This has been a busy week! With, unfortunately, a LOT of hit or miss wifi and internet!  You know the saying – “when life gives you lemons…” in this case, it would have been grapes – so we decided to start the week off with a visit to a winery and do a little wine tasting!  Both of these were a first for me, and Napa just happened to be the perfect place  – since Italy wasn’t available ? My grandfather is from Italy, and, even though I have never been there myself, I feel like I come by my love for  wine, naturally.  I am not a wine expert…

  Looking back, I have many fond memories of my childhood.  It seems like it snowed every Christmas, and school was closed a lot due to snow days.  Spring brought flowers and the start of garden season – not to mention Easter candy and my birthday, which was a really big deal to me back then 🙂  From there, it was long, lazy summer days spent at the lake or the shore, with cousins or friends.  Summers seemed longer back then, probably because we squeezed every moment we could into being outside – usually long past when the street lights came on.  You knew summer was coming to an end though, when…

“I’ve been high, and I’ve been low.  I’ve been yes, and I’ve been oh, hell no!  I’ve been rock ‘n roll and disco.  Won’t you save me San Francisco?” – Train I love San Francisco!  I was super excited to spend the weekend at Fisherman’s Wharf, and it did not disappoint!!  Let me just start at the beginning… Getting there… From where we are right now, San Francisco is about a 3 hour drive, give or take a little, depending on traffic.  We were on the road by about 3 p.m. Friday afternoon.  Traffic wasn’t to awful, and the drive was actually pretty.  I love bridges, and we had to…

  Have you ever flown into Salt Lake City, and looked out of your window?  If you have, you probably saw the salt flats, which cover over 30,000 acres of land in Utah.  I always wondered what it would look like up close, what it would feel like – could you even get that close to it?  From the sky, it looks like there is nothing else around them.  Come to find out, there is more to the salt flats than just barren, white land. At first glance, from a distance, it looks like snow.  It could be 85 degrees outside, but sitting inside the truck, on a cloudy day,…

What a fantastic week!  Milo McIver State Park turned out to be the perfect get away for the week!  The weather cooperated the entire time and while the park was usually pretty full, it is big enough, with enough to do, that it never felt busy.  It was a week full of adventures, both on land, and on water.  There was so much to see and explore, that I ended up taking over 500 pictures during the week!  There was no internet connection, and cell service was spotty at best, adding to the peacefulness and relaxation of the week.  Sometimes it is nice to just break away from everything, and…

Welcome to Milo McIver State Park in Estacada, Oregon –  home base for this weeks adventures! Oh, how I have missed the Pacific Northwest – it has a smell, a look and a “feel” all its own.  There is just something about the Pacific Northwest that seems to speak to me.  I am excited for our week here! We hit the road late yesterday to get here.  When we left Nevada, the sun was shining and it was actually pretty hot out – close to 80 I’d say!  Not long after crossing into Idaho though, all of that changed!  Storm clouds were forming all around us as we made our…

  The time had come to try out the new kayaks (look for my kayak review later this week), and we could not have asked for better weather, or a better place to take them, than The Great Salt Lake! Before heading out, I not only checked the weather and water conditions for the day, but decided to do a little research on the lake itself.  There are some interesting facts about the lake that I found out. We probably are all aware that the lake is salty, but just how salty?  The salinity of the lake actually changes very frequently due to the level of the lake water.  The…