Category: travel

  • Road Trip – day 8 (Vermont and New Hampshire)

    When we got up in the morning in our odd hotel, Debi and Toren wanted to go swimming in the pool.  They went down to ask about the pool and the same woman I had tried to talk to the previous night was at the desk.  Debi literally said, “Is the pool open?”  The woman…

  • MA-Mount Greylock

    Summit Date June 11, 2013; around 5:00 pm Party Ryan & Toren Cragun Trip Report We hiked Connecticut’s highpoint earlier in the day and drove to this one in the early evening, arriving just before the gates closed.  There really isn’t much to say about this one – we drove up the very nice road…

  • Road Trip – day 7 (CT, MA, VT)

    Part of the reason for driving up the East Coast, in addition to visiting family, was visiting a few more state highpoints.  After 5 days on the road, we began the highpointing period.  On June 11th we visited two state highpoint: Connecticut and Massachusetts.  I created separate posts for each of those, so you can…

  • Road Trip – day 6 (NYC)

    We slept in again, given the long drive the night before. We got up, packed up, ate another continental breakfast, and headed to Steve’s place in Brooklyn.  Even though our hotel was just 5 or 6 miles from his place, it took us 30 minutes to get there.  Luckily we found a place to park…

  • Road Trip – day 5 (Virginia to NYC)

    It was Sunday and my sister and her family were going to church.  They actually left for church before we packed up and left, but were very kind in letting us stay there getting everything ready for the next leg of our journey. I had another book talk lined up for mid-afternoon in Fredericksburg, VA.…

  • Road Trip – day 4 (Virginia)

    We spent the entire day with my sister.  While we waited for her husband and older boys to get home, Toren played on the swings with his cousin Brent: Her older boys and her husband came home in the morning and in the early afternoon we went out to Great Country Farms, which has a…

  • Road Trip – day 3 (Virginia)

    Our destination this day was my sister Katie’s house in Purcellville, VA (just outside of DC).  We left Durham fairly early and made our way north, arriving at her place mid-afternoon. She was waiting for us with two of her kids, Lizzie and Brent, the youngest who are close to Toren’s age.  The two older…

  • Road Trip – day 2 (North Carolina)

    We didn’t have to travel very far this day.  Our destination was Durham, NC, where we would be staying with the editor/publisher of my latest book.  He was kind enough to invite us to stay when he heard we’d be passing through.  Plus, he has a young daughter a couple years older than Toren so…

  • Road Trip – day 1 (Florida to South Carolina)

    With Debi completing her PhD and me getting tenure and landing a sabbatical, we decided June 2013 would be the ideal time to take a long vacation.  With our many interests and varied obligations, what we finally decided on was a very long road trip up the East Coast, across the Midwest to Utah, and…

  • Plenitud – Puerto Rico Trip – day 10

    This was our last day working at Plenitud.  We put in the standard morning work day, but there were a couple of differences.  First, the students prevailed on the staff at Plenitud, who are predominantly vegetarian, to kill some of the chickens and cook them for dinner that night.  One of the students grew up…