Travelling Lore

Out here on the east coast I don't often here people talking about Lassen Volcanic National Par k.  Instead, people always talk about Yellowstone or Yosemite, not to mention our own east coast national parks, Acadia and Shenandoah (close enough!).  Boy, were we in for a treat with Lassen! Even in July some of the trails were still snowy and, simply put, we just didn't have the gear to hike in the snow.  With limited trails to access on our limited time (we had only one day in the park), we decided to do the Cinder Cone hike in the Butte Lake area.  The NPS marks this hike as "Strenuous," but to be honest the only strenuous part about the hike, relatively speaking, was going up the cinder cone. As you can see from this distance, it's pretty steep.  Then add in loose cinder and scoria "pebbles," which makes you feel like you're taking two steps back for every step forward.  Be prepared to slow down once you get to this part.  The tota...

The day after our failed attempt to see Crater Lake  (an excuse to go back again!), we departed our beloved Railroad Park Resort and started to make our way to Lassen Volcanic National Park.  To break up the drive we ended up stopping at McArthur-Burney Falls State Park .  Honestly, we weren't expecting much, but once we arrived our expectations were quickly blown out of the water. Burney Falls is an amazingly picturesque waterfall.  It reminded us a lot of Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia given how the falls take many different paths downward into the pool rather than via one giant waterfall mouth.  And to top it all off, the lighting was perfect that day for photographs.  We both rented cameras for this trip to see if we might want to purchase them down the road, so we spent some time adjusting different shutter speed settings to "smooth" out the flow of the waterfalls in the photos. The waterfall is very much the centerpiece of the p...

Up until this point in our travels we had luckily not experienced any, so to speak, travel "failures."  We always have an itinerary before we leave and we usually more or less stick to it.  The exceptions that arise are usually due to tired feet or, somewhat jokingly, church sightseeing fatigue.  (Europe has a lot of churches, ok?) Crater Lake National Park in Oregon was a place we were both particularly looking forward to seeing with our own eyes.  It was one of our longest days of driving (4.5 hours roundtrip) on our entire honeymoon because we opted for a day trip from Dunsmuir, California (read here ) rather than spending a night any farther north. The closer we drove to Crater Lake NP the less ideal the weather became on our route.  It rained, it drizzled, it was foggy.  By the time we finally drove into the park there were forecasts of several inches of snow within the park...in July!  Fun fact: Crater Lake National Park sees an even hi...

Well.  It's been a while, hasn't it?  As I type this it's been about 24 hours since I returned to the U.S., I'm drinking some tea, and my cat--whom I haven't seen in three weeks--is cuddled behind me on the couch.  Home sweet home!  Yes, the hubs and I just got back from three weeks of travelling around Portugal and Spain.  There were some days we broke 9 miles of walking and we have the sandal tan lines to show for it!  (And maybe some toned leg muscles, too?) I also decided to change my blog name (again!).  I obviously posted these photos on my Instagram when my handle was still @corkingaround, but you can now follow me there at @travellinglore ; the same goes for Twitter .  This also means I had to re-"claim" my blog on bloglovin, so feel free to re-follow me there , too. I'm still backlogged on recounting my travels from July 2016 to present, but here's a teaser of some of the amazing things we saw while driving around the Iberian pen...

A short drive away from the Railroad Park Resort in Dunsmuir, CA is Castle Crags State Park .  The Castle Crags rock formation is nothing short of majestic and you can easily see it from the resort if you're overnight-ing there.  These mountains are over 6,000 feet high at the summit of the tallest crag, and are more than 170 million years old.  To give a short geology lesson, these crags intruded the area and were exposed when glaciation eroded the softer rock surrounding the formation.  Pretty cool that glaciers were able to expose something so amazing for us to explore in our lifetime (which is only a speck in geologic time). Though there are 28 miles of hiking trails in the state park and many sites to camp, but we were very limited on time.  We opted to stick to the main Vista Point parking area and take a short hike to spectacular views of Castle Crags (pictured) and Mount Shasta (not pictured, about a quarter turn to the right).  Mount Sha...

If you're someone who loves staying in unique hotels, so to speak, then add the Railroad Park Resort in Dunsmuir, California to your list.  My husband loves seeking out unique places in which to overnight; his ultimate goal is to one day find us a tree house hotel (that isn't insanely expensive!). At first glance from the road it looks like an old railroad museum, but you can actually overnight in one of these old, decommissioned train cars.  We opted for the caboose.  I honestly had no idea what to expect, but it was surprisingly spacious in the caboose--we even had room to do some laundry courtesy of our bath tub and some camping rope (strung across the caboose ceiling). Unique sleeping experience aside, I also loved that the resort had turned a couple of old railroad cars into dining cars.  So while you have the option of exploring around town for a bite to eat, you can also walk over to the on-site restaurant.  The ambiance is turn of the cent...

Everyone has their own travel style.  My husband and I are the type of travelers who prefer to create and follow an itinerary.  We believe that this is the best way for us to see as much as possible in a given amount of vacation time; it allows us to prioritize our "must do" list.  However, that doesn't mean we always follow our original itinerary 100% to the tee.  Situations arise or moods or interests change and so we accommodate for these moving pieces when necessary. One of the things we almost never plan are where to eat or what shops or cafes to pop in to.  When we were in California for our honeymoon we drove around a lot.  Those who have been to California know what I mean: it's a big state!  We happened to be at a point in our trip where we had one of our long driving days.  And long driving days mean pit stops.  In the U.S. many people pull over at designated state rest stops, some more interesting than others.  We were...