring! Only a week after that trip finishes I am going back out to Cali and doing a camping trip at the No Cal parks and Crater Lake in Oregon, so stay tuned!
Hey there Adventurer gang! I just want to provide an exciting update about BARK Ranger stuff! The official US Bark Rangers of the United States National Parks page now boasts over 1600 members with an average of 150 interactions every day! Super exciting stuff!
We are also selling a beautiful vinyl sticker of our logo!! Additionally, we are actively pursuing the development of other items in the near future as well! If you are interested you can drop a message in the comments, or you can check out our ebay page. We have two different sizes to choose from!
In case you are wondering: What is this Bark Ranger stuff? BARK is a set of expectations that humans and their dogs (and we have one very well traveled cat in our group!) should follow when experiencing the beautiful outdoors in our beloved national (and state) parks! Some of the parks even offer a “program” of sorts to earn a unique badge or certificate to prove Bark Ranger status! Our amazing group is composed of members who love taking their fur kids to the parks and promoting the program. One of our members even worked with Ninety Six National Historic Park in South Carolina to create their Bark Ranger program! Check it out here! I cannot imagine a more perfect expression of the mission of our group!
If you are a dog lover and a park lover, be sure you join our group! We would love to have you and your knowledge of dog friendly things for the areas you live in or have visited with your pups! The sidekick and I are planning a weekend trip the end of this month to take our girl dogs to Timucuan National Ecological and Historic Preserve near Jacksonville, FL, which has a Bark Program! We are hoping to bring some good first hand info to our group! Stay tuned for the post here for that trip!
National Park Count: 33 NPS Unit Count: 61 (if you are wondering why it jumped a lot since the last entry…I realized during this post that I had been forgetting the “National Parks” in the NPS Unit count. So 61 it is!
Hey there Adventurers! After a long hiatus the Sidekick was able to rejoin me on a new national park quest: an extended weekend trip to the Caribbean to visit Virgin Islands National Park! This trip marked a number of firsts for me in addition to netting National Park 33, and an additional national park unit as a bonus! Our itinerary was as follows: a bonus evening late in San Juan, fly to St. Thomas the next morning, catch a cab and then a ferry to St. John, hang in St. John for 2 days and 2 nights, and day 3 return to St. Thomas for the day before returning to San Juan for a bookend evening, and an early morning flight back to Florida.
If you are going to St. Thomas, you can fly directly there on some airlines. Because I have some good perks with Southwest Airlines, we flew into San Juan the night before and took a 30 minute Silver Airlines flight to Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas the following morning. This trip marked my first time ever visiting a territory of the United States, and here I got in two of them! The language of the VI is English, but the driving side is left, using an American side steering wheel, and the roads are narrow and a lot more mountainous than you might think! Anyway, the best and easiest way to get to St. John and the national park is to take a ferry from the east side of St. Thomas, an area called Red Hook. The islands are quite small, and Red Hook is only a handful of miles from the airport, but be prepared for 30 a minute drive with the twists and turns of the road! Also, note that taxi cabs here are not private, but leave when they are full or it makes sense to leave. From Red Hook the ferry is fairly inexpensive and a short but beautiful 4 miles or so, 15-ish minute trip to Cruz Bay.
Expect to see this view on the ferry from Red Hook to Cruz Bay! Taken by me.
This is the view from the other side approaching St. Thomas. The water here was super clear! Taken by me.
St. John is little different than the usual National Park. This small, but beautiful island is almost entirely National Park land once you get a short distance out of the ferry town of Cruz Bay. That being said this is a working, inhabited island with businesses and services. The island is crossed mainly by two roads, one that goes along the northern length of the island/park, and another that bisects the island/park and is what the locals use to get from side to side. Most amenities are found along this central road, or in Cruz Bay proper. Both roads eventually lead to Coral Bay, the bigger area of the east side of the island. We didn’t make it out there, but there are amenities there as well. We got very lucky and snagged a rental (4 WD/AWD is a must here) the morning we flew out! For a few months I had been looking and couldn’t find anything available. The big issue is that most outfitters (they are all local St. John businesses) require at least 3 day rentals and we only needed 2. I had been told that if you called the morning or two before that you might get lucky! If you do not get a rental, never fear, there are many taxis ready to serve you the moment you step foot in Cruz Bay! Other than the inconvenience of having to wait and maybe not stopping at small stops on your route, they are a very good and much used way around the island. I will say, however, that the rental was definitely the way to go for us!
A view of Cruz Bay, taken by me.
After stopping for some delicious bar grub at The Beach Bar, we headed up the northern road which starts pretty much at the National Park Visitor Center. The visitor center was damaged pretty badly during the hurricanes in 2017 and is still in repair mode. At the time, there was only one ranger working the park and he gets the weekends off! In other words, on the weekend, the Visitor Center might be closed! The road takes you through the park and along cliffs of the northern coast giving amazing views of the bays below. We skipped the hyper popular Trunk Bay. The parking lot was full anyway. Just for reference, this one has some services, is extremely popular for turtle viewing, and even has an underwater snorkel trail complete with markers and everything. As an aside, the weather was spectacular, but pretty windy and the water was rough – there was no underwater visibility anyway! A reason to come back? MAYBE!
Number 33! Not the most beautiful sign, and also not in a particularly scenic area, but you get what you get! Taken by the sidekick.
This is a view from an overlook. The foreground bay is Caneel Bay. The one in the background is Hawksnest Bay. That water is gorgeous! Taken by me.
