Page 2 of tinyisgreat Travel Blog Posts


Asia » Hong Kong January 4th 2018

My legit plan to try and sleep on this overnight flight was work all day so I'd be tired enough to sleep on a plane. In fact, I worked for three days and then drove home, showered, grabbed my gear, popped my first anti-malaria med and headed back north to SFO with Chris. Our flight didn't leave til nearly midnight, and considering my usual bedtime after work is around 9:30pm, I was exhausted. By the time we boarded and took off, I'd started dozing from my Benadryl. I totally missed dinner, which was fine because we ate in the airport. You can never depend on what they're serving on planes these days. I don't think I missed much. After dozing eight or so hours, I woke up, hazy and hungry. God bless this airline for having ... read more
Eureka- Coffee!
Zombie Mode
Delicious Dim Sum


We'd never been to Mexico. Which is funny because we'd been so many other international places, you'd think Mexico would have crossed my mind at some point. It really hadn't. In my mind it was resorts and partying, and largely unsafe. (Ok, I was wrong). Also, we live in California and I grew up surrounded by Mexican American culture and amazing food. So I never really felt the need to explore Mexico. My parents really enjoyed their trips, though, so I finally just asked if we could use their timeshare for a long weekend. We got up early and headed to the airport, only to discover on the way that Alaska Airlines had cancelled and rescheduled us to a later flight. It was only an hour later but it was no longer direct. Thanks. So we ... read more
Arrived with the Sunset
Beer, please!
The Pool, as seen from our balcony


We got up packed, threw our backpacking gear in the car and headed two and a half hours to Point Reyes for our overnight backpacking trip. I had originally planned to do this trip over Mother's Day back in May, as my first backpacking trip with my daughter. But she ended up getting the flu- so that didn't happen. The next available permits weren't until October unfortunately. That being said, I've decided October is an awesome time to backpack in this area. The weather is super mild. On our way there, we started hearing reports of a massive fire in Napa and Sonoma. We were headed in that general direction so I did some quick research on my phone. Yup- the whole Valley was on fire and massive evacuations had started in the middle of the ... read more
Lunch
Our Easy Trail
Walking to the Trailhead


I woke up in the tent around 7amish this morning. I tossed and turned like usual all night- that's just normal for me for backpacking. Arya slept better this trip because I gave her her own pillow (mine actually) so she wouldn't steal Chris' all night. I just bunched up our packing cubes of clothes and my puffy jacket, and bam, makeshift pillow for the night. I do better on little sleep than the other two. Arya woke up close to 8am, I got us both dressed and then headed down to the toilet with her. Coast Camp smelled like burning campfires even though no one had dared to light one. It was all the smoke seeping in from burning Napa. I wondered if we had made a big mistake coming out here, and maybe the ... read more
Delicious Biscuits and Gravy
Toddler Approved Biscuits and Gravy
One Last Swing

North America » United States » California » San Francisco September 18th 2017

This started out as a planned group trip with our friends but one by one they ended up bailing- it's difficult planning a trip on weekdays. All the weekends were booked up for permits when I made the reservation a few months ago, though. As nurses, Chris and I are very lucky to have a four day stretch off every two weeks. It's like an automatic vacation without ever using PTO. We had planned to take Arya on her first backpacking trip last May for Mother's Day but then she ended up with the flu. I was pretty disappointed, and the next available permit for Point Reyes wasn't until October (1 more month!). Well, what the heck, let's just make Angel Island her first trip. Point Reyes can be her second. Once that was settled, packing ... read more
Riding the Tiburon Ferry
Riding the Tiburon Ferry
Giant Sticker

North America » United States » Arizona » Page September 6th 2017

Our last day in the Southwest started out with a morning tour of Antelope Canyon before our drive back to Vegas for our flight home. Antelope Canyon, as I expected, is a very touristy place. You pay a rather large fee for what you get, and then get filed through the Canyon Disneyland style. With several companies filing thousands of people through a day, of course it's a short but sweet trip. The beauty of Antelope Canyon is you can generally point your camera in any direction, take a photo, and BAM! you're an artist. The natural waves and colors of the rock make it that easy. Because it's on reservation territory, you HAVE to have a guide take you there. We went with Chief Tsosie. When we got there, we asked a few basic questions- ... read more
Arrived at Antelope Canyon
Antelope Canyon
Arrived at Antelope Canyon


Most of today was simply riding back to the North Rim on the Transcanyon Shuttle, an awesome service that has some sort of working relationship with the NPS. But I really really wanted breakfast at El Tovar, too. So we got up at 5:30am, which sounds more awful than it actually was considering we had been up at 3am the past two mornings and we were all asleep last night by 9pm. Plenty of glorious sleep was had. We walked over to the hotel with all our gear- there were elk everywhere. So many elk that I wasn't really sure how to walk around them. Lots of tourists taking photos, too. The elk herds in Crescent City were alot more wary of humans than these guys and they seemed to not care a bit when we ... read more
Dramamine, Breakfast of Champions
Goddamned Amazing Polenta CornCakes
North Rim View at the Grand Canyon Lodge


Up again at 3am, and apparently most of the campground had the same idea. Everyone was quietly eating a quick breakfast and packing up their gear in the dark. All we saw were headlamps bobbing around. I was groggy, and quickly mixed some more granola along with a quick cup of cold coffee. Always the coffee first. We had asked multiple hikers advice the day before on how long it might take us to climb out of the Grand Canyon- most seemed to think 6hrs hiking but longer if you had backpacking gear. So our goal was out by 11:30am- 8hrs. Seemed reasonable. We left camp at 3:30am, along with the American Scandinavian pair. They were actually ahead of us by two minutes, and then backtracked past us. "Where you going?" I asked. He said something ... read more
Can't Tell Where I am in the Dark
Morning Sunrise Over the Grand Canyon
Quick Snack Break after our First Crazy Switchbacks


Let me preface this entry with.. the three of us did not go into this crazy trek without ALOT of thought and preparation. We also came to it with backpacking experience. And even though I've done crazy elevation climbs like Half Dome in a day (twice), multi-day backpacking trips and a handful of desert day hikes, the National Park Rangers still sent me a letter back stating, in summary, "your plans are nuts and extremely strenuous, are you sure? Give us a list of your experience and every backpacking item you plan to bring with you." I nervously sent back the information and they approved my permit. This was back in May, after I'd failed to obtain Phantom Ranch reservations. Many many times I went back and forth in my head, AM I crazy? Am I ... read more
Sunrise on the Grand Canyon
Getting Less Dark
Sunrise on the Grand Canyon

North America » United States » Utah » Zion National Park September 2nd 2017

We were up by 6am, figuring we needed lots of wiggle room for a whole variety of circumstances. It came in handy. We packed up and ate a quick breakfast that was included in our stay at La Quinta. It was actually pretty good- biscuits and gravy, yogurt, fruit, juice, coffee, etc. They even had waffles if I'd spent the time to make one. Then it was off for our morning drive to Zion National Park. We were hoping to get hiking by 10am. We stopped at River Rock Roasting Company, picked up more coffee, giant cinnamon rolls and packed sandwich lunches (they even put them in paper lunch sacks!), before continuing on our way. While we had made it to Zion by 9:30am, we unfortunately had to park outside the park and then take a ... read more
River Rock Roasting Company
River Rock Roasting Company
Giant Cinnamon Rolls!




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