Blog
From Tree to Cobbler: Cherry Picking in Door County
In the Northeast of Wisconsin, where cheese squeaks and the beaches are free of salt or sharks, lies a peninsula called Door County. I’ve had my fill of wine tastings when my boyfriend, his parents, and I venture to a cherry orchard planted between green hills graced with flocks of black and white cows.
Waking Up to Winter in the Mountains
I thought inside was quiet until I opened the sliding glass door of the log cabin balcony. When the seal was broken, inside became a turbulent detonation of noise—the clicks of the heater are an angry percussionist, the ambient hum of the humidifier a raging swarm of bees, the creak of the floorboards falling timber—compared to the sacred stillness of the snowy morning.
Jacuzzi in the Snow
Snow falls like shooting stars as I zoom through space. I blink as a flake hits my eye, and smile. Kingly pine trees scrape the night sky, holding out arms coated in white bouquets of snow, eclipsed by black branches. Returning my craning neck to a comfortable position, I sink deeper into the curve of my jacuzzi throne, letting my ice cold back submerge into contrasting tea-hot water. Snowflakes sting my exposed skin, a painful pleasure.
A Walk with Moses in the National Aquarium, Baltimore
It is dark. Deep echoes like whale songs and tinkering space rain sounds submerge me, making me feel like a mermaid in a shipwreck. On either side of me, wrapping all the way around the spiraling, descending stairwell, tall panes of glass show me the quiet secrets of the ocean. I am like Moses with the red sea parted in a wall of water to his right and to his left.
Another Summer at Lake Wallenpaupack, PA
Baby fish begin leaping to catch a net of bugs that hover just above the water’s surface, and when they fall it looks like rain. Their silver bellies catch the light in paparazzi flashes about me. They do this at the same time every year—just like the baby toads that hop across the beach, and the tiger swallowtail butterflies, punctually filling the lake bushes with their delicate yellow wings each summer.
I’m glad I crashed my drone into a tree.
A couple weeks ago I bought a drone to expand my capacity for capturing the beautiful places I travel to. Only days after getting it, I got it stuck in the top of a 70-foot tree. Just when I thought I’d never see it again, something beautifully unexpected happened.
A Taste of Rivendell: Watkins Glen State Park, NY
The serpent ravine bloats and shrinks in billowing pockets hollowed out of the rock by years of erosion, smooth as the sugar of a well-licked lollipop. Each bowl is filled with emerald green pools caked with foam. Clattering echoes bounce between them amid the distant roar of rushing waves as I peer over the treacherous rim.
The Wallenpaupack Lake Trail
The Wallenpaupack Lake Trail is a gentle, three-mile trip along the Big Lake. The packed gravel path is an out-and-back route that heads over the dike and past the Lake Wallenpaupack Visitors Center. Park in the lot near the intersection of Routes 6 and 507 to take this easy, lakeside walk.
Kayaking to Epply Island
There is a small island in Lake Wallenpaupack, visible from my family’s cabin, called Epply Island. My best friend and I decided to take a kayak trip to it for a picnic day while she was visiting me during my two-month stay there to escape the craziness of 2020. We explored, did some yoga, ate lunch, and tried out her mermaid tail. When some storm clouds rolled in, we headed back with sore muscles and happy hearts.
The Paupack Blueberry Farm
The Paupack Blueberry Farm is a local pick-your-own blueberry farm in Paupack, Pennsylvania. It has 3 fields open to to the public and homemade baked goods made fresh every morning! I highly recommend their oatmeal squares.
Jacobsburg State Park
Jacobsburg Environmental Education Center is a 1,168-acre Pennsylvania state park near Wind Gap, in Bushkill Township, Northampton County in Pennsylvania, in the United States. The Jacobsburg National Historic District is almost entirely surrounded by the park.
Copper Castles Without Kings: Luray Caverns, VA
Long shadows spread across the ceiling from the spears that peer down at me. The fingers of God and Adam touch as a stalactite kisses a stalagmite. Drapery of stone melts down in orange sheets like icing, transparently glowing from the lights behind them. Spongy coral-like rocks adorn the ground below me and the ceiling above, giving the impression of being submerged in the depths of an empty ocean. I look up and realize the outside world—present, modern day—is just above my head, oblivious upon the crust.
Sweet Briar College
Sweet Briar College is a private women's college in Sweet Briar, Virginia. It was established in 1901 by Indiana Fletcher Williams in memory of her deceased daughter, Daisy. The college formally opened its doors in 1906 and granted the B.A. degree for the first time in 1910.
Blue Ridge Parkway
The Blue Ridge Parkway is a National Parkway and All-American Road in the United States, noted for its scenic beauty. The parkway, which is America's longest linear park, runs for 469 miles through 29 Virginia and North Carolina counties, linking Shenandoah National Park to Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
A Walk in the French Quarter, New Orleans, LA
We follow the sticky-sweet powdered-sugar smell of beignets through overhanging Spanish moss, draping like abandoned sage curtains over the limbs of knobby, bayou trees: out of place among the urban landscape. French and Spanish architecture transports me to another time as our path opens up and we are on a courtyard of stone, overlooking Jackson Square.