Cinnamon Bay was our main stop on this day. This is a big area with lots of parking because there is a store, a campground, showers, a food shack, and a water activity rental outfitter. The beach here is quite spectacular and offers probably one of the best photo op spots I have seen in a national park, in the form of a window from an old ruin looking out onto the beach. We got there in the early afternoon, and took a swim and walk around the area. It is spectacularly beautiful! The blue of this water is incredible! The water was a little chillier than expected and the waves were big and fun, but there was nothing to see under due to the wave action. Protip: a deflated inner tube can be packed easily in luggage! After a little driving around and exploring, we were done for the day and headed back to Cruz Bay for dinner. We lucked into a reservation at a delicious place called The Terrace. Very pricey, but great!
This is in front of the little general store at Cinnamon Bay. Taken by the sidekick.
This window and wall are all that’s left standing of an old structure here on the beach. It provides a great photo op spot! The sidekick took this one!
The other side of the ruined wall and window. Taken by me. I might have been in an inner tube that I packed and brought with me.
Cinnamon Bay. Taken by me.
The next day we geared up and headed for Maho Bay just down the road a bit from Cinnamon Bay. This was a really nice place for many reasons, but you definitely need to get there early because its quite busy and the parking lot is small! This is another great snorkeling spot to see coral and turtles, but again the water was too murky, despite still being that gorgeous blue. This beach has a couple shelters with grills, a walk up bar, a food truck, a paddleboard and kayak concessionaire (due to the waves they were not renting), and some gift shops.
A delicious bloody Mary on the Maho Bay beach! Taken by me.
A water level view of Maho Bay. Taken by me.
After several hours at Maho Bay, we ventured further down the road. There is quite a bit of sugar plantation history, and accompanying ruins sprinkled across the entire island. Some of them require a hefty trek through the jungle to get to, but one that is easily accessible from that northern road is called Annaberg. Approaching the ruins of Annaberg one can find some easy very shallow water access to explore for shells and coral pieces. But then going up the hill and onto some overlooking cliffs you first see a well preserved windmill and the remains of slave housing structures in varying degrees of ruin. The more industrial part of the ruins are more intact as you make your way up the hill. There is an old bakery type building and the larger boiler building. This was where the slaves would process the sugar out of the cane. Incidentally, this spot is also a great vantage point of Tortola, one of the islands of the British Virgin islands, only maybe a mile or so away.
This shallow part of the ocean is called Mary Creek. Taken by the sidekick.
This is the same area. Taken by me.
This is the windmill at Annaberg. Taken by me.
Inside the boiler building ruins. Taken by me.
The sun tires a person out and there were a few more stops to make back in town. We stopped at St. John Brewers which is an awesome brewery with a full bar and a decent kitchen menu as well! I highly recommend a stop there! Afterward we headed to another cool spot, The Windmill Bar. This is probably the best spot to catch a sunset. The bar itself is actually within the park and does contain an old windmill ruin! Just down the hill from the Windmill is a place called Shambles Island Bar and Grill. They have some GREAT food.
Sunset from the Windmill Bar. Taken by me.
The next day we headed back to St. Thomas. A quick taxi ride and we were at Magens Bay. This is a very popular tourist draw and for good reason! The bay cuts into the mountains on the northern shore here. The beach is awesome and the water, of course, beautiful. There are lots of amenities here as well: a food bar, a liquor bar, rental chairs/umbrellas/towels, gift shop and a kayak rental vendor. I did a little self kayak tour of the bay and saw several sea turtles! They do not like being seen and are very fast! I did manage to (barely) snag one on my camera.
Kayaking in beautiful Magens Bay! Taken by me.
LOOK AT LEONARDO! Little buggers are SUPER hard to find. They look just like drifting seaweed and as soon as they know you see them they dive! I just barely caught this guy! This is in Magens Bay
The bulk of the trip was in the VI but we did bookend the trip with an evening in San Juan. On that last night we went down to Old San Juan and had yet another delicious dinner at a place called St. Germaine Bistro and Cafe. Afterward we took a walk down to San Juan National Historic Site and the fort there, Castillo San Felipe del Morro. At this late time of the night the inside was closed, but they have the outside lit up beautifully and we walked around the grounds a bit before heading out. And that concludes another National Park trip!
Taken by the sidekick.
The Fort is obviously not open at night, but the National Park Service has done a light illumination job for the evening strollers! Taken by me.
Overall Impressions: Despite the relative shortness of this blog, this is an amazing place and on the list of places to I would make a return visit to. Absolutely beautiful! The only downside to this place is the quickness of which your money separates itself from your wallet!
Hey there adventurers! The sidekick and I are off again – this time to the Virgin Islands! We are spending two days in St. John, one day in St. Thomas, and an evening in San Juan, P.R. The weather looks great! I managed to snag a vehicle at the very last minute, just this morning and it looks like a cool trip is ahead of us! I/we had to make some adjustments to plans for the rest of the year and you can check the out new schedule in the “where to next” section! I’ll try to have the post for this trip a little quicker than my last one! :). Do cool shit, everyone!
Hey there fellow Adventurers! It has been 9 months since I have logged a new National Park! I was able to pull another “Ben Special” National Park visit in February. I am calling the short “go go go” trip in a ridiculously short amount of time, with very little sleep, a “Ben Special!” This time I found myself exploring remote central California: Pinnacles National Park.
