Trip Planning: National Parks

Our last two summer vacations were Yosemite and Yellowstone. They were both an incredible adventure. Not every girl can say she goes on the hike of a lifetime every year! This is year three of national park planning and I have learned some great tips for hikers planning a trip to popular national parks.

Book Early, Research Earlier

I suggest you start to plan six to nine months in advance, preferably a year if you have a large group or family. There is a high demand and limited availability for many activities and hotels at parks, so they book up fast.  True story - I called to get dinner reservations on a weekend at Yellowstone three months in advance. All they had was one spot at 9:00 p.m. I took it and adjusted our hike to start late the next day.
We typically book everything six to seven months in advance and it's still a scramble to get our vacation dates. My favorite resources for planning are friends, Moon travel books, Trip Advisor, and the national parks websites.

Lottos and Permits - Learn Them Early

To balance the high demand of areas and maintaining the natural resources, many hikes and campsites have permit limits or lottos in place. As you start to set your schedule, be sure to look out for the permits required and when you can get them. I'll set all of my calendar reminders early on so I don't forget to apply. 

Don't give up on permits either! We won Half Dome permits but saw it was going to rain the day of our hike (they typically don't allow you to ascend the cables in the rain) so we started to apply for daily permits. On day three, we got lucky again. I've read stories of other people meeting up with people at the trailheads to be a part of their group. Keep on applying and keep on trying. 

Ask Your Friends...and Strangers

Books and websites help, but your friends are even better. Ask your friends, your coworkers, and your starbucks barista if they have ever been to the park. My favorite questions to ask are:

What was your favorite part?

What was the most overrated thing you did?

What was the coolest thing you did that you didn't know about until you got there?
If you had one more day, what would you have done?

Without asking those questions, we would have overlooked spending time at the Grand Tetons. An intern's parents at my job enlightened us to spend at least two days there. We're glad we did!

A friend of ours told us that Beartooth Highway was worth the time for the scenic views and winding roads. We would have dismissed spending a day on the road by just reading guidebooks. Our friends were right.

Tina Tiny Cosplay: Another Compartment in the Blog

As my interests expand, so does this blog! I have not given up on hiking or bentos, I just keep adding more! I also find that I am a better writer when it's warm outside and it was certainly nice out today.

So today I am expanding the blog to include some of my cosplay, specifically Tina Tiny of Borderlands. I premiered the costume at Momo Con last week. This was my first time attending this con and I had a blast! If you live within a few hours of Atlanta, I highly suggest attending this growing anime convention.

Tiny Tina is certainly my favorite character from Borderlands 2. I knew I wanted to cosplay as her as soon as I saw her. I have limited sewing skills so this was a great first sewing project for me since it's okay to not have straight lines - it's the post-apocalypse world.

The costume took about 2 months as a weeknight side project. My sister and mom have incredible crafting skills and were able to teach me tricks along the way. The Tiny Tina cosplay would not have happened without them so thank you! On to the pictures.

Yay Tiny Tina cosplay!

Tiny Tina is ready to go! I made sure the front pouch would be functional so I could keep my cards and a few make-up supplies with me. Since I was solo at this con, I would not have another person to hold my stuff.

Another view on the make-up. Most of the supplies I got on e.l.f. super cheap. Even better, it is great quality. 

I even found other Borderlands characters! Handsome Jack and a psycho ran into me at the start of the day.

Ready for hiking season!

Welcome back Fall! And by fall, I mean the temperature is under 90s most days for the high. With the fun of summer plans and lack of hiking weather, I've fallen behind in blogging but now I hope to be back full swing.

To start, I wanted to talk about cleaning your gear. The right habit is to clean your gear after every hike.   This allows you the opportunity to evaluate your gear as well for tears or punctures.

