Trip Mom
Life, travel, and everything in-between
Our latest adventures...
Hitting the Road to Lassen
Today was a HUGE day! We set our alarms for 5:15am and were on the road by 5:45 to head to Lassen Volcanic National Park. The drive started off slow and very, very curvy. Then we drove past really cute lake towns. And lastly we drove for hours through rolling yellow...
Russian Gulch Hiking & Point Arena Lighthouse
Today we woke up and headed up to the Russian Gulch State Park, which was about an hour north near Mendicino. It was a really pretty park, but we immediately noticed that there was no signage inside — which was pretty odd because there were some pretty impressive...
Kayaking & Sea Glass
This morning our main goal was to get gas and to our kayak tour by 11am. The tour was in Mendicino — which sounds like a familiar town and therefore must have gas, right? Nope! There was one gas station that had $9.59-per-gallon pricing!!! We were literally on fumes...
Montgomery Woods Redwoods Galore
We started off today driving to the Albion River to see a huge wooden bridge. It’s like the largest wooden bridge in the United States. It was actually really cool (and huge!) to see and we used the campground below for a quick pit stop. We were starting to need gas,...
Car Sleeping And A Chill Day
Well….. that night didn’t go as planned AT ALL! After I finished journaling, we both got ready for bed. I was in the bedroom and Kaia had the sleeper sofa. All of a sudden she screamed and ran into my room saying that she saw some sort of animal in the room with her....
Muir Woods, Point Reyes and Point Arena
Today was checkout day for us. We woke up early (again) and packed up all of our things before heading out. Our goal was to cross the Golden Gate Bridge in full sunlight and then enjoy the view from Battery Spencer Park before heading to our reserved time at Muir...
Big Sur Coastal Exploring
Today was our big drive south to see all the pretty coastal sites. We set our alarms for 6am so that we could get an early start and headed out of the city. Our first stop was Natural Bridges State Park. We quickly noticed that the early morning sea fog was pretty...
Day 2 – San Francisco
We made today our big city day — knocking pretty much everything off our San Francisco list that we could. We headed out in the morning and walked a few blocks to get on the red F train downtown. We purchased a day pass using the MUNI app on our phones and were able...
California Dreaming Into Reality!
Today was a huge travel day for us! We set our alarms for 5:30am to get to the airport. We each had a roller bag and a backpack — and that’s it! We had a very late boarding group, so anticipated having them take our roller bags and gate check them, and they did! We...
May 2025 – Austin, Texas
May was a busy month! We started off with an Ameriprise conference in Austin, Texas. We’d never been before and Mark’s portion of the trip was free — so we jumped at the opportunity for a weekend away. The conference was held at the Four Seasons right in downtown...
Lucy Turns One!
Our sweetie pie Lucy turned ONE today! We celebrated in the NC mountains and she had the best day — walking Deep Creek, downtown Bryson, finding sticks on our mountain, and bites of steak for dinner. She’s such a quirky snuggly baby and we love her! A few days later,...
Last Puerto Rico Day: Laquillo Beach
Our last day in Puerto Rico was very much a chill day! We were all ready for a relaxing day on the beach and that’s what we did. We spent hours in the Laquillo Beach area reading in the shade of palm trees, bobbing in the water, and even trying to snorkel the reef...
The El Yunque National Forest
When we went to bed last night, we decided to wake up early the next day so that we could get to the rainforest early. We noticed that the rainforest seemed to have more rain in the afternoon. I set my alarm for 6:45 and was out on the patio sipping coffee with Mark a...
Green Beach & Black Sand Beach
Today was our last day in Vieques! We woke up early, but still had time to sip coffee on the back patio. The roosters did keep us up overnight yet again, but I was able to roll over and go back to sleep. It’s amazing how their cock-a-doodle-doo makes its way past the...
Jeep Driving & Diving
Today we woke up and had a chill morning at the Airbnb waiting for the time to pick up our Jeep rental. It was a really weird rental time - basically noon to noon the next day. All vehicles on the island were apparently sold out — even though it didn’t feel very busy...
Snorkeling & Mosquito Bay Bioluminescence
We woke up this morning and enjoyed a leisurely few hours at the condo. We ate breakfast, caught up on work, and packed our backpacks for the ferry over to Vieques. On the way to the ferry terminal, we drove through what looked like an abandoned city, but it turns out...
San Juan, Puerto Rico Day
Our first day was mostly a travel day getting to Puerto Rico. All we really did was fly and shop at the world’s worst Walmart. We did have the bonus of being randomly assigned exit row seats for our flight, which was amazing! Our condo was also pretty nice...
Last Day in Hawaii
Our last day in Hawaii was actually pretty full because our flight didn’t take off until 8pm. I guess that’s one of the small benefits of having a red-eye flight schedule. We packed all of our stuff up the night before, so in the morning just had to go get the car and...
16-Point Tour of Oahu
In hindsight, we probably shouldn’t have saved this 16-point bus tour of Oahu for our last full day. Many of the stops we made or the places we passed were designed to be places that we could or should come back to sometime during our visit for a more in-depth visit....
Hanauma Bay Day
Sunday morning we had a time slot booked for snorkeling at Hanauma Bay - a protected marine park that limits daily visitors. Once again we walked our beach bags and cooler past the Honolulu Zoo to our free street parking spot, loaded up the car, and drove about 30...
Whales and Waves
Today was a day that I had looked forward to for a while! We were actually going to go on a whale watching excursion! We drove our little car to the nearby marina and were happy to find a little farmer’s market going on. We were really early, so we walked around and I...
Off to Ohau!
After a week on the Big Island, we grabbed a flight over to Waikiki Beach on Oahu for four nights. We left our cushy condo for a private room in a funky beachside hostel and it was an adventure!! The flight over was short and beautiful. We could see different islands...
Volcano Erupting! This is Not a Drill!
Our last day on the Big Island was intended to be chill. We were going to find a nearby beach to just lay down in the sand and read, watch the surfers, and relax! The previous day had been a BIG ONE and we got home late after watching the stars on top of Mauna Kea. So...
Green Sea Turtles & Volcano Sunsets
The original plan was to have us touring the northern tip of the Big Island, hiking and using binoculars to try to see whales off the coast. But….driving through that area the night before felt good. As in, we did it! 🙂 We didn’t really see too much that we wanted to...
A Day in Hilo, Hawaii
This morning we woke up bright and early to make the two hour drive across the Big Island to Hilo. We took Saddle Road which featured stunning views of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. The landscape changed from green and tropical into a Mars-like area with just open spaces...
Two-Step Beach and Manta Rays
Monday morning we slept in a little and recovered from our huge day yesterday at Volcanos National Park. We knew that we had scheduled an evening swim with manta rays tonight, so the goal for the day was to snorkel closer to our home base and enjoy the Kona area....
Volcanos National Park
We’d originally planned on touring Volcanos National Park on our first full day on the Big Island, but when Mount Kilauea stopped erupting days before we arrived, we bumped the park to our second full day so we’d have time to recover from traveling and the time...
Exploring Kona and Jumping Waves
We woke up and packed all of our beach and snorkel gear to prep for the morning. I was smart enough to pack a big beach bag and a soft cooler in my bag, and the ice packs we bought at Walmart were frozen and ready to go! We were originally going to make this a Volcano...
Getting There is Half the Fun…
The travel day to Hawaii from Florida is a long one! We had a nice layover in Denver where we thankfully had no snow delays and were able to get some good food! Surprisingly, the long flight (7.5 hours) from Denver to Kona featured airplane seats without tv screens!!...