First, the Pinnacles facts! This park was named a National Park in 2013, so it is relatively new. However, it was a National Monument for 100 years prior. It is also pretty small and has a fairly low number of annual visitors. Pre-pandemic the yearly visitor count was under 200,000! As such, the park has fairly limited facilities. This is NOT a free park and at a 30 dollar entrance fee (for a week, at least!), this is one of the more expensive parks! It is also very remote, so plan accordingly for lodging, if staying overnight. The park is named after the part of the rock formations left over from the erosion of a long extinct volcano that used to be much further south than it is now. The San Andreas Fault runs through here and has drug this part of that extinct volcano hundreds of miles along with it. This park is also a huge draw for rock climbers, more so than anything else it seems! The park “drive,” if you will, is very short and also does not go through the park: This is a hiking park! There is a second side that also offers some must sees. It is an hour and a half drive around the south end of the area and back up. Alternatively, one can hike to the other side as well. One other awesome thing about this park is that it was part of the condor reintroduction plan many years back. There are something like 500 California condors now, and 300 of them live here, part time!
Sign selfie! East side entrance.
A view of the park from a trail on the west side of the park, taken by me! Cool fact: there are THREE fault lines in this picture, including the San Andreas. One fault runs right through the low middle part, another can be seen, barely, cutting that small lighter colored cliff behind the big rock in the center. The San Andreas is actually that ridge at the top. Or, so the placard near this spot said!
I spent a full day on the more popular east side of the park. This side provides the more convenient access to the campground and store, plus the easiest access to three of the more notable features of the park. The day began with stopping at the visitor center to get some good info. This is always a good first stop! I got my stamp and visited the camp store and then off to my first (and only) hike of the day! The trail system in Pinnacles is very easy to follow and if you are on a trail somewhere, you can literally get to any other trail in the system. I started my hike from the parking lot at the East Side Visitor Center. This visitor center was closed, I presume due to some of the bad storms that rolled through central California a month or so earlier, and flooded this area.
The trail I took made a nice long loop hitting some of the big highlights on this side of the park. All Trails refers to the entire hike as The Condor Gulch Trail to High Peaks Trail Loop and rates it hard at 5.5 miles with 1630 feet of elevation gain. The start of this hike is the Condor Gulch trail which then meets up with High Peaks Trail. This section of trail is pretty mundane, but scenic, and pretty empty. The noteworthy part of this hike was watching the condors flying overhead!
Start of the hike with a couple condors hanging around. Honestly I am surprised I got them this clear in the picture without a proper zoom! It’s not the easiest to tell, but you can tell they are condors by the white under their wings and also how they carry the wingtips kinda splayed out (neither of which is easily visible here!)
Just another part of the park along the hike. This rock is leftover volcano stuff! Taken by me.
When I saw this area of the park I figured there was something interesting here. The second picture in this post points out a fault in the middle of the picture. This is actually that exact spot seen much closer on the first day hike! Taken by me.
One and three quarter miles, and 1500 feet of elevation gain later, I ran into the High Peaks trail. Here begins the long part of the trail that leads to the big sights! The next mile or so took me through the “Pinnacles” part of the park, the leftovers of the old lava fields produced millions of years ago. This part of the trail is some up and down, so there is only about 200 feet of total elevation gain…but part of this section is pretty intense! This is where you find the “Steep and Narrow” section of the trail, and the name is well deserved! This section is basically climbing straight up and down. The park has chiseled out footholds up the cliffs and installed a metal rail to grab ahold of. Once you clear one section of this, there is a section where a 6 foot person has to stoop way over to fit under an overhanging cliff, and then there is more! In only 500 or so feet you ascend nearly 200 feet! Once you get to the highest spot, then you have to reverse this going down with the same process of footholds and rails.
Here is the start/end of the Steep and Narrow section of the High Peaks trail. You can see the footholds carved in to help out! Taken by me.
The next spot in the trail. It doesn’t really look it, but I had to hunch over to get through this.
The next junction was 1.7 miles later at a downward descent the whole way. From here the next trail, called the Rim Trail, heads toward the Bear Gulch Reservoir. This section is about half a mile. The reservoir is the only body of water seen during the hike, and was a welcome change of scenery. At this point though there are options. One is to go back to the previous junction and continue to the end. The other is to take a rock staircase down the to the bottom of the dry side of the reservoir dam. This section leads into the Bear Gulch Cave. The caves here are talus caves. That is, they were formed by boulders falling into cracks and leaving passageways beneath. The caves are home to bats and are sometimes closed for their protection. The caves are also sometime closed due to flooding. I was able to enter this cave, climb through using a flashlight, and come out on the Moses Spring Trail which then reconnects to the High Peaks trail at a different spot. This then connects to a nice pedestrian trail that leads back to the parking lot. All Trails says this hike is 5.5 miles, however, my app clocked it at 6.5 miles and 3.5 hours of hiking time. I am not entirely sure if either of those are accurate, but there it is!
Bear Gulch Reservoir, near the end/beginning of this big loop trail. It’s not terribly large, but pooled water in the park is hard to come by! Taken by me.
The drawback to this park is definitely its size. After my hike it was only about 4 or 4.30 and I was not interesting in any more hiking since I had already done the “big one.” The park road here is just a short drive, and there is nothing, and I do mean, NOTHING, anywhere close to this side of the park. The nearest place to get food/drink/gas was about an hour away and I was in no mood for a 2 hour round trip, so I just saddled up to my campsite and got myself prepared for the night. A cool campground find though: apparently the resident turkey vulture population likes to roost in the trees in the campground!
The resident turkey vultures roosting for the night in the trees of the campground. Taken by me.
The next morning I headed out nice and early to the west side of the park. This was an hour and a half drive around the bottom of the park and back up to the other side. This area is still a pretty remote part of California, but at least there were some signs of civilization! It should be noted that while the east side of the park has 24 hour access, the west side has a gate that doesn’t open until 7:30 AM and closes at 8 PM. I arrived just about at opening time.
