Day 5 – February 11, 2020 – Tuesday Another beautiful day in paradise! It has rained here more than we ever remember. We all slept in a bit, and Matt and Sarah even went on a run down to the Petroglyph park, followed by eggs and avocado toast. Perfect start to the day. Today we were going to head over the Waipio Valley – located on the extreme northeastern side of the island, it is where the Hawaiian kings lived…
Day 1 – February 7, 2020 – Friday Waupaca, WI to Kona, HI Hello, friends! Welcome to another trip blog installment. NO, we are not pregnant with twins, although the misleading title was perhaps deliberately placed to make you worried about that. We are way too tired to have more children, although if someone left a few more kids at our house, we might not even notice. So last year on our whirlwind Costco-should-have-sponsored-us trip to the Big Island…
Day 8 – Friday, August 2, 2019 –Gardiner, MT to Gillette, WY We had a wonderful week, despite the lack of treasure finding. We are all kind of wrecked at this point, with Sarah and Zoe covered in small itchy bumps that could be some kind of pox, insect bites, or signs of meth use. We really fit in in rural Montana. Zoe is covered in no less than 10 bandaids due to various injuries she has sustained. Everyone in…
Day 6 – Wednesday, July 31, 2019 –Gardiner, MT (Yellowstone) Today the plan was to stay close – as we were tired of road construction and traffic. We also wanted to avoid all Visitor Centers as the kids just want to go buy things. At this point, Zoe purchased a small mountain lion and her prairie dog has been abandoned. RIP, little guy. We will put him with the other National Park animals in their area in her room when…
Day 4 – Monday, July 29, 2019 –Gardiner, MT (Yellowstone) We slept in… 9 am never felt so good. We awakened and leisurely drank coffee, ate animal crackers and turkey sandwiches (we need to buy some breakfast fixings) and the kids watched TV while we scanned nearby hills and mountains with binoculars. Another beautiful day in Paradise Valley. We decided today would be a random rest day, as we were tired and didn’t have “a plan” for our week at…
Last Time to Yellowstone (for real this time)… Day 1 – Friday – July 26, 2019 – Waupaca, WI to Fargo, ND Welp, here we go again. We just needed to visit Yellowstone and Paradise Valley one last time before we select a new area to oversaturate with visits. We are drawn to this area, and not just because Sarah swears her treasure (please see last year’s trip for details) is hidden near here. Weirdly for all her research, she…
We bid a sad farewell to Grandma/Sarah’s mom this morning. After we came and destroyed her house and screwed up her Netflix settings and used her washer/dryer and ate all her food, we gave her hugs and told her we could stay another day if she REALLY wanted. No, no, she said, continue on to Ashland (“please go” she pleaded). We set off on our journey – we must get that Lake Superior Circle Tour certificate! We drove up highway…
Day 5 – July 2, 2019, Tuesday –Thunder Bay, ON to Grand Portage, MN Man, this trip feels a lot longer than it really has been. We awoke and crawled downstairs for breakfast. The real drama was the automatic pancake machine ran out of batter. We packed up and headed out – today was a traveling day, with the goal of seeing a few waterfalls and making our way back to Murica. In other words, we had some time to…
Day 3 – June 30, 2019, Sunday – Canada!! Sault Ste. Marie, ON to Thunder Bay, ON We woke nice and early – and on time. Continental breakfast (where some man was angrily talking about “le Americans” and Korea in French to his breakfast companions… yah America). Off into the car, fueled up with some liters of petrol (Matt is still confused by the gas here – you have to prepay, and he has to figure out how many gallons…
Day 1 – June 28, 2019, Friday – Waupaca, WI to Marquette, MI It’s official – the Durst-Kolinski family will be the epitome of class after this trip! Yes, it’s true. We are heading to another country! Admittedly one that is only a few hours away, but after it took 4 trips to Walgreens to get a passable photo of Zoe, we are using those passports, dammit. We are big Lake Superior geeks (yes, there are geeks for everything), and…