Category: Travel

We hit two key itinerary points today: Gundam Base for Soren, and riding the Shinkansen for Ned. Considering how much transit time we’ve already accrued I punted on our plan to breakfast at Tsukiji Outer Market and instead we walked over to the diner-style restaurant Royal Host. It was super quiet and uncomplicated. Plastic hobby…

Today was very full, even after I dropped a couple of things from the planned itinerary. We only have two nights in Tokyo so it was tough to plan. We had pastries at The City Bakery in the train station, then took the train to the Daikanyama neighborhood. Daikanyama is cute, with Instagram styled fashionable…

Japan time! Our December 2013 trip was Tokyo focused; this time we’ll spend some time on the Shinkansen (high-speed train) to see more. Japan’s been on the family shortlist for a while so I’m happy we can make it happen. We used an app (Timeshifter) to prepare for the time change, so we were up…

Lamar Valley is known for its herds of bison and the successful reintroduction of wolves. Conventional wisdom says the animals are most active at the start and end of the day, so we made coffee to go and entered the valley a bit before eight. Almost immediately we started seeing bison. Hooray! We also encountered…

This was a Big Drive day, as our lodging for the final two nights is in Gardiner, outside the north entrance of Yellowstone. Thankfully there was no need to hurry, and no one segment of car time felt too long. We enjoyed one last delicious breakfast and made the short drive over to Mormon Row.…

After another scrumptious breakfast, we willed our legs along the 2.5 hour Taggart Lake and Bradley Lake Loop. This was a popular trail. There were a couple of groups of older women having a great time, and many people relaxing by the lake. While these lakes do allow swimming, they remain very cold. Most watery…

The all-day Lake Solitude Trail was one of the best hikes of my life. It was epic, beginning to end. It started with a short boat ride across Lake Jenny. There was no wait, likely due to most kids being back in school. The boat docked shortly after 9:30, and we re-boarded around 5. Most…

We were out of the cabin by 7:30 and shortly headed south towards Grand Teton National Park. Our first stop was at the continental divide, where part of Isa lake drains to the Mississippi and the other to the Columbia. These longer drive days really highlight just how large the park is. We stopped at…

Midway Geyser Basin, Grand Prismatic Overlook, Firehole Lake Drive, Fountain Paint Pots, Black Sand Basin, Upper Geyser Basin, Ranger talk We slept much better in the absence of buffeting winds. Thankfully the lodge had hot water to make instant coffee, and with cereal bars and apples we were off to cover the Old Faithful area.…

We enjoyed the quiet morning with camp-provided oatmeal and coffee, and took the rest of the provided breakfast to go. The Yellowstone north entrance gate queue was close to nil and we were soon on the Grand Loop, the park’s figure-eight primary road. The plan was to cover the northwest portion, ending at Old Faithful.…