Sign selfie 2! This is the west entrance.
The first hike I did was the hike behind the visitor center, the Prewett Point Trail, an easy, paved, 1 mile hike that travels through an area that used to be a pioneer homestead in the late 1800s. There is not much there now, but some really good views of the Pinnacles. As an aside, this trail connects with another trail called Jawbone, which itself connects to the trails in the middle of the park that joins the two sides together. This trail is a very polite and accessible for anyone type of trail. Also, though I didn’t mention this before, this park is a big wildflower park, but I was there a little too early for that. However, this trail did afford some very small wildflower glimpses along with some different plants not found in the east side.
The view from the Prewett Point Trail. Taken by me.
These plants were not seen in the east side of the park. Taken by me.
A field of these would look awesome! Taken by me.
Another pretty plant found on the west side of the park. Taken by me.
The main draw here in this section is a trail for arguably the most well-known feature in Pinnacles, the Balconies Trail, which includes the Balconies Cave. This is a moderate rated trail, about two and a half miles and does feature a lot of up and down. The trail is about half a mile until it meets a loop. At this point one can go directly to the Balconies talus cave, which is only a few minutes away, and then come out and do the long stretch of the loop back, or one can do it opposite. The rangers I spoke with strongly suggested the opposite route with the cave toward the end. There are a couple good reasons for this! Number 1: This cave is pitch black, involves climbing in the dark, and is generally a lot trickier than the Bear Gulch Cave, it was also partially filled with VERY COLD water, and doing it at the end means only a half mile cold and wet hike back to the parking lot. Number 2: as I told myself, doing it at the end forced me to not back out! The hike is generally pleasant with some nice views of this large rock formation that is the namesake of the trail, and also another rock formation called Machete Ridge. Machete Ridge is where the cave formed, while the Balconies offer condor watching and also rock climbing opportunities. Upon coming around the back side of the trail I approached the cave. The dark gaping hole in the rock did not look especially inviting! I had a flashlight on my hat, and I had put on sandals since I didn’t want my hiking boots to soak. I ran into a guy exiting the cave but he was actually turned around due to not having a proper light. Good start. The water was FRIGID on my bare feet, and yes, it was pitch black inside! It also was not a simple flat walk through the cave either. There is some wiggling through rocks and a lot of climbing up rock ledges to get out. And then, once exiting back out to the light, you find out that the reprieve from the darkness is short lived as there is another section of cave. Generally, other than right at the entrance, I was able to avoid most of the cold water. But, once leaving this second section though, walking through 2 feet of water was unavoidable and my feet quickly were half frozen! But, soon enough I was out to dry a bit, warm up, and have a snack! Just a bit later I was back at the car and headed out of the park. This trail was not hard at all, and actually quite pleasant. The cave on the other hand, although only like a tenth of a mile….well, that thing is almost a tap out, and I might have done that had I not went the long way around, and I am glad I forced myself to do it!
Two condors fly over the Balconies, the rock formation giving the name to this trail/area. It is actually much larger than pictured but I cropped for the birds!
The entrance/exit from the Balconies Trail. Taken by me.
Inside the Balconies Cave. It was quite dark and flashlights are necessary. Claustrophobic folks beware! Taken by me.
This is the entrance/exit of one of the two bigger parts of this cave. You can see the iron rungs required to get out or into the cave. Taken by me.
After departing Pinnacles I had my eyes set on a nice glass of wine! There is a winery just on the doorstep of the National Park’s western entrance: Chalone Vineyard. I highly recommend – the wine was great, and the views are pretty awesome too! And, when I said it was on the doorstep of the Park’s entrance, that is literally true – just about a mile away! From there it was on to Monterrey. I had spied a spot on the coast I wanted to check out. Unfortunately, the weather turned rotten, so the situation wasn’t ideal. Soon after, I began the trip back to San Francisco.
This is off the coast of Monterrey. Really pretty spot, despite the dreary weather! Taken by me.
I only had a couple hours the following morning, but I still had some adventuring to do! I quite literally stumbled on Ft. Funston, on the western coast of the Bay Area. This is a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area! So, another NPS unit checked off! There is no visitor center here, and really it’s just some sandy hiking along the cliffs dropping off to the ocean. It’s a VERY dog friendly and popular. at least when I was there!
Entrance sign for Ft. Dunston. Taken by me.
The view down the coast from the Ft. Funston site. Taken by me.
This is a part of a trail going through the Ft. Funston area.
After strolling a bit through the Ft. Funston area, I started making my way back to the airport, but with a stop at San Bruno Mountain State Park. This is a really nifty little urban park! There are several miles of trails up this mountain. I did not have much time, but I did get in about a mile or so on the Eucalyptus Loop Trail which gives some awesome views of downtown San Francisco! There was very little fog so I had pretty good views! Then, it was off to the airport and this trip was finished!
Unexpected treat! If you have a much better camera situation, this is a stellar spot to see the city from, in the San Bruno Mountain State Park! Taken by me on my lowly decrepit Samsung Galaxy Note 9.
Overall Impressions: I think this is an awesome gem of a place for people living in Central California! It is much more remote than I expected which was good (few people) and not so good (nothing to do outside the main area of the park when finished with the daily adventuring). The hiking was great and the couple cool spots are really pretty unique and iconic! If you are into rock climbing, I am sure that’s great as well. Getting a chance to view condors in the wild is also a super plus! Unfortunately, if that’s not enough, or not what you are looking for, you might be disappointed. Even the park drive(s) are short, so if you are the “drive through park-goer” it will be underwhelming for the amount of time to get there and do both sides.
