5 Natural Wonders of the US in Honor of Earth Day

Happy Earth Day! Today is a day to celebrate the earth and promote eco-friendliness. I like to think that every time we visit a national or state park, we are contributing to the preservation of the earth, even if only just a little bit. The US has no lack of parks protecting its natural wonders, and it’s pretty incredible how diverse these parks are in terms of land forms and climates. From lakes to mountains, grassland to deserts, oceans and forests, the US park system has it all.

My Favorite Travel Photos

Photography has come to be the backbone of my blog. Of course the writing is important, but it seems like the bulk of each of my posts is made up of pictures! When I first started blogging, I never would have imagined that photos would become so vital to my blog; I thought my main focus would be writing. But alas, I’ve come to love photography and can’t imagine the direction my blog would have gone without it!

Since I have no travel planned for the near future, I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite pictures that I’ve taken on past trips. I’ve written posts on many of these places, and many of these pictures have appeared on my blog. However, there are a few

Mountain Skiing

Skiing in the mountains is such a different experience than skiing at your run-of-the-mill ski hills that we visit back home in Minnesota. There are a few good ski areas up in northern Minnesota, but they don’t even begin to compare to skiing out West in the mountains.

Instead of skiing Big Sky, we opted for Bridger Bowl, a smaller, lesser known, and less-touristy ski area. It was still way more impressive than any ski hill I had ever seen. It seemed like the trails lasted forever as they wound down through trees and forests, past mountain views, chair lifts, and chalets. The snow was impeccable: extra powdery at some

Animals in Yellowstone

Yellowstone is filled with animals of all kinds, and we were lucky enough to spot quite a few during our time in Montana last month. Especially buffalo. There were buffalo everywhere. Our first time driving into the park, we spotted a band of mountains goats on the side of the road. We stopped to admire them, and as we did, we saw a (hornless) elk wandering around on the other side of the road.

Yellowstone Winter Scenery

Yellowstone National Park is often considered a summer destination. I have never visited in the summer, but I’ve heard it’s beautiful. However, winter in Yellowstone, a very under-rated adventure, is stunning as well. We just got back from a 10-day trip to Montana, where we spent a few days visiting Yellowstone to go cross-country skiing and animal watching. In this post, I want to focus solely on the scenery (the animals will come later). The beautiful mountains covered in snow, the fresh flocking on the trees, the powdery snow blowing about like fog, the vast winter landscapes stretching on and on and on.

Our first day in Yellowstone, we went cross-country skiing. The snow was perfect; my dad even claimed that this trail had the best snow conditions we would ever ski on. I don’t

Christmas in the Mountains

Merry Christmas! We’ve been in Montana for 5 days now, and after a few trips to Yellowstone and a few days of skiing (both of which I will post on soon), we are finally taking a day to rest, Christmas Day. It’s been a nice day; we’ve played games, blasted Christmas music, baked and decorated cookies, gone on walks to admire the mountains, and played in the snow.

I also explored a few of my Christmas presents today. I leafed through the photography books from my mom and, and tried out some of my new clip on iPhone lenses. The lenses are actually really cool. The clip on over the camera lense on your phone, and then when

Heading West

Saturday morning, my family and I packed up the car and embarked the a two day drive from Minnesota to Montana to spend Christmas in the mountains. Back in Minnesota, we haven’t gotten much snow this year, or least not in the part I’m from. We had about a week of snow early in December before it all melted and left us with spring-like days. Saturday, there wasn’t a single patch of snow and the grass was closer to green than it was to brown. Pretty surprising considering Minnesota’s stereotypes isn’t it?

As we drove West, we were ecstatic to see the little bits of snow in North Dakota and finally the thick blankets of snow that covered Montana’s land. The snow in Montana was