Blog

Check out my blog posts for a good laugh, trip inspirations, travel tips and more. The blogs feature active, outdoor adventure vacation destinations with a focus on mountain biking, hiking, and golfing. Start your outdoor and adventure vacation planning here.

Approaching 100

Approaching 100

A pint of craft beer is on average 200 - 250 calories. So there’s a pork chop in every beer, perhaps a club sandwich as a point of measurement. Despite the caloric intake, the Holmes & Watson Bike and Beerventures churn on. There is no chance we are going back to...

Finding Professor Pokey Peter Patterson on the MRT

Finding Professor Pokey Peter Patterson on the MRT

At the Upper River Road trailhead, the kiosk noted that the Red Bridge was closed to both cars and hikers. We set off hopeful an alternate would be available. A hard-hat clad worker informed us that hikers are not allowed to walk the beams that connected the bridge...

One State Over

One State Over

It's 75 miles across Lake Michigan aboard the Lake Express car ferry, Muskegon to Milwaukee. Often nicknamed the vomit comet, perhaps unfairly, as I have always had pleasant crossing experiences and missing Chicago traffic makes me want to skip like a kid through...

Liver Dance III

Liver Dance III

I returned for the third time to the land of tea, toasties and talent. Everyone’s heard of River Dance but perhaps never tried the Liver Dance Tour in Ireland. When one of my travel mates suggested a trip goal to visit 25 pubs in a week, the tour became aptly named...

Unexpected AZ

Unexpected AZ

The Arizona sun continues to call to me home. The state of my birth will always hold a special place in my heart plus I finally got to share it with the other half! Watson was pleased with both the hot temps in the Sonoran/Phoenix desert and the rocky trails that...

Team Jackson Hole

Team Jackson Hole

The population of the state of Wyoming is just under 500,000 people. Most of the crew that convened for a ski trip at Jackson Hole hail from Grand Rapids, Michigan’s second largest city pushing near the 1 million mark. The comparison shows just how much space the...

Christmas In The Carolinas

Christmas In The Carolinas

Many of us can relate to Clark Griswold’s tirade in the National Lampoon movie. He turns to his wife with eyes bulging, How can it get any worse? Look around Ellen, we’re on the threshold of hell! Holiday commercialism, family interaction, logistics, shopping and...

Close Encounters With Color

Close Encounters With Color

There are plenty of above 50 temps left in October (possibly November) to get on the bike and pedal this fall. My rule, although not scientific, is sound advice on when/how/where to bike. If it’s 45 degrees, it will feel like 40 on your road bike with more speed and...

Bend Or Bust

Bend Or Bust

Adventures in healthcare gave way to a trip to Oregon. Two weeks ago, the thought of josh getting on a plane was unthinkable. An ER visit followed by a spinal injection had him feeling spry one week to departure. My teeter totter ride went from an attempted, yet...

Three Stitches

Three Stitches

Crash is Josh’s nickname. He’s the more adventurous rider willing to push speed and limits. I am the one who ended up in a creek ditch thrown six-feet down. I was shocked after the bike and me laid to rest in a pile of brush and branch, blood oozing from various...

Tourist In Your Own Town

Tourist In Your Own Town

Most people tell me they don’t travel because of time and money. My gut tells me the real problem is defining what constitutes travel. What is it? What’s considered a vacation and where do you have to go to find a break from the routine? Not far as it turns out. I...

Destination Wedding (With No Guests)

Destination Wedding (With No Guests)

I’ve been single since 1999, 17 years have passed since my divorce and the end of my marriage. I’d been in/out of relationships, navigating borders to stay safe from being disappointed and betrayed again but mostly just living life, not fixated on finding a soulmate....

Beercation II

Beercation II

Back in July, our beer research in Michigan totaled 30 visits of 205 breweries in the state. See Beercation in the Mitten blog. It’s now Dec. 1st, Josh and I have more progress to report traversing the Mitten in search of good suds. Our tally stands at 47 of 205, up...

Bike, Beer & a Bible Licker

Bike, Beer & a Bible Licker

A U.P. wedding was bookended by two epic days on two wheels, a successful waterfall hunt, Lake Superior views and visits to craft breweries. Josh’s friends, Leah & Chris tied the knot at Messiah Lutheran in downtown Marquette on a sunny Saturday afternoon in...

Yosemite Luck

Yosemite Luck

It was 5:15 p.m. on a brilliantly hot August day. There was a line of cars waiting to enter one of the U.S’s most visited National Parks. We added two more to the thousands already gaping at giant Sequoias, 1000-foot falls and domed towers of granite. Enter Yosemite...

Beercation in the Mitten

Beercation in the Mitten

We like to bike. We believe in earning our drink. We both like to drink craft beer. We live 30 miles west of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Michigan’s third coast is a perfect beer and bike playground. Beer sales are on the rise in Michigan and the Brewers Association shows...

Just Two More States

Just Two More States

So, why New Mexico? It’s one of the last three to complete my quest to visit all 50 states in the union. What’s missing: Washington State (because a Seattle-airport hop to Alaska does not count), then there’s Hawaii. Just two more to go to complete one of my travel...

Hunting Elk

Hunting Elk

There are plenty of campportunities in Michigan for alone-time in the woods. There’s a gem in the heart of the lower-peninsula, called Pigeon River Country, just east of Gaylord. The area is home to an expansive State Forest of 105,000 acres and the Midwest’s only...

A Hike Without Ropes

A Hike Without Ropes

At the close of Michigan Irish Music Festival in Muskegon this September, with tunes and stories still rolling in my head, I keep drifting back to memories of visits to the Emerald Isle. Mweelrea Mountain (Mill-Ra) A Hike Without Ropes (from November, 2011) Before...

Superior Views

Superior Views

The view from the Rock Cut Cabin was pristine – Lake Superior stretched out beyond our sight, golden eagles soared overhead, thimbleberry bushes lined the driveway, a rock-face bordered the fire pit, with two perfectly placed Adirondack lounge chairs, while waves...

World Cup in the Peg

World Cup in the Peg

Friendly is the word that characterizes the people of Winnipeg, this city in the plains of Manitoba. Ever helpful and hospitable, Winnipeggers offered advice, asked about the nature of our visit and apologized profusely, even if a mishap wasn’t their fault. We simply...

Michigan Leeches

Michigan Leeches

It was a hot, sticky morning, Michigan style, the big lake perspiring mist, like all of us, while we struggled to pull on tight bike shorts. Our legs and behinds turned into polish sausages, stuffed in a casing, ready to hold in all our juices and sweat. The North...

Holiday Road Trip

Holiday Road Trip

Josh and I logged 2600 miles, notched 10 states in 9 days, with an average gas price at $1.85 per gallon. Post Christmas through the New Year of 2015, we headed out on a good ole fashioned road trip. The route was Spring Lake, Michigan to Chicago, through Nashville,...

Flat Alaska

Flat Alaska

In 2006, I visited Alaska for the second time with fellow biker chic, Theresa. The trip plan included several epic, two-wheeled adventures. Before embarking on a 23-mile Johnson Pass bike ride, with six other exceedingly fit women, it seemed wise to gauge what to...