¡Hola compañeros aventureros! ¡Bienvenidos a mi primer viaje de 2023! (Welcome to my first trip of 2023!) This was the sidekick’s trip, so I guess that makes me the sidekick on this one! The trip was a volleyball vacation trip organized by South of the Border Volleyball Vacations.
Ixtapa is small resort town very close to the larger town of Zihuatanejo, located on the Southwest Pacific coast of Mexico. Ixtapa and Cancun were the two first government planned tourist resorts that sprung up on Mexican beaches beginning in the late 1960s. To access Ixtapa one must catch a flight to the Zihuatanejo airport. From the US the options are limited and some are seasonal. It appeared during this trip that the options were Alaska Airlines out of L.A. and United out of Houston. The flight from Houston took about 2.5 hours and takes you over some very remote parts of the country. Upon arriving in Zihuatanejo, Ixtapa is about a 20 minute cab ride up the coast. The pin on the screenshot below shows the location of Ixtapa.
Zihuatanejo looks pretty much like the stereotypical Mexican town: poor quality roads, questionable infrastructure, and very shoddy looking buildings in various stages of “ongoing construction” (apparently this is a tax getaround?). As you approach Ixtapa the road goes up a hill and on the downslope you can see the gorgeous area that houses Ixtapa open up in front. Ixtapa itself is the jewel of the area, and yet, is still very dated. Compared to Zihuatanejo, it seems first world. However, as we found out later on, Ixtapa is somewhat of a failed U.S. tourist town. Earlier, I mentioned that Ixtapa, along with Cancun, was the first of many government planned beach resort towns in Mexico. These were planned with American tourism and American dollars in mind. Ixtapa is pretty far off the beaten path. The flights there are very few and only a few carriers offer year round service, with a few more offering seasonal service. Add to the fact that it is very easy to get to other resort towns (Cancun and Cozumel for example) and Ixtapa has transformed into more of a Mexican national’s vacation spot. What was planned to bring in hundreds of dollars per day now cannot because the Mexican tourists simply cannot afford that. Also, while there were certainly plenty of employees who speak English pretty well, I would say about half of the staff speaks very little English, so this was definitely a spot where you should brush up on your Spanish!
The resort we stayed in, Park Royal, is pretty bare. The room had a slow toilet that didn’t always work properly. There was neither fridge nor microwave. Outlets were sparse. The resort was all inclusive for food and drinks (yay!) but honestly, the food was mainly buffet style and not great. The resort is right on the beach and does have a dance bar, a big pool, including a swim-up bar, and the rooms have pretty killer views of the beach! That being said…the normal rate for this place is over $200 US per night…so it’s pretty pricey for lower quality amenities.
View from the balcony of the roomView from the other side.
The environment here is pretty stunning. Huge blue waves crashes incessantly on the shore. They were large enough that it was the best decision to just walk into the wash up. The sand here is super clean with no trash to be found anywhere. In the near distance are these very distinctive rock islands. I would have loved the opportunity to explore those a bit but there was a noticeable lack of boating out on the water, other than some parasailing outfits, so I am not even sure if that is an offering.
Just a view of the waves coming!Pelican photobombing!The pristine looking beach in Ixtapa! The resort in the middle of the screen, on the left, is Park Royal.Pacific sunset! (almost!)
We went into Zihuatanejo one day for a very fun boating excursion. A group of about 100 of us loaded up onto an all you could eat and drink catamaran to depart the bay in Zihuatanejo and head a few miles down the coast for some nice Pacific Ocean snorkeling. The water was super clear and a very comfortable temperature. We wrapped up at a local beach restaurant called La Perla with some very tasty Mexican food!
Zihuatanejo Bay from the Catamaran.Sunset over the bay in Zihuatanejo from La Perla.
The reason for the trip was volleyball, and ball was awesome to watch and participate in! I did not do a lot of playing, although I did get in a clinic game with pro players Geena Urango and Kelly Reeves! Good times and good learning opportunity! Other pros there included Billy Allen (super nice and cool guy!), Ty Tramblie, and Andy Benesh, among others. It was pretty cool being able to interact, chat, and party with these amazing ball players!
Pro players Kelly Reeves, left, and Geena Urango, right. I recently watched these two face off against each other at AVP Central Florida in December!
It was a short trip for me, just a Saturday through Tuesday excursion, (the sidekick did a full week) but a super fun trip. I am not sure I would go back to Ixtapa again, other than for another one of these volleyball vacations, but it was super great experience for my first every trip to a place where English was not the language!
Overall Impressions: The Ixtapa beach is beautiful and well worth a visit! The accommodations are a bit dated despite being expensive. It is also bit pricey to get here and flights potentially require some schedule finagling. One knock is that there did not seem to be a large variety of activities. At least none that were easily accessible, or available. But if hanging on a really pretty beach and relaxing for several days is your thing, Ixtapa accomplishes that!
Hey there Adventurers! Before I get into my favorite pictures from my travels this year, I need to make a slight addendum to my planned trips in part 1…somehow I missed a huge one! The sidekick and I are prepared to hit Patagonia! This will be a late year trip (summer in the Southern Hemisphere) and literally nothing has been planned yet, but stay tuned! Now here are my favorite pictures, in trip order, from 2023!
Maui, HI, Feb:
Ho’okipa Lookout.
The shoreline near Ohe’o Gulch. This is in Haleakala National Park.
A little fuzzy, but I like it. Inside the crater of Haleakala Volcano.
