Road Trips and Hike Reports

Our flight from Seattle got in on time at the very end of Wednesday night, almost Thursday midnight.  We got our luggage quickly after a very long walk through O’Hare airport.  Then we had to navigate getting to the rental car center.  Normally that’s an airport transportation system ride from any terminal out to the rental car center but that was being maintained when we arrived.  So, after finding the correct door to wait outside, we waited in a chaotic line for 2 different buses that were substituting while the train was down.  It was misty and cold and not very well organized so it felt like forever.  Then the bus took us on a long meandering trip through the many access roads around the airport and eventually let us off at the rental car center.  There was nobody on the ground floor at the Enterprise counter so we went up to the 3rd level where the ‘other’ Enterprise desk was.  Thankfully we ended up being first served out of the clump of peo...

My step-mother started struggling with Alzheimer's disease a few years ago.  For a while it was gradual and manageable but at the end of 2025 it had progressed to a pretty debilitating state.  When my father told me in January about the latest developments, it seemed clear her time was nearing an end.  We booked a trip to visit as soon as was practical for us since we couldn't know with ANY precision how much longer she would live but also that, ultimately, if our visit landed before she passed we'd get to say goodbye and if it landed after her passing we could probably help my dad with the immense task of getting the house in order after being focused on the many aspects of caring for my step-mother for so long. We already had a train trip planned to go to Chicago and Madison (WI) in March so we mushed the 2 trips together. As it turned out our visit was too late to visit Judee who passed quietly at home on February 12th, 2026.  There wasn't any formal funeral servi...

This hike was a good chance to get in some peaceful miles in before heading for urban fun in Madison and Chicago.  (there might be another post or two about the overall vacation this is part of).  Despite what Alltrails said, the trail was fairly wet and muddy in spots.  The scenery was pleasant enough but there wasn't really anything memorable about this hike overall.  Still, after flying all day the previous day then driving 2 hours from Chicago's airport in very dense fog starting at midnight, this quiet hike was enough to give us a peaceful reset after a busy 5 days visiting family in Oregon.

I'm a little late posting this.  We were in Burlington visiting our friend Jim who just bought a new condo.  The weather wasn't great but we got out for this little leg stretcher with great views just a few miles from Jim's place.  It was refreshing seeing a lot of polite friendly off-leash dogs.  I usually think of Vermont as being highly regulated with lots of restrictions but on this trail off-leash dogs are totally allowed they are just supposed to be 'under voice control' as a sign says along the trail.  

This hike wasn’t super far away, about.1 hour each way.  I didn’t have an exact trail plan or even a map, I just found Rattlesnake Hill listed on a New York State website listing best NYS Winter hikes.  Luckily, once we got there I was able to download an ‘area map’ from AllTrails, a relatively new function in the app.  You used to only be able to download curated trail plots. Those downloads include  surrounding areas and other trails on the maps but now you can just zoom in on any piece of land and download the map even if there isn’t a trail plotted on AllTrails.   There is only 1 winter accessible trailhead for this WMA.  In fact, the road was plowed exactly up to the trailhead and from there, the 2 forest roads that went past that point were unplowed.  We even saw the plow driver from the town of Nunda come to where we parked and turn around. Initially I tried building a route based on looking at the map on the phone. Unfortunately, only 10 minute...

With an intense but short warm up period coming the next day, I thought Saturday would be a good day for a relatively far away winter hike before it all gets sloppy.  We headed out pretty early and had breakfast at Cracker Barrel before heading all the way south into Pennsylvania.  It was about 2 hours 45 minutes drive (not counting the drive to breakfast) but traffic was very light on this cold day in the middle of an extended weekend.  The roads in PA weren't as well plowed or salted as in NY but it wasn't too bad. This trail starts out from a trailhead off a very quiet PA-44 highway.  Most of North Central PA is  very  sparsely populated.  The main trail led through a seemingly unending and unchanging corridor of brush and trees.      While not unpleasant, the almost completely flat and unvarying scenery wasn't very exciting.  Thankfully, the Alltrails plot we were following led to not 1 or 2 but 3 scenic overlook spur trail...