#teardropdiaries

Been adventuring around the tri state area. We have rescued two amazing dogs that will now be adventuring with us on our travels. Unfortunately our teardrop couldn’t handle all four of us. We sold our teardrop to a family in Richmond. So for the time being we have been using our VW bus for our trips. Starting to sketch up plans to build a bigger teardrop. Stay tuned!!

Meet Tahoe, our new puppy and adventure buddy. We have brought him camping three times over the last month and a half and he seems to love it. Runs ahead of us on the trail and stops and waits until we are in sight again, hangs by the fire at night and loves to be outside. A likely candidate for our team. The past few weekends, we have checked out Bass River State Park, NJ - Allaire State Park, NJ and Dingmans Ferry, PA.

Fire, friends, waterfalls, hiking, warm bourbon cider, lakes, autumn leaves, our new friend Tahoe, s'mores, surfing, the ocean and the crisp fall air. It has been a great Fall thus far. 

This week we are going to drive the truck on the beach at Island Beach State Park in NJ - surf, grill food, hang with friends, have a fire and let Tahoe have a all day cooled down beach experience.

Cheers to adventure and new friends!

Yellowstone National Park was the first National Park in the US. It was also the first National Park in the world and
for good reasons. With it’s thermal pools, wildlife, steam vents, mud pots, hot springs and geysers, Yellowstone is a very unique place. Rush hour in Yellowstone is caused by wildlife, there are over ten thousand thermal features and 500 of which are geysers. You feel
as if you are on a battlefield with steam vents, bubbling water and geyers shooting hot water up into the air all around you.
My brother and I played a game when we were young called “lava.” We would pretend the entire living room was filled with lava and we couldn’t touch the ground or we would die. So we would hop from one couch to another, over to the table, climb onto the chair and rock the chair backwards into a beanbag chair and so on. When the 5 of us were checking out the geyser basins that
was the first thing that popped into my head. With signs of death and warning of 200 degree water, it felt like real life “lava.” Heading east for the first time this trip > to the Badlands!

I didn’t think any other national park would impress me the way Glacier did until I got to Grand Teton. The Grand Teton mountain range is so surreal looking. With it’s rugged outline, snowy passes and lakes that surround it, it was near impossible to look away from.
Jess and I met a cool kiwi in Zion. He had a 1969 Ford Econoline Camper Van and I couldn’t resist asking him to check out the inside. After having a few beers together that night we exchanged contact information and parted ways. We were fortunate enough to cross paths again in Grand Teton. Dan had some friends with him, a kiwi couple - Jen and Lloyd, two genuinely nice and cool humans. We shared a campsite together, after hiking all day we’d sit around the fire and laugh all night. It was nice to hang with like minded people and exchange laughs and stories with people from across the world. I hope that we may meet again, friends. I also hope I find myself gazing up at the Tetons again sooner than later.

Glacier National Park - Crown of the Continent.

Bodie, CA~ Circa 1877- California gold-mining ghost town. Walking through these deserted streets made us feel as if we were in a Clint Eastwood movie. This Wild West gold-mining town was as real as it gets. It was known for its rugged cowboys, endless shoot outs, brutal murders and 60+ saloons. Bodie hung on by a string until the 1930’s when the town became completely abandoned.

“Goodbye God, I’m going to Bodie.”- The town took on this motto after a little girl wrote this phrase in her diary as her and her family were headed to Bodie.

Goodbye Bodie… We’re now headed to Lake Tahoe.

The first two days at Big Sur have been amazing. The morning fog washed away by the afternoon and Jess and I took a trail down the cliff and made our way to the water. We rock scrambled our way up and down and explored the coastline for a few hours. After we got some lunch in our stomachs, we headed to Pfeiffer beach for a few hours which is a cool sandy beach spot ( 10$ - ouch.) Today we will be exploring a few waterfalls and taking a couple of trails within our campground (Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park). The trails lead you through the big beautiful alluring coastline redwoods. The redwoods are unlike anything I have ever seen and truly make you feel pint sized. With the morning fog and the large redwoods rising up hundreds of feet surrounding you, it truly feels as if you are in a dreamland. 

The Pacific Coast Highway truly is America’s most beautiful scenic highway. The winding road along the cliff face overlooking the lightly colored greenish blue ocean is surreal. The landscape is so charming and I can safely say Big Sur has me lured in. The only downfall I see and I must write this because it really is unfortunate. I pulled up to a gas station yesterday at the price was 6.77$ a gallon! That’s highway robbery, no pun intended. French toast at a local restaurant that Jess and I went to check out was 19$! I understand raising prices because of the touristy area, but the prices here are absolutely disgusting. I don’t mind paying for good food and I never complain about gas prices, but that is ridiculous. Otherwise the natural beauty certainly makes up for any downfall. 

Tomorrow we head to Yosemite National Park, I am so excited.