Spring Break, March, Cedar Key, FL.
The Sidekick and I with our respective OG Bark Rangers.
Utah, April:
Arches National Park. I love the contrast of beautiful flowers and barren desolation.
Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park.
Alaska, June.
My favorite national park sign picture!
Tern Lake, off of the Seward Highway.
Kayaking Lake Clark National Park
Portage Lake.
Summer Bark Ranger Roadtrip, June.
Bark Ranger Bella at Point Park, Chattanooga, TN.
Cloudland Canyon State Park, GA.
Alaska, Sept.
Chena Hot Springs, outside of Fairbanks.
Savage Rock and the start/end of the Savage Alpine Trail, in Denali.
The so called Golden Valley of Denali.
And that is a wrap for 2022 adventures! See you all in 2023!
Hey Adventurers! This year really blew by! I feel like I wrote this same post not that long ago, but it was 11 months ago! This part 1 is just to share a new booking and provide a look at 2023 as I see it right now! Part 2 will be the rundown of my favorite moments and pictures from 2022!
I remembered a few days ago that I had a nice 150 dollar credit on my Alaska Airlines account expiring the first week of June. I also had 100 dollars in credit on my Southwest account so I got to brainstorming where I could go with only missing one day of work – no small challenge considering all the national parks left are out west or the couple logistically difficult ones in the upper midwest. Eventually I landed on a Thursday evening Southwest flight in February, getting into San Francisco before midnight to drive 2 hours in the morning to Pinnacles National Park. I will visit all day Friday and nearly all day Saturday before returning to San Fran for a beautiful 10 AM direct flight back to Tampa via Alaska Airlines. The out of pocket for the flights was only 100 bucks (and mostly because I upgraded the Alaska flight a bit!) and the rest of the trip looks on the cheaperish side! This is an Adventurer speciality, one of those ridiculously far away, but fast trips! If anyone has tips for Pinnacles drop them in the comments, or some general San Fran tips! I will probably arrange to be in San Fran 7 or 8 ish on a Saturday night, so give them to me!
So what is in store for 2023!? I am accompanying the Sidekick to Ixtapa, Mexico for a Volleyball Vacation in January. This is an exciting trip because it will be justmy second time out of the country ( I do not count a previous Niagara Falls, Canadian side, or a cruise ship stop in the Bahamas)! The Sidekick is a volleyball fanatic and she loves this kind of stuff! I drag her to enough outdoor hiking stuff that it will be nice to accompany her to something she really loves! Only 2 weeks later will be the Pinnacles trip. Next up the Sidekick and I are headed off to the Virgin Islands to check out St. Thomas, St. John, and the Virgin Islands National Park! That national park will officially be the last one of the eastern side of the US, unless you count the one hanging out in Lake Superior and the one in Northern Minnesota. This one is the middle of March. The 4th trip is not technically booked yet, but is imminent! The sidekick and I are looking at a “June in Juneau” trip! We are looking at a week or so. There is a national park in the vicinity, Glacier Bay…I always thought that would be the one I would have to cruise to, but there are ferry options out of Juneau. Whether there is time or not? I don’t know!
And in huge travel news! I was successful canceling my Southwest personal credit card and being re-approved for a new one with the huge SUB. I have to also do this with my business card, but there are not issues there and no rush either as of course, the first half of 2023 are already busy! But look out for some more great travel coming courtesy of Chase and Southwest! The Sidekick and I are already discussing a Pacific Northwest adventure in early July! Stay tuned!
And, lastly, the Bark Ranger facebook page has really taken off and is now well on its way to 1100 members! We are looking at some great ideas and expansion of the group in the near future! If you love dogs, and want to know where they can go and where to participate in a Bark Ranger program you should definitely join! https://www.facebook.com/groups/1110565603061011. Look for Part 2 soon with my best/favorite pictures of the year!
PSA fellow Adventurers! RIGHT NOW you can get a Southwest Airlines Companion pass very easily, provided you meet the appropriate financial requirements and have means to show at least a small side business! This is probably, by orders of magnitude, the absolute best sign on bonus of any credit card around! I did this in 2020 and was able to take a massive amount of my trips utilizing this perk!
So, what is it, exactly? The companion pass offered by Southwest is pretty much the holy grail of domestic (and Caribbean and Latin American) travel! Once you have it, in essence every flight you book is a BoGo. BUT, you don’t even have to pay anything other than the $11.20 in fees and taxes! Couple it with the massive amount of sign up points you get, and you have a massive twofer perk that is good for the remainder of the year you earn it AND THE ENTIRE FOLLOWING YEAR. Because Southwest allows you to take your companion on a flight booked with points, this is an unparalleled perk! Other airlines that have a companion fare (usually only one fare per year) require a revenue (paid with dollars) flight to book the companion. In essence you and a companion can fly free (minus 11.20 per person round trip in 9/11 fees) for between 12 and 24 months to any destination Southwest services, until your points run up, and there are no blackout dates!
How to do it? First of all, an important note. If you are the type to spend and not pay your statement entirely on a monthly basis, this is probably not for you. Secondly, you will need to apply for two cards, a Chase southwest personal card and a business card:
There are a few variations of both cards. The ones I have shown are the lowest annual fee varieties. With the exception of a few perks, the other variations are pretty similar with slightly better perks that cost you about double on the annual fees. The other business card does, however, come with 80k bonus points but it’s not worth it to me. The credit card point requirement to get a companion pass is 135k points. It used to be 125 but they are actually giving their credit card holders an additional 10k companion pass points (cannot be used for flights) to make up the difference, but between these two cards, after meeting those spending bonuses you would have, at a minimum, 141,000 points! If you do not have any type of business income, I understand that people can still get it but I am cannot be sure of that. I would apply for the business card first in that event to see what shakes out!
