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Author: Liana Safian

5 Awesome Things to Do in Zion National Park

5 Awesome Things to Do in Zion National Park

Compared to Nevada’s muted color palette, Utah is shockingly bright. Zion National Park is the most vibrant park we’ve visited yet! It’s like a kaleidoscope of color. The rocky peaks and cliffs are bright red and orange with bands of black and white stripes. The sky is pretty much the exact color of the sky blue crayon. And lush green vegetation grows near the water sources. Even the sand at Zion is brilliant. Pin this post for later > There are myriads…

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A Great Rescue in Great Basin National Park

A Great Rescue in Great Basin National Park

Great Basin National Park. The name makes us think that the park will be mostly flat, centered around one of the many basins scattered across Nevada. Once again, Nevada had a surprise for us. Great Basin NP is actually centered around the Snake Mountain Range. There’s a huge diversity of landscapes and ecosystems to see in Nevada’s only national park. Lehman Caves Another surprise was finding out that Great Basin NP has a cave system to explore. All explorations are…

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Cigarettes and Sage – Exploring Nevada

Cigarettes and Sage – Exploring Nevada

Nevada just might be the most surprising state we’ve been to yet. This wasn’t our first rodeo in Nevada. Okay, there weren’t any rodeos, but that would’ve been fun. Our previous visits to the Silver State were to Las Vegas—where the majority of visitors go. This time we wanted to explore the land and history of Nevada. We wanted to know what Nevada is like outside the giant concrete maze and flashing neon lights of Vegas. Pause for a moment…

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Vulcans and Volcanoes

Vulcans and Volcanoes

Admittedly we had some post eclipse blues after watching the sun become blotted out by the moon. I mean how do you follow-up day becoming night at 10:30 am? It turns out that hiking up volcanoes is a good next move. After watching the eclipse from the path of totality in Central OR we headed down to Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern CA. This is another park that we’ve never really heard anyone talk about. Honestly, our knowledge of…

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An Announcement and an Eclipse

An Announcement and an Eclipse

First Things First We don’t want the announcement to get eclipsed (see what I did there?) so let’s start with the reveal. No, we didn’t get a dog. Sorry to disappoint. Our announcement is that Tom’s starting e-learning development work again on a contract basis. We’re extremely excited about this because it’s the first big step in making this new lifestyle sustainable for the longer-term. So what does this mean for the blog? Well, I’m going to take over more…

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Smoke on the Mountain – Mount Rainier National Park

Smoke on the Mountain – Mount Rainier National Park

We had one main goal for our visit to Mount Rainier National Park: See Mount Rainier. We lived 3 hours away from the mountain for over a decade and the most we’d seen was a glimpse of Rainier’s snow covered top from a distance. We’d never been up close and personal with the behemoth. Seeing Mount Rainier sounds pretty easy right? It’s a giant mountain after all—just look up! Well it didn’t turn out to be quite that simple. Wildfires…

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Secrets and Surprises in Washington State

Secrets and Surprises in Washington State

We experienced déjà vu driving through eastern Washington on our way to North Cascades National Park. It reminded us a lot of North Dakota. There’s a similar abrupt change from farmland to rocky dry wilderness. We were initially worried that the free campsite we’d selected was in the middle of a giant wheat field. I’m talking wheat in all directions as far as you can see. Suddenly the wheat fields turned into rocky craggy formations. We found our camp in…

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Weird and Wild Adventures in North Dakota

Weird and Wild Adventures in North Dakota

Our first two days back on the road and heading west started well and seemed to help us achieve our balance goals. The first day we made it from Green Bay, WI to central North Dakota. The free campsite we’d picked turned out to be exactly what we needed. Our day ended by watching the sunset over the rolling grassy hills of North Dakota. Enchanted Highway We pushed to cover a lot of ground the first day so that we…

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Seeking Balance in the Midwest

Seeking Balance in the Midwest

After completing the first leg of our travels we spent a few weeks in Wisconsin. It was an event filled time. We visited family and friends, celebrated Tom’s father’s birthday, and my baby sister got married! Congrats sister! We also worked on Stan a lot. We made improvements to help with organization/storage, replaced some broken or malfunctioning items, and installed a solar panel. If you missed it be sure to check-out Tom’s full tour of Stan the Tan Van. The…

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A Cave and a Conclusion in Kentucky

A Cave and a Conclusion in Kentucky

Caves have always fascinated me. When I was a kid I dreamed of living in a cave next to a large waterfall in the tropical rain forest. There would be delicious fruit trees outside my cave door where colorful birds sit and sing. Oh, and of course then there’s my pet tiger that guards the entrance. Hey, let a kid dream;) Cave Facts Well Mammoth Cave is really nothing like the cave I dreamed of as a child, but it’s…

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