For those who are more of a dayhiker, like myself, here's my checklist of cleaning after a hike

• Turn my daypack inside out. There are always some crumbs in there somehow
• Empty any water out of the pack. I have totally forgotten to do this and gotten things wet by accident!
• Make a list or email yourself any supplies you need to restock. Did you use a bandaid or notice you forgot your knife? I email myself (sometimes on the car ride back) with these reminders so I can get supplies during the week
• Place gear back in my gear basket. I have a basket next to the packs where we put all the gear we take with us. Before every hike, I go through the basket to make sure everything important is in our packs. This is really helpful when you are switching between packs, but if I know my next few hikes are with the same pack I may skip this step. 
• Clean my hiking boots. There's a great article here on boot repair if you want more info. In short, I use a boot brush to clean the bottom and give the shoe the once over for any damage. 

But my gear has been abandoned for the past month or two and I've forgotten any mental reminders I have made, so this past weekend I took to airing everything out. This was a great chance to freshen things up and make a checklist of any repairs or additions I want to make while summer sales are still going on. Having a carport was an advantage here - I could hand everything up and not heat up in the sun.

For better articles on maintaing your gear, check out:

Section Hiker - Backpacking Gear Maintenance

Backpacker.com - Make Your Gear Last Longer

Georgia dayhiking: Vickery Creek Trail

With a limited amount of time on our hands, I went looking for a trail that was not too far from home but had some decent length to it. Enter Vickery Creek Trail. Located near the Chattahoochee River National Recreation area, this trail complex is close to Atlanta and has a series of trail paths you can combine for a length that suits you. Many trail sites list this as a 6.5 mile trail and I suppose if you hiked every bit of trail it would be that long, but we did the outer route and a few detours to end at 4.0 miles on the dot.
In summary, if you're looking for a family hike or an simple stroll, this is a great hike that won't require an extended car trip.

The map of Vickery Creek. There were maps posted throughout the trails and at every fork so you shouldn't get lost.

The dams were really cool! The first one we came across at a bridge, the second one was a minor detour to go see.

A very inviting trail.

Airplane Bento

Something about being 30,000 feet in the air makes everything better. That's why I'm saying this is my best bento ever. No matter how much I ate in the airport, I always want to buy the in-plane snacks. They look so tasty! However, I hate spending $3.00 on a pack of M&Ms or $7.00 on a cheese tray that is hardly big enough for a child. So I've started to make my own airplane snacks that include the foods that I am tempted to buy.

In this bento we have:
- 2 fun packs of peanut M&Ms
- Pretzel Crisps
- Pepperoni
- Chocolate Chip Chewy Bar
- Red Pepper Hummus
- Laughing Cow Cheese
(Plastic knife not pictured)

This bento accompanied us to while flying from ATL to SLC. 

Quick update

Hello followers! I just posted a new post and I'm sorry for the lack of posts. I was busying conquering some amazing trails in Yosemite! I can't wait to add those updates to the blog so look forward to some more posts in the upcoming weeks.

Georgia Dayhiking - Blood Mountain

My latest hiking adventure was Blood Mountain. Plenty of people have written something about this trail (this person wrote a novel or you can just read this general overview). The original goal was to hike around 8 miles the first day and then finish the downhill the next day. Unfortunately the 10% chance of rain that day turned into a 200% chance of thunderstorms. Not to mention, this trail turned out to be much more strenuous than we thought.

My husband and I have done plenty of difficult trails, but this one got the best of us. Between the elevation and the rain, we made the decision 5.5 miles in to turn back and make camp at the creek. I do not regret the choice, especially when the next round of thunder and lighting started moving in. Yet even as the skies roared, I hesitated make the decision because I would not admit defeat. What won me over was my gut.

It's been said before and I'll chime in to the chorus: the best thing you can do is follow your gut. If something does not feel right or safe, in hiking or in life in general, stop and listen to your instincts. You've gotten this far, so maybe that gut is good for more than drinking beer.

Enough talk! Onto the pictures taken before the rain, that is.