Timing for hitting the bonus is extremely important. It is now November. You would not want to hit that sign up bonus until after your first statement in 2023. Most all of your earned points are Rapid Rewards points (good for booking flights) and ALSO companion earning points. However, the companion total resets every Jan. This means that while your RR points DO NOT expire for travel, they DO expire for use toward a companion pass every January 1st. If you hit your bonuses on your statement in December, you will still have a companion pass, but only for the few remaining days in December and all of next year, versus hitting it in January and having it for 23 months plus! Big difference!
Is it worth it – what do all those points really equate to in real life? For 160 dollars of annual fees, ABSOLUTELY. The valuation of Southwest Rapid Rewards Points is variable, unfortunately, which means that how much you get out of those 141,000 points depends on the fair type you select and which flight you actually pick. I cannot tell you exactly how many flights, or what their total cost would have been, in relation to the sign on bonuses I earned in 2020 as I continued using the cards for everyday spending and adding to my points every month. For the record the amount of points I redeemed for travel totalled just around 220K. Of that about 140k were the initial signup bonus, 18k were from the anniversary points for 2 anniversaries, and at least and here are the list of places that I went to entirely for free:
The long and short is that I spent only a few hundred bucks on all of those flights for me and the Sidekick. Points wise, I spent in the neighborhood of 220,000. 140,000 or so came from the sign up bonus, another 20,000 or so came from anniversary points, and a large chunk also came from multiplier offers they frequently advertise. And, just an fyi…you can get these bonuses again, as long as it’s been 24 months since the last time you got it! Sooooo…. I recently canceled my personal card and will be reapplying soon! My credit is great and I meet all requirements. Assuming I am approved again, I will shortly thereafter my canceling the business card and redoing that one as well! If all goes well, I will have another great Southwest Airlines travel spree awaiting me!
Hey there Adventurers! This is part two of my recent trip to Alaska! In part one I recount the beginnings of the trip in Fairbanks and Chena Hot Springs, and provided some general FYI of traveling throughout the interior of Alaska.
Now, it was off to Denali! This makes my second visit to this park, and it joins The Everglades, and Rocky Mountain, as big parks I have made a return visit. Denali is one of those ginormous parks that is vast, totally undeveloped, and mostly wilderness. There is one road through the park and private vehicles are only able to access about 13 miles of it at any given time. Buses will take a person the full 90 or so mile length of the road, most of which is unpaved and is spectacular! At least they used to. Unfortunately, the road features a spectacular vista which crosses a continual landslide that as of a year or two ago has now become unpassable. There actually is a lodge and resort at the end of that road, but you must fly in now to get there. Anyway, I came in and wanted to first check out the Denali sled dog kennels that I missed my first time there! After stopping at the Visitor Center for the requisite stamp entry into my passport book, it was off to see the dogs!
Can add this picture to my slate of National Park sign pictures!
Ranger led sled dog demo!
The kennels were certainly a neat experience! It is very educational, you can meet the dogs, and there is a live demo of the pups. These dogs are a very vital and iconic part of life in Alaska, and have been for thousands of years. In fact, in Denali, law requires that travel through the wilderness of the park must be done with sled dogs in the winter! They are working dogs for sure, and then after about 7 or 8 years, they are retired and adopted! Heads up, if you are a passport stamp collector, there is a specific kennel stamp there as well!
After the kennels it was back to the cabin to get settled in. Shout out to Lynx Pizza, a delicious pizza by the slice joint that I stopped at briefly before heading back to the cabin. Dinner that evening was back in the Denali canyon area, the touristy spot, mostly operated by Aramark and Princess Cruises. The spot selected was a restaurant called Moose-AKa’s. The name is a play on the eastern european dish, moussaka. This restaurant is absolutely delicious and is actually listed as one of the top restaurants not only in the US but worldwide! Afterward, it was back into the park to get a preview of the next day’s hike, some more pictures, and a bull moose sighting! On the way back to the cabin I stopped at the brewery and then it was time to sleep a bit. But I was waking up often to try and catch a glimpse of the aurora and for a brief minute or two I did see something that looked weird and then was definitely the aurora! It was very brief, but SUCCESS!
Other than some birds and the sled dogs, this huge dude was about the only wildlife seen on this trip!?
The Savage Alpine Trail is one of the best rated trails in Denali and was on the list of many things to do in Denali on my first trip, but didn’t happen. The next morning I set out to do this one. The trail is rated hard, 4 miles point to point, and has about a 1500 feet elevation gain. One end of the trail is at the Savage River and this spot is very steep and rocky traversing through the tundra. This is also the spot that is the farthest a private vehicle can drive into the park and there is a small parking lot there. The other end is more gradual, goes through the forest, and also has a parking lot. All trails reviewers suggest doing the steep part at the end and bussing back to the car…I totally disagree with that strategy. This is a difficult trail. That steeper “half” is about 1500 feet of elevation gain in 1.5 miles and the section a half mile to the parking lot is about 700 feet of it! The thought of doing that going down is not cool to me, so I would suggest knocking that out right away, then it’s another mile to so up another 7 or 800 feet, then a gradual descent for 2 miles. This is a very exposed trail, easy to follow, but exposed and very windy. If the weather is clear you can get spectacular views of the beautiful Alaskan Range, including Denali from about 40 miles or so away. If it’s not, you get killer views of the surrounding valley, and you hope for peeks, like I got, of Denali. After finishing the trail it was back to the Denali Village area for lunch and then back for a needed nap!
This is the start of the Savage Alpine Trail. If you click this picture you can get a clear sense of the scale of this section. The trail start is easy to see. Then it follows around to the right os the Savage Rock and around behind it up to the peak in the center. From there you get killer views of the valley. Then you follow the ridge, over to almost the far left and then cut across to the smaller peak following the vegetation line. Then the trail finishes out coming down behind that small peak.
Some of the gorgeous colors of Denali from the Savage Alpine Trail.
And the brief moment ot Denali! This was from the Savage Alpine Trail and I actually took this on my phone which was attached to a spotting scope and it turned out pretty well! She’s about 70 or so miles away from this vantage point!
Later that evening I found a sweet Thai food truck, and then spent some time hanging with the pal living up the road from my cabin! Like the previous night, I was on northern lights watch. When I got out of the vehicle and started looking up into the sky, mother nature definitely started giving a show! The lights are awesome to experience! Protip: I am not entirely sure why, but locals had mentioned this as well, taking a video of the lights does not work, but taking a picture, or even just watching them through the camera, makes them look awesome!
I realize this is not the best picture ever but I was excited to even get it considering I was using a phone!
The next day, Thursday, was the rainy day. As such, I made that the day to drive down to Talkeetna, for a return visit! A little outside of town is where you can find the Denali Brewing Company, home of some damn fine beer and some awesome pizza (at this location!) I stopped downtown for a bit to stroll and walk down memory lane, so to speak. The weather was pretty terrible which was a shame because Talkeetna is a very pretty town with some good walking stops, and if the weather is good, some killer views of Denali. But, such was the way it was! There is another Denali Brewing location in the town proper. I highly suggest making a stop at both locations! The in town tasting room had a totally different menu that was pretty damn killer. Protip: the vegan nachos are to die for (and I am a meat eater!) I left Talkeetna and headed further south. I had planned to go up a mountain/mining road, the same road that I had traveled earlier this year and was stopped by a snow covered closed area through the pass…this time I came at it from the other side and actually did drive to the top of the pass.
Fun goofing around in Talkeetna!
I don’t generally do food pictures…but these nachos are legit. The sweet potato waffles fries and sauces were damn delicious as well…but those nachos …on point!
The top of the pass is like the rest, pretty and covered in that fiery red and yellow tundra. There is an active gold mining operation going on near the end of the pass and on the other side of the pass is the old historic mine that was the end of my earlier trip. If you are ever driving this road, do not let anyone spook you! It is dirt, and has some big holes…but I drove this thing even in slight drizzle at this point, and it was totally fine. I understand the rental agencies prohibit it, but my Turo host was fine with it. Since it’s not gravel, it was actually just fine to drive, by me! There are a handful of switchbacks, but nothing crazy, and not a whole lot of steep grades either. Make sure you are mindful of what happens if you have car problems though. I think I saw two other cars driving the road, and of course, no cell signal! The road was already closed for the season the week after I did this drive!
This is the environment at the top of the road through Hatcher Pass. I mean, really, it’s just more of the same, but still pretty! This was a rare break in the rain during this day!
This next part is probably not interesting unless you are really thinking of visiting and driving in Alaska. By the time I started driving back on the Parks Highway I was anticipating getting back to Healy right around sunset. This road is downright treacherous in not ideal weather conditions. The grooves on the road from all the traffic mean that the water literally pools without running off, just about the entire length of the road. Hydroplaning was a concern (and a bit of a reality) almost the entire drive! To make matters worse, because of the overcast skies, and also these 6 and 7000 foot mountains towering along the road, it started getting dark far earlier that I anticipated. The last 30 minutes or so of this drive was not an experience I ever want to repeat. The only vehicles on the road were me and the semi trucks, often pulling two trailers, flying toward me. Trying to navigate the wet road is one thing, doing it while these massive trucks are hurtling toward you is another, and doing it when you can barely even see the road, or the lines, is an entirely unpleasant experience! There are no reflectors on this road. There are no lights of any kind. And it is DARK. In a nutshell, do not drive this road in the dark! The locals don’t even like doing it! I will note that I *almost* saw Denali. There is also a state park called Denali State Park that I drove into and for a fleeting moment the weather was starting to allow some views into the Alaska Range and Denali was teasing! Then the weather and the light got in the way again!
So that pretty much wraps things up! The next morning, Friday, I started back toward Fairbanks for the early Saturday 2 AM flight. I did make a stop at Latitude 65 Brewery. It is delicious beer and a really neat spot. And I also stopped at a highly regarded restaurant called the Pump House. It is an old western saloon style place set in an historic pump house on the Chena River. If in Fairbanks, I highly recommend both!
Pretty outside setting at the Chena Pump House.
And that is a wrap! At the time of this post, this is looking like my last trip of the year (we’ll see!). I am really thankful for the opportunities that have come to me for sure! About this time last year I was fully anticipating two trips to Alaska and nothing more. What I really got was those two trips, plus a Maui trip, and a Utah trip! It was an awesome travel year for sure, and there might still be at least something else to two coming as well! Stay tuned!
Overall Impressions: Pros: It’s Alaska. Denali in the fall colors was spectacular. Fairbanks had some nice spots for sure and Chena Hot Springs is definitely a must do if you are up there. Seeing the Northern Lights was amazing and I cannot wait to see them again! Cons: None that are worth elaborating on: Far away, expensive, and weather. Noticeable? Yes. A detractor? Not for me!
The Parks